How do the six teachers work to ensure that students who are socially passive in EFL classrooms reach the learning objectives regarding oral proficiency in the English subject?

–  Social Passivity in English Classrooms

The finding revealed that some students were still
worried if their performance was worse than their peers. 

–  Factors Contributing to Students’ Speaking Anxiety: A Case Study at Students’ Junior High School

It feels unpleasant to have an answer but be unable to say it because others are watching. It is important for students to be able to speak when they need to, in formal and informal situations, each of which requires different skills. Research conducted in Sweden explains how to encourage socially passive students to shed their inhibitions.

The researcher in question conducted “semi-structured” interviews with six upper-secondary school teachers, to understand how they identified and engaged students in their classes who were “socially passive” – quiet in social situations.

A semi-structured interview is one in which the interviewer has a few main questions in mind and comes up with other questions depending on how the conversation with an interviewee proceeds. She wanted responses from teachers of differing experience levels and so three of her interviewees were beginning in their careers and the other three had considerable experience.

Ideally, students over the course of their lives would develop enough, to always have the requisite presence of mind to appraise situations they find themselves in, accurately. In so doing, they would always be able to process input, having full regard to time, place and circumstance. They would always have a response in their minds even if that response is no response at the moment.  They would retain complete control over what they say, when they say it and how they say it.

What causes frustration is the inability to focus sufficiently on a situation to be effective in it. It is important to know that effective communication is a skill which can be developed with practice. Effective communication means being able to, as the situation calls for it, “argue, report, apply, reason, summarise, comment on, assess and give reasons for their views” (Skolverket, 2011a as cited in Angerfors, 2021).

Speaking is a natural response to the environment and though the just-mentioned classifications of speech seem to give the appearance of the need for a complex and arduous process of learning, each of these types of speech is a natural response to common situational requirements. In this light, learning these different functions of speech is like learning to walk or run on different types of terrain.

Naturally shy students can also develop every single one of these speaking skills. There are many examples of people who were less outgoing and who have developed effective communication skills over time. It will be well-worth their while for students to know that they do not have to accept their current performance as a fixed, immutable state because it is not.

According to the researcher and the teachers she interviewed, there are certain common characteristics of students who tend to be quiet in class. They may sit at the margins of the class away from the gaze of the teacher and if the teacher does look in their direction, they look away, signalling discomfort. During group work such students may either not participate very much or participate fully and not turn up on presentation day. One teacher shared that there were students who “can actually be very verbal when they speak to me in private”. Such students, according to this teacher, sit close to the teacher.

There are different types of speaking anxiety. Some students feel uncomfortable speaking at all, regardless of language or situation. Some students are comfortable answering questions or “discussing with people in the corridor”. When it comes to presenting before a big or bigger group though, they shy away. There is another group of students who feel quite comfortable in one language but not other languages.

How much anxiety a student feels can be influenced by internal and external factors according to Santoso and Perrodin (2021).

They say that internal factors include, what a student believes about language learning – it takes time and I am going to take my time and have fun while I am at it or there are standards to meet and I cannot make mistakes. The anticipation of negative feelings associated with predicted failure could lead to anxiety.

There are a number of external factors which include the kind of classroom set-up, activities, teacher dispositions, peer characteristics, level of English exposure and the differences in cultural characteristics of students’ first language and a second language.

Santoso and Perrodin (2021) found in their study with high school students that the greatest cause of speaking anxiety was concerns about being accurate and right grammar.

The Swedish teachers shared some solutions to engaging students who remained quiet.

Teachers can help students feel safe in the classroom. This begins with an awareness of how a student is feeling at a given moment in time. They can be less quick to “correct”. They can select student pairings or groupings meaningfully to encourage conversation. They can also create situations conducive for supportive friendships to form.

Students can be asked to record themselves so they can hear themselves and self-correct.

One very interesting solution for students who have presentation anxiety is to allow them to do it twice in front of the same people. According to the teacher who shared this, “But all those signs usually disappear when they do it the second time because then they have done it once and they know the people they did it to. Therefore, much of that drama disappears”.

These days, teachers are very aware of their impact on students’ development and so an overwhelming majority (if only because it is good practice to avoid using absolute terms without data) of them will make efforts to create a safe space to facilitate conversation.

Students after a while in the school system will also realise what is expected of them in discussions and learn how to be part of a supportive culture.

Even with these assurances, it can be intimidating for students to open up. What remains is for them to take little steps out of their comfort zone and see what happens. They can take small risks, perhaps by voicing an opinion to a friend in a paired setting, the group or answer a question in class. It will be important for them to feel proud of themselves each time their small risk pays off. This would lead to a virtuous spiral of greater feats.

Thinking of presentations as stage performances can also cause anxiety. The best presentations are not performances.

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