Why are some students afraid of speak English? PDF

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Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

Why are some students afraid of speak English?

ABSTRACT Speaking is the action of disclose or transmit information or expressing the idea and feelings in spoken. No one is born knowing how to speak any language, so one of the significant English skills that students should acquire, especially for English Major students, is oral performance. This skill is so important to speak in a correct way and have a good pronunciation. The apprehension of English learners to speak English in the classroom is an issue generally encountered in the context of a foreign language. Nevertheless, one of the arguments that teachers are pointing out about English classes is that students are reluctant to speak. While students participate in other skills such as writing, reading, and listening in the classroom, when it comes to speaking, they act far more reluctantly.

Contrary to what is often assumed,

students' level of English is not a factor influencing their oral performance or their ability to speak in class, and the issue persists from basic level to the most advanced levels. The inability of language learning students to speak English in the classroom is a concern frequently found in academic settings. As a result, students have less chances than the more oral learners to learn by speaking. Studies indicate that they grow more pessimistic attitudes towards school and are unlikely to be inspired to put more effort into it. Working with students who are hesitant to continue and expand conversations often limits their language usage opportunities for other students. The method used was qualitative approach in order to obtain non-numerical results. What are the causes, then, of the reticence that some teachers and tutors have observed? The data was gathered through different authors in academic websites, scientific journals and research to be able to respond to the problem. This is due to different factors such as they are afraid of making grammatical mistakes, fear of failing, and fear that what they are talking about will be misunderstood, the lack of confidence, motivation is a situation that affect most of the students. Teachers and tutors need to build methods to enable learners to move into the active roles in learning that both sides seem to like. Keywords: speaking, confidence, fear, motivation.

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

Many students seem reluctant to speak freely, or at all, because they are afraid of making mistakes. According to [ CITATION Saw05 \l 3082 ] the majority of students referred to grammar when they were asked what aspect of English was difficult for them. One explanation for this was that there were marked variations between the grammatical structure of English and that of the student's own language, as one of the students noted. Speaking tended to be inhibited by dwelling on these components, constantly translating grammatical constructs mentally when attempting to communicate in English. Students constantly assume that grammar is so difficult that learning and correcting what they are doing wrong will take too much time and effort. However, it is not that hard to recognize and correct frequently created grammar errors. Another research conducted by [ CITATION Sav14 \l 3082 ] points out that students fail to join in the English discussion because of their vocabulary problems and fear of making mistakes resulting in their inability to speak English well. In addition, she says that students find speaking English a stressful activity especially if they must perform something using English. When someone in the past has identified student’s weak speaking ability, the fear of making errors becomes greater. The sensitivity is so high that, just to prevent embarrassment or humiliation, might shun communication. As a result, this can lead to the students not being able to improve their English because they avoid situations in which they must or is required to speak the language. Panic of making mistakes is the prevailing difficulty along with vocabulary problems in classroom speech. Grammar correction is practiced in class more than fluent communication, an atmosphere of trust is not always created in class and the teacher may have a negative attitude towards mistakes or use direct correction techniques; When students make obvious mistakes, monoglots in English appear to "jump" on them with corrections and often longwinded explanations that make students embarrassed of their mistakes. Some authors like [ CITATION Sav14 \l 3082 ] points out that with comprehension and tact is the adequate way of correcting the errors of the students, so in this way the y can achieve or improve better their English. These current situations lead the student to feel embarrassed and humiliated by making mistakes when he or she speaks, as was said before [ CITATION Sav14 \l 3082 ] the

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

consequence is that the student encapsulate himself or herself and avoid at all costs situations where he or she has to use speech. The fear of English mistakes kills fluency. This is another factor that student need to improve in their process. Sometimes the fears are present inside them, because of the grammar, and when they are talking could be the vocabulary, because not all students have a good vocabulary or the best pronunciation however, students take into account that fear of English mistakes kills fluency, because the nervous are present when they are talking especially in front of people. Sometimes it feels like the stakes are higher, though. Sometimes students are afraid of being wrong, because they are that if they wrong about fill in the blank, they probably may be wrong about so much more [ CITATION Tre18 \l 3082 ] The fear of making mistakes kills fluency. L2 learners need to be told that even native speakers make mistakes when speaking English. As a non-native speaker of the language, it is important to focus less on oneself when having a conversation in English. One needs to focus more on the other person and the result that one wants to achieve. Non-native speakers learn the language as older children or adults. However, this does not necessarily mean they speak the language any less accurately than a native speaker. It is often said that the best way to learn is with a native speaker, and there’s no denying that chatting with native speakers has great advantages, but so does speaking with fluent speakers who are not native. Students who are learning English as a second language are non-native speakers. Native speakers of a language have a rich vocabulary of idioms and slang, and can show the best time to use certain words and phrases depending on the context. Advanced non-native speakers have stumbled across the common problems or tricky bits in the language already, so they are usually sympathetic to problems that someone may be having. They may even be able to give some handy tips on how to overcome these problems, or share with you the methods they used to get around them. And best of all - they are living proof that these problems can be overcome. To be excluded from the statistical comparisons. The fear sometimes a trouble that students need to overcome, and take consideration when students are non- native speaker, and actually every people who want to learn a new language have the same fears, the same mistakes, and the same weaknesses during the

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

learning process. Does that anxiety intensify when students know the person is about to speak to is a native English speaker? Making mistakes is a natural part of learning English and they are only bad if students allow them to be, and if they do not learn by them. Fortunately, there are some authors such as [ CITATION Osm15 \l 3082 ] he created a guide for those with grammar problems, the guide he presents shows how to improve the quality of his work, he also shows confidence when the students have to speak in front of others quickly, identifying and using the correct use of grammar and punctuation when speaking English in front of others. Clearly, this tool or study guide is very useful if their purpose is to remove the fear of being able to speak in public and express themselves correctly so that their ideas are understood and achieve conversations with other people, especially if they are native speakers. English as a second language would be an excellent option, of course there is fear involved, it is normal to feel that when people face something for the first time. Also, there are many tools in order to help those students who have this kind of problems, an example of this is English Without Fear, his author [ CITATION Per20 \l 3082 ] is another tool that ensures a change in the lives of students who are afraid of speaking in public, it is a book designed for intermediate and higher level students who want to learn English as a second language. Students whose native language is English will undoubtedly find the book a useful and effective tool to build and consolidate the foundations of their language skills. The purpose of all this is to learn English without fear, it tries to convince students that nobody is perfect, that is what the learning process is about, to make mistakes and learn from it. So, learning to express oneself orally in a correct and sufficiently intelligible way is important for our interlocutor is a basic part of the study of the language. In general, these types of students have suffered criticism or harassment of any kind, that is why they refuse to be exposed to the criticism of others, with this you think that by not participating, by not developing, they are getting rid of what others will say. According to the authors mentioned above, there are a variety of tools that can be used to overcome those fears and start walking towards success, there will always be mistakes, even people make them in English, so it is necessary to dedicate time and effort for this second language. Nevertheless, if someone want to speak English it is also requires listening to other people

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

speak in that language, which will allow us to learn the pronunciation and intonation of the language. For this reason, it is very interesting to be able to have native speakers, who can be teachers, friends or acquaintances who allow students direct contact with the language in its most natural way. In English as a second language (ESL) classroom, a student speaking reticence is a phenomenon that exists in all situations, regardless of the environment. Another factor that several authors have analyzed why students refuse to speak in English classes is that they are afraid of being misunderstood. What do we understand by fear? Clearly there are several types of fear and it is not necessary to analyze all types. Fear arises when we are exposed to something that we do not like, and we are vulnerable to it. This not only includes people; it is also between things and in this case the fear is of being vulnerable to criticism from others for trying to communicate in a second language. The fear of not being understood is very common among students, one of the fears that people develop in their English learning process is to speak in public, trying to explain something, and not being understood by the listeners, this creates frustration and they tend to get discouraged, this fear can cause us to feel like our English is not good enough, and due to the fact we lose confidence in ourselves, in addition this happens due to the limited vocabulary that some students have, or the difficulty of organizing ideas and expressing them in a way that anyone can understand. According to[ CITATION Mar01 \l 3082 ] finding or remembering the right vocabulary is the problem that most concerns students when they speak a second language (average 2.93) and also when they speak in class (average 3.18). Not being able to find the exact words to express one's feelings is the most frustrating experience when speaking a foreign language and therefore the need to manage and increase one's vocabulary is recognized. To understand the problem of vocabulary, people must distinguish between receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary, and between the level of identification or recognition and the level of production or expression. It is obvious that in order to use the vocabulary in speech or writing, a more extensive and profound cognitive scheme is needed than to recognize the vocabulary in reading or listening.

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

Another research conducted by [ CITATION Tan07 \l 3082 ]points out that the difficulty learners feel in remembering and retrieving vocabulary items while communicating in the target language is other important source of language anxiety for the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) /English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. Furthermore, many times students reported that they know certain vocabulary items and sentence structures but they do not come out right when needed in any communicative situation. Furthermore, the lack of vocabulary affects the output of learners in listening, conversation classes, and in expressing their thoughts and feelings, and particularly in speaking skills. Using the vocabulary not only means retrieving it from memory, where people have it stored, but also knowing its pronunciation and spelling, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics. It may be that the lack of one of these skills prevents the production or use of the vocabulary. However, with the above mentioned it is possible to know that most students do not practice their vocabulary enough and this has as a consequence that they cannot remember it properly when speaking and are unable to communicate their ideas in a clear and understandable way, for this reason some students avoid speaking in class or prefer not to participate in any speech related activity. Some authors maintain that 80% of initial learning is lost within 24 hours if people do not review it. Students need to practice and review what they have learned if they do not want the new vocabulary to be gradually erased. In the view of [ CITATION Sha18 \l 3082 ] lack of vocabulary knowledge hinders the real communication of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners to a great extent. Hence, it is predictable that undergraduate English as a Second Language (ESL) students should have the appropriate vocabulary knowledge. Nonetheless, some students at university or tertiary level still lack vocabulary and these results as negative speaking performances. In line with [ CITATION Sha18 \l 3082 ] findings, they agreed that the insecurity of speaking is due to the lack of vocabulary and grammar skills of students, within and outside the classroom, they faced speaking anxiety in English. Their concerns arose from the absence of vocabulary, grammar, and inaccurate pronunciations, which hindered them from speaking in English.

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

Students also feel nervous, because they probably do not have the ability to express their ideas correctly, because of the factors mentioned before such as vocabulary, grammar mistakes or confidence, but the fear of not being understood is frequently in students who have the English as a second language. When students speak with others, they perform various functions through speech they can make requests, ask for information, and apologize for their mistakes. These are some common functions of language, but sometimes even before the start a conversation students have to draw the attention of the other person to what they are saying [ CITATION Gur05 \l 3082 ]. The fear of failure, being misunderstood and grammar mistakes are the three most common reasons why people are afraid to speak English. Making mistakes feels like failure. And that seems like ‘the end of the world’ for us. Anxiety reduces the ability of the brain to do it is job the way it is supposed to. It means that when students are anxious about speaking English with others, the brain cannot process the language properly. The fear of being judged is usually present as well. Most of the students are afraid of being judged. It is the same thing with foreign languages, because students often think that others judge them for grammar or pronunciation mistakes. Learners have to ‘perform’ while being judged by other people. The majority of L2 interactions occur on schools although students surprisingly few opportunities to practice speaking English either during or after classes [ CITATION Cho14 \l 3082 ]. Preparation and practice can help with the confidence as well. As much as students can think that other people are natural talents. They surely prepare themselves and practice a lot. However, it takes time, and it would not happen overnight. Students need to invest time and energy into practice. One of the best tips to have meaningful conversations is to ask questions. This way it would not be the center of attention, but students will still practice the language skills. Asking questions allows participating, but at the same time does not force to be overly included. When it comes to speaking in English, certain logical difficulties come together when we try to express ourselves in a language that is not ours, insecurity makes us not handle vocabulary well, at this point it is important to note that to speak well in English it is necessary to listen other people speak in that language which will allow us to learn the pronunciation and intonation of the language, an important fact that should be highlighted.

Why some students are afraid to speak English? English Major Luna Trejo;Sermeño Erazo;Trejo Hernández.

According with [ CITATION Car18 \l 3082 ] one way to develop self-confidence and be able to speak fluently without fear in front of others is the secret of being able to improve memory and good expression, being able to remember the rules and laws of English will facilitate the learning process and the essential elements to speak successfully, this book looks at ways to open and close a talk and hold an audience. Self-confidence is the road that can guide us to develop the confidence and selfesteem that we lack in the learning process, thanks to [ CITATION Wil16 \l 17418 ] his book contains proven steps and strategies on how to build your confidence quickly. Self-confidence is a mental thing rather than a realistic state of a person. Our brain can invent a variety of fantastic situations that create false or irrelevant facts in the spirit of each person and lower self-esteem, making them seem so real even if they do not exist. It is common to observe cases like this when learning a second language since students are so afraid of making mistakes that they feel shy when speaking in front of a certain number of people, that will help to understand the problem that students face before providing you with solutions because remedies that don't solve the real problem simply make the condition worse. Another research points out that some students are afraid of lack of confidence when they speak another language that it is as a second language for that reason they feel nervous. The lack of confidence is very common in students that probably do not have vocabulary or a good level of English. The tome of teachers is maintaining that part of the teaching process is to help learners develop self-confidence linguistics confidence and autonomy, something that students are seen to lack. Many students are not autonomous they are dependent. It is a cultural thing that students depend on their teachers and only few of them would come prepared, and the rest will...