Student: Lozano Campos, Diego

Tutor: Dr. Nieto García, Jesús M.

Dpt.: English Philology

July, 2017

COPING WITH FOREIGN LANGUAGE

ANXIETY IN ORAL TASKS

UNIVERSIDAD DE JAÉN Centro de Estudios de Postgrado

Master’s Dissertation/ Trabajo Fin de Máster

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………… 1

2. THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE ……………………………………………….......... 3

2.1. The role of spoken language …………………………………………. 3

2.2. Main features of spoken language …………………………………... 4

2.2.1. Short turns vs long turns …………………………...……….. 6

2.3. The teaching of spoken language ………………………….................. 7

2.3.1. Interactional short turns ………………………….................. 9

2.3.2. Transactional turns ……………………………................... 10

3. THE ROLE OF ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD ………………………….. 12

3.1. Key terms and concepts ……………………………………………... 12

3.1.1. Native varieties vs nativised varieties …………………….. 13

3.1.2. Native speaker vs Non-native speaker ……………………. 13

3.1.3. Models of world Englishes …………………………………15

3.2. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) ………………………................... 15

3.3. Implications for language teaching ……………………..................... 17

3.3.1. Exonormative native speaker model .....................................18

3.3.2. Endonormative nativised model …………………………... 19

4. LANGUAGE ANXIETY IN ORAL TASKS …………………………………….21

4.1. What is language anxiety? …………………………………………... 21

4.2. Effects of anxiety on language learning …………………………….. 23

4.2.1. Performance types of anxiety …………………………….. 24

4.2.2. Identifying anxiety ………………………………………... 24

4.3. Language anxiety in oral tasks ……………………………………... 25

4.3.1. Coping with anxiety when working on oral tasks ………... 27

5. EXPERIMENTAL PART …………………………………………...................... 29

5.1. Population and school context …………………………..................... 29

5.2. Procedures for data collection …………………………..................... 30

5.3. Analysis and discussion ……………………………...……………... 31

5.3.1. Questionnaire discussion ……………………………………... 31

5.3.2. Scripts discussion …………………………………….............. 34

5.4. Limitations and further research …………………………………….36

6. CONCLUSIONS …………………………………………………………............ 37

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………........................……39

APPENDIX 1 The foreign language classroom anxiety scale …………………………….…43

APPENDIX 2 Students’ oral tasks scripts …………………………………………………...47

ABSTRACT

This MA dissertation delves into the field of foreign language anxiety in oral tasks. In order to

deal with it, the differences between the oral and the written language will be discussed.

Hereafter, the role of English nowadays will be dealt with, so that a global perspective is

presented. After that, the paper focuses on the definition, identification and procedures to be

followed about the concept of language anxiety. All this is put in practice in the experimental

part of the dissertation, in which a questionnaire is completed by a group of students who will

also be recorded carrying out an oral task. Finally, a number of conclusions will be drawn

depending on that practical part of the paper.

KEY WORDS: foreign language anxiety, oral language, oral tasks, language varieties.

RESUMEN

Este trabajo fin de máster indaga en el campo de la ansiedad en lengua extranjera en tareas

orales. Para ello, se discutirán las diferencias entre la lengua oral y la escrita. A continuación,

se tratará el papel de la lengua inglesa en la actualidad para presentar un enfoque global de la

misma. Tras esto, el trabajo se centrará en la definición, identificación y medidas de actuación

una vez se identifique dicho tipo ansiedad. Todo esto será puesto en práctica en la parte

experimental del trabajo, donde un grupo de alumnos cumplimentará un cuestionario y será

grabado realizando una actividad oral para comprobar si las medidas tomadas surten efecto en

la reducción de la ansiedad. Finalmente, se presentarán las conclusiones oportunas

relacionadas con dicha práctica.

PALABRAS CLAVE: ansiedad en lengua extranjera, lengua oral, tareas orales, variedades

de la lengua.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Before becoming teachers of English, we all were students at the beginning and went through

a series of stages until mastering the language which today is part of our inner selves. The

process was not easy, required constant effort and presented more than one difficulty, one of

them being a certain number of language learning anxiety related difficulties. Nervousness

when taking an exam, disquietude when having to speak in that language, blushing when not

knowing an answer or not understanding the teacher, and many other instances that turned the

language learning process into a challenging task. Perhaps not all teachers have undergone

these experiences, but those who have see their future teaching practice influenced and shaped

by them.

With this in mind, the present MA dissertation aims to answer two questions which

newly qualified teachers may, at some point, ask themselves: does language anxiety really

play a part in foreign language learning? And how can language anxiety be detected and

addressed, particularly in oral tasks? In order to answer them, both a theoretical and an

experimental approach are employed in the following pages.

On the one hand, the theoretical part is divided into three chapters. The first one focuses

on the role of the oral language nowadays, on its main features, on some differences with the

written language and on how it can be taught. Thereupon, chapter two delves into the current

role of the English language by means of defining some basic terms and concepts in the field,

differentiating between native and non-native speakers as well as some varieties of English,

and dealing with the concept of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Next, chapter three turns

its attention to language anxiety and, besides covering a broad sweep of the concept and its

literature, it centres around language anxiety in oral tasks and how to help learners cope with

it.

On the other hand, the second part is experimental and attempts to put all the theory

presented above into practice. In order to do so, some students were administered a

questionnaire to test their language learning anxiety levels, and, after recording their voices

while speaking in English for a task, they were analysed following what is defended

throughout the three theoretical chapters. Despite the fact that not a large amount of subjects

has been analyzed, this study can lay the foundations for future lines of research in this

particular area.

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Finally, some conclusions are arrived at in order to support English language teachers in

how to successfully manage language anxiety troubles in their lessons.

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2. THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE

This chapter aims at describing the spoken language as the main focus of attention for the

present dissertation. To begin with, a difference with the written mode will be established. To

continue, the most distinguishing features of spoken language will be delved into. Finally,

some central aspects regarding the teaching of spoken language will be both discussed and

illustrated.

2.1. The role of spoken language

For the most part of the 20th century, a position of prominence was held by the written

language as far as language theory and language teaching were concerned. Its well described

and known features, along with its fixed and invariable character, forced the spoken medium

to be, more often than not, sidelined. However, as Brown and Yule (1983: 2) point out, after

the second world war, a major attention was devoted to the learning of pronunciation with the

purpose of improving language production.

This sudden concern for the amelioration of speaking drove language teachers to

highlight the importance of sounds, isolated words and short isolated sentences through

repetition drills. Nonetheless, these drills only turned the teaching of speaking into an

artificial and not very realistic approach to everyday life. In fact, at that time, that practice

contributed, in a not so positive way, to “teaching the spoken language being largely

conceived of as teaching students to pronounce correctly” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 2).

In light of the above, a number of reasons seem to explain why written language has

been ahead of its direct counterpart, but the most widely believed one was that the description

of the former was far more influential than that of the latter. What is more, when the spoken

mode started to be described many difficulties and doubts arose. To name a few, below are

some questions that Brown & Yule (1983) addressed:

“What is the appropriate form of spoken language to teach?”

“Is it all right to teach the spoken language as if it were exactly like the written

language, but with a few ‘spoken expressions’ thrown in?”

“Are local differences (in terms of region, age, register…) worth commenting on?”

The point is that, considering all the aforementioned aspects, the complex and intricate

system that the spoken language represents is the main factor which has predisposed it toward

the secondary role it still possesses in language teaching in many parts of the world. However,

is there any distinct difference that explains that secondary role of the spoken language? What

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are the larger differences between both modes? The following section will delve into these

questions.

2.2. Main features of spoken language

Paraphrasing Brown & Yule (1983: 6-7), spoken language syntax is much simpler, its lexis

less specific and its discourse, in most cases, unplanned and unstructured. Therefore, quite a

lot of examples of simple clause sentences (e.g. X is Y), simple subordination markers (e.g.

‘because’, ‘when’…), many incomplete sentences (e.g. A: ‘this is what I call…’ // B:

‘political skill?’ // A: ‘Yes, that’s it’), non-specific words (e.g. ‘sort of’, ‘somehow’, ‘like

this’…) and interactive expressions (also referred to as fillers by Brown 1977, e.g. ‘well’,

‘oh’, ‘uhuh’…) will take over spoken language utterances.

All these characteristics, especially fillers together with syntactic and lexical repetition,

are always present in any example of oral language, especially if it is unplanned, and help to

understand “how speakers manage conversations, how they can give themselves time to think,

organize their thoughts and make corrections to what they have partly uttered” (Brown, 1977:

preface, x).

In the particular case of fillers, they are defined as “words, phrases and sometimes just

noises […] which perform several valuable functions in speech” (Brown, 1977: 107) and are

employed to buy time while speaking in order to organize the constant ideas coming to one’s

mind. In the same line, paraphrasing Shriberg (1994), it can be stated that they are usual

components of spontaneous speech that play the role of guideposts in a conversation so that it

can move along. Some examples extracted from observing students’ productions while

practising different speaking exercises are shown below:

A: Do you think climate change is real? B: er + of course + I think that + er + that

+ er + I don’t know.

A: What is your brother’s favourite sport? B: um + My brother love + erm + loves +

erm + paddel.

A: Are you ready to order? B: Yes + erm + I would like a + erm + to have a pizza,

please. A: Uhuh + Anything to drink? B: um + Well + erm + Water, please

As can be observed, the presence of fillers is strong in oral conversations since they

allow for organization principles by means of which the user arranges the words which will

better fit what needs to be communicated. In addition, fillers are elements “whereby the

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speaker, momentarily unable or unwilling to produce the required word or phrase, gives

audible evidence that he (sic) is engaged in speech-productive labor” (Goffman, 1981: 293).

This is also proof that speaking very rarely is one hundred per cent fluent since

spontaneous would be the key word when referring to the most widely used types of speech.

Besides, speakers do not usually add new information at a time, but little pieces in each

chunk, full of false starts and hesitations, that contain rather little content. Thus, the question

now would be: How do conversations work? According to Brown (1977: 108-109), the model

can be described as follows.

First, the speaker tends to utter some sort of hesitation noise (e.g. ‘mm’, ‘um’, ‘er’,

‘erm’…). Then, a word or phrase which is outside the syntactic structure is produced (e.g.

‘well’, ‘now’, ‘of course’, ‘obviously’…). Next, the expression of the speaker’s thought is

introduced (normally with a lot of repetition of what has previously been said but some extra

personal comment). These steps can be clearly seen in the examples provided above and they

come to demonstrate that “the ability to keep on speaking, even while saying very remarkably

little, is the mark of a fluent speaker” (Brown, 1977: 109).

Another core component of oral speech is repetition. Repetition, on the positive side,

allows the speaker to recycle words and expressions which have already been said and

contributes to hold conversations together. On the downside, repetition may make

spontaneous speech much more difficult to understand, particularly when utterances are full

of meaningless ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. As an example, the utterance below shows that too much

repetition may create a sense of frustration on the listener because the understanding of the

message becomes tricky:

I think so + yes + almost certainly + but I think + + too + + that it’s + that it’s + + because

there’s been a + shift in what’s considered to be + + I dunno + the done thing I suppose

(Brown, 1977: 108).

To all these ideas, Brown & Yule (1983: 7) add that it is obvious that the information

conveyed via spoken language will be, thus, less densely packed because of the prime

function it has, i.e. to maintain social relationships. Hence, the most common of functions for

spoken language is of an interactional character. According to Thornbury, interactional

functions can also be referred to as interpersonal and they “are all about maintaining and

sustaining good relations between people” (Thornbury, 2005: 13-14). This means that most

oral interactions are listener-oriented and produced in order to get things done in real time.

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Some of their features are the use of constantly shifting topics as well as a great deal of

agreement on them on the part of participants, who express their opinions.

On the other hand, despite the fact that the most widespread use of written language is

the transfer of information, i.e. it conveys a transactional function, it must be added that the

spoken language also possesses the ability to produce transactions in a perfectly clear manner.

In other words, its chief purpose is “to convey information and facilitate the exchange of

goods and services” (Thornbury, 2005: 13-14). The figure below shows this in a very

unambiguous manner:

Figure 1. Functions of language (Brown & Yule, 1983: 23)

To clarify this aspect even more, Harmer (2013: 343) specifies that “whatever the

purpose of the speaking event, we can characterize it as interactive or non-interactive”. As

examples, the conversation held between a mother and her daughter about her school day is

interactive whereas the message a father leaves to his daughter on an answer-phone is non-

interactive.

To sum up, what must, of course, be borne in mind is that language adopts different

forms depending on the functions it is going to convey. In other words, it is adaptable and

malleable. The wide amount of varieties in terms of style, register, conventions of

organisation of information and many others will guide the speakers to utilize the best forms

to voice their thoughts. But what is the best way to produce those forms in order that they

fulfil their communicative aim? Are short turns better than long turns? What distinguishes

them from each other?

2.2.1. Short turns vs long turns

There is not any solid evidence that supports that short turns are better than long turns nor

viceversa, but what is known is that they both share a common goal, i.e. they both attempt at

establishing communication between speakers.

Short turns are considered to be made of one or two utterances that do not demand

much out of the speaker. For example, A:‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ B: ‘Sure’ or A:

Primarily transactional Primarily interactional

WRITTEN LANGUAGE

SPOKEN LANGUAGE

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‘What’s your opinion about Brexit?’ B: ‘I don’t really mind’. These types of utterances

provide students with basic expressions and constructions that will be used in order to keep an

oral conversation going without having the possibility to create any new contribution.

However, long turns offer the possibility to comprise information, either new or already

known, in a string of utterances by using coherent structures.

The difficulty this latter type of turn poses is more demanding for students and requires

“an ability that needs both training and work behind” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 19). These

authors, therefore, come to the conclusion that, in the teaching of foreign languages, students

will need training to be able to satisfactorily perform in both short and long turns. In other

words, both typologies need to be worked on in order to come up with competent language

users.

In conclusion to this section, the primary function of oral language is to maintain social

relationships although there may be cases in which it also looks for the transaction of

information. What matters in these conversations is that these convivial and sociable relations

are established and consolidated, hence the significance of fillers and repetitions in allowing

the progression of conversations. This might be the logic behind the avoidance of stating

dogmatic opinions, contradicting other speakers, or behind the marked tendency to talk shop

in oral conversations.

2.3. The teaching of spoken language

Taking into account all the issues considered so far, Brown (1977: 123) presents some reasons

why foreign language learners have difficulties in understanding and taking part in oral

conversations. First, there is a tendency to utter spontaneous speech less clearly than what

learners are exposed to in FL courses. Second, there exists a lack of exposure to the stops,

starts, hesitations and repetitions which fill spontaneous speech. And, last but not least,

students are not told that there is no need to understand and decipher every single word in

order to know what a conversation is about. If teachers make an effort for their students to

learn about and tackle these problems, their participation in oral conversations will be more

beneficial and positive in the short term.

At this point, asserting that the syntactic structures of spontaneous speech are different

from those of a carefully prepared text is something obvious. “When teaching speaking, we

need to make students aware of fixed phrases, functional sequences and adjacency pairs. We

can do this by teaching functional exchanges” (Harmer, 2013: 345). Consequently, the

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approach to teaching to speak and take part in conversations should consider all these features

without neglecting any of them. The following quotation should also be regarded in order to

know the consequences if a correct approach is not adopted:

If, over a number of years, a student has consistently been exposed to a form of spoken

English in which the segments are explicitly articulated and the contrast between stressed and

unstressed syllables thereby partially obscured, the student will have learnt to rely on acoustic

signals which will be denied when he (sic) encounters the normal English of native speakers

(Brown, 1977: 157).

Thus, it becomes essential to expose students to some English as it is normally spoken.

Besides, students must be reassured that “what is obscure in a message is very unlikely to

contribute to its meaning” (Brown, 1977: 124) and that they should focus on the end of

utterances since it is in that part where the most important contribution to the message is

normally included.

In order to get familiar with that process of focusing, it is important to develop different

techniques so that students learn to become aware of signals that indicate and anticipate what

is going to be said next. Therefore, listening to authentic materials, such as radio programmes,

TV series or films, of course adapted to students’ level of proficiency, as well as learning to

identify basic stress and pitch patterns, all contribute to the learner’s confidence when

participating in oral conversations.

It is true that the task to predict what a speaker is going to say next can be challenging

and incorrect hypotheses can be made about what is heard. That is the reason why students

should be equipped with a sufficient number of expressions and fillers which they can resort

to in those situations. By doing so, the learner will, little by little, learn “not to panic if they

have not heard everything distinctly” and “ make a reasonable interpretation even though he

(sic) has not clearly heard all the information” (Brown, 1977: 164).

Learning to talk in the foreign language is a gradual and complex process which is

difficult to teach because, in all likelihood, it has not been approached in a realistic way. This

may result from the fact that there has been an emphasis on correctness in spoken language

production, in which students are expected to reply in fully grammatical and complete

sentences, and in which the language produced is assessed considering either correct

pronunciation, correct grammar, or both. According to Brown & Yule (1983: 26), “perhaps

the most widespread assumption in teaching the spoken language is that the sentence is the

appropriate unit of planning and performance”.

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Furthermore, it would not be appropriate to demand from students something which not

often manifests in their first language, since most native speakers, whatever the language,

make do with short and phrase-sized chunks. In other words, “correctness, in terms of

sentences, seems an inappropriate notion in language production […] and does not prepare

students to produce an extended response, take a long turn or make the spoken language

‘work’ for him (sic)” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 27).

The following two sections will briefly analyse how to teach, first, interactional short

turns and, second, transactional turns.

2.3.1. Interactional short turns

As introduced in the previous sections, interactional turns are those in which the participants

of a conversation are expected to converse with each other and, due to the great amount of

short turns in which speakers are involved on a daily basis, it is more than appropriate that

students learn to participate in simple conversations. In this type of interactions, one of the

speakers is supposed to start the conversation while the other is required to answer back so

that together they can take it forward.

However, teachers need to be careful in this respect since, more often than not, they

seem to be the only ones to take the initiative, a fact which can undermine the student’s ability

to take part in starting a conversation. Nevertheless, Brown & Yule (1983: 29-30) propose

that in the first stages students should be provided with “examples of a fairly minimal

productive arsenal useful for the learner to participate in a conversation with a speaker who is

prepared to do most of the work” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 30). In so doing, the learner will

become familiar with interactional short turns and then, gradually, the difficulty level can be

increased to, for instance, ways of expanding what other speakers have said and forms which

would enable the student to initiate a conversation. The table below includes some examples

of that “minimal productive arsenal” and the function they perform that Brown & Yule (1983)

refer to:

Agreeing to

cooperate:

Right

Yes, of course

Sure, of course,

Agreeing with what

has been said:

Yes, it is

Quite, absolutely true

Of course it is

Disagreeing

politely:

Well not really

Not quite, no

Erm, I don’t know

Indicating possible

doubt:

I’m not quite sure

Really?

Is that so?

Are you sure?

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Expressing an

opinion:

Very nice

Very nice indeed

Not very nice

Not at all

Using fillers and

basic phrases:

Well

Erm

Obviously

Of course

Basic vocabulary

related to these:

Do Come Be

Get Can

Thing Person

Good Easy

Simple structures:

(I think) it’s a good

one / it’s good

(Of course) it’s

difficult / it’s no

good

Table 1. Minimal productive arsenal from Brown & Yule (1983: 29-30)

In order that students get to be familiar with these basic tools to conversation it is highly

advisable to foster pair work in the foreign language lesson. Harmer (2013) points out that

speaking activities done in pairs need to be modelled, i.e. exemplified, and monitored. By

modelling what needs to be done and how it is done, students will imitate what they are

shown and, eventually, they will take care of their own learning. With the teacher monitoring

the speaking activities, reluctant students can be supported to intervene and the teacher will

adopt a prompter role in order to offer possible suggestions which help the activity progress.

These ideas can be implied from the quotation below:

A crucial part of the teacher’s job when organising speaking activities is to make sure that the

students understand exactly what they are supposed to do. This involves giving clear

instructions and, where appropriate, demonstrating the activity with a student or students so

that no one is in any doubt about what they should be doing. (Harmer, 2013: 348).

In summary, interactional short turns can produce observational behaviour in the

patterns of conversation which could be employed to analyse how students make use of

gestures, facial expressions, etc. that contribute to the conversation moving smoothly. Such

conversations, therefore, could be used as models for students with the purpose of self-

analysis in mind. From a personal standpoint, students’ output in speaking activities is always

worth analysing and considering since, once it is shown to them, it promotes self-correction

and learning to learn skills. In that way, that output can become a new source of input which

with more practice and time could turn into intake.

2.3.2. Transactional turns

In section 2.2 above, the transactional nature of language was defined as that in which the

transfer and convention of information forms the basis of speech, and Brown & Yule (1983:

34) underline the importance of placing the stress on communication and not on grammatical

accuracy and perfection when teaching this type of turns. Moreover, they also consider that

“the task of teaching students to control primarily transactional language looks a good deal

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more reasonable” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 33) than teaching them to partake in primarily

interactive conversation.

Following these authors, there are some conditions which should be taken into account

when laying emphasis on transactional turns. These are the features of the context, the state of

knowledge of the listener and the type of task to be carried out.

To begin with, the features of the context should be considered in order to know

whether the speaker is familiar with the listener/s or with the environment in which she or he

is going to talk. If that were the case, it would be easier to talk to fewer people in a familiar

setting. Regarding the state of knowledge of the listener/s, “it is helpful for the speaker if the

listener knows as much of the target language as the speaker does” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 34)

and if the speaker is in possession of some information the listener does not know but needs

to know. And, finally, concerning the type of task, it is always positive if the information to

be transferred is somehow familiar to the speaker and if the information about the task is

clearly delivered right from the start.

“A relatively easy task, by these criteria, would be one where the student has to tell

another student how to do something which […] the speaker knows how to do, and which the

listener does not know how to do but wants to know how to do” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 35).

These activities are called information-gap exercises by Harmer (2013) and some examples

are “to tell a partner how to solve a puzzle, draw a picture (describe and draw), put things in

the right order (describe and arrange) or find similarities and differences between pictures”

(Harmer, 2013: 349).

To conclude this section, fluency should be fostered in all those exercises and their main

objective should be the transmission of meaning, i.e. being able to communicate an idea or

several ones. Therefore, incessant correction would not contribute to those principles and,

what is worse, would put the speaker in an uncomfortable situation which could bring to the

fore anxiety-related difficulties which will be the focus of chapter 3.

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3. THE ROLE OF ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD

Once the previous chapter has defined what spoken language is, this one will focus its

attention on the role that the English language occupies in language teaching nowadays with

the purpose of making a decision about what type of English learners should be taught. In

order to delimit the scope of work, the following headings will delve into some key terms and

concepts which need to be clarified from the very beginning, will analyse what English as a

Lingua Franca (ELF) is and, to conclude, will point out some implications for English

language teaching professionals.

All these aspects will be considered given the paramount importance that variation has

in the English language. As stated by some of the scholars who will be later referred to,

English is no longer only the language of native speakers and, as we will realise, some

consequences will arise from this statement.

To put this in perspective, paraphrasing Kirkpatrick (2007: 1), the number of native

speakers of English is considerably outweighed by the number of non-native speakers and,

what is more, the number of non-native speaker teachers “makes up the overwhelming

majority of English language teachers worldwide” (Kirkpatrick, 2007: 1). By all means,

English language teaching must be influenced, to a higher or lesser degree, by these complex

issues. Without further ado, let us begin with the first heading.

3.1. Key terms and concepts

Before starting to dig into these key terms and concepts, some basic ideas regarding language

variation should be summarised. We should begin by claiming that variation is an intrinsic,

typical and continuous component of any living entity, as is the case with language.

Therefore, English Language Teaching (ELT onwards) professionals must be tolerant to this

principle and understand it. Taking that into account, they should also neglect any kind of

prejudice against different varieties of English, since each one of them is as acceptable as any

other, and help their leaners know that these differences bridge borders rather than separate

them. In summary, and following Kirkpatrick (2007: 2), variation is real and undeniable and

consequently it always needs to be considered.

Among the concepts to be discussed below, the following sections will define what

native and nativised varieties are, and what major differences exist between native and non-

native speakers as well as between some models of English (e.g. ENL, ESL and EFL).

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3.1.1. Native varieties vs nativised varieties

First of all, McArthur was one of the earliest professors to underline the difference between

these two concepts in his work The English Languages (1998). He came to the conclusion that

the English language spoken by people coming from different countries differed in many

ways and this had to be taken into consideration whenever language learning is going to take

place.

Following this idea, Kirkpatrick (2007: 6) defines native varieties as those “traditional”

varieties which are labelled under British, American and Australian English, among others

such as Canadian, New Zealand and Irish English, for instance. On the other hand, he clarifies

that nativised varieties are “newer varieties that have developed in places where English was

not originally spoken and which have been influenced by local languages and cultures”

(Kirkpatrick, 2007: 7). However, he takes this distinction further when suggesting that the

difference between English varieties is to be in “the fact that they are all nativised”

(Kirkpatrick, 2007: 7).

According to that, it does not become much of a central point to keep on continuously

differentiating between them since there is no possible way to justify that a native variety is

better than a nativised one or viceversa. Everybody speaks a nativised variety in the sense that

the particular variety they speak has been influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by their

local culture and personal surrounding and context.

In other words, native and nativised varieties exist and it is good to know about their

differences, but there is no particular reason to give one of them a position of prominence

over the other if they are to be compared.

3.1.2. Native speaker vs Non-native speaker

To begin with, Kachru (1985) established three concentric circles into which speakers of the

English language can be included. Basically, he refers to an inner circle, where native

speakers are going to be found, an outer circle where English is used as a second language,

and an expanding circle where English is a foreign language, to put it in a few words.

However, his model prompted fierce criticism because it was based on geographical or

historical criteria and it did not take into account different dialects or variation in levels of

proficiency.

14

That is why Modiano (1999: 23) proposes a centripetal circle where proficient speakers

are placed at its centre. Therefore, the difference between native and non-native speaker of

English loses weight for the benefit of the proficiency of the speaker.

Despite all this, native (Ns) and non-native (NNs) speakers have been the focus of

attention of many works for the last decades and, according to Mesthrie and Bhatt (2008: 36),

“the distinction between a Ns and NNs of English is being increasingly called into question in

World English research”.

Some authors defend that “it no longer makes sense to differentiate between them”

(Swales, 1993: 285), others devote some of their publications to establishing a distinction

between them (such as Davies, 2003), and others come to the conclusion that “linguistic

ability of the non-native speaker is indistinguishable from the linguistic ability of the native

speaker” (White & Genesee, 1996: 244). Following Jenkins (2002), the distinction between

these two concepts proves useful and holds good for English as a foreign language contexts

(EFL, which will be discussed in the next section) but not for ELF ones (English as a Lingua

Franca will be the central topic in heading 2.2).

As can be observed, the terms stimulate debate but, in an attempt to simplify ideas,

Seidlhofer’s words are quite illuminating in this respect: “native-speaker language use is just

one kind of reality, and not necessarily the relevant one for lingua franca contexts”

(Seidlhofer, 2001: 52 and 54). In addition, House also adds the following point:

English is no longer ‘owned’ by its native speakers, and there is a strong tendency toward

more rapid ‘de-owning’ – not least because of the increasing frequency with which non-native

speakers use ELF in international contexts (House, 2003: 557).

Furthermore, the following quotation also reinforces the idea that the Ns need not

always be a perfect user of the language since “it is clearly not necessarily true that the

language a person speaks first is the one they will always be best at” (Kirkpatrick, 2007: 7).

For example, if a person is born in X and learns the X language, then s/he migrates to Y and

learns the Y language, and the X language is seldom used, is that person still native in the X

language? What this author attempts to answer is that terms such as mother tongue, L1

speaker or L2 speaker “were coined by linguists who grew up in monolingual societies, and

these are less common than multilingual societies, where these concepts make little sense”

(Kirkpatrick, 2007: 9).

15

In summary, both native and non-native speakers of English are owners of the language

despite the striking amount of differences between them, but in the lingua franca and

multilingual contexts the distinction stops being reasonable.

3.1.3. Models of world Englishes

It is also essential to make reference to the most common classification of Englishes,

particularly in language teaching contexts. Thus, this language has been divided into English

as a native language (ENL), English as a second language (ESL) and English as a Foreign

Language (EFL). Kirkpatrick (2007) deals with these concepts in the following way.

In ENL countries, as Britain, the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are (inner

circle countries following Kachru, 1985), English is the primary language of the vast majority

of the population. In ESL countries, such as Nigeria or India (outer circle countries, in

Kachru’s terms), English is an important and usually official language, but not the one and

only language of the country. In countries where English is used as a FL, the language is not

very much employed or spoken in the course of everyday life (expanding circle countries,

according to Kachru) as is the case of Japan or Spain.

However clear this classification may sound, it poses some problems since there is a

tendency to believe that ENL is “innately superior to ESL and EFL varieties” (Kirkpatrick,

2007: 28). It should be highlighted that variety is also large and fascinating within ENL

countries, and implying that every native speaker of English speaks and uses the very same

‘standard model’ is simply incorrect. On the bright side, this arrangement would be

considered to present some advantages as well. For example, “it makes English plural so that

one English becomes many Englishes” (Kirkpatrick, 2007: 28).

To sum up this section, and despite having to be well aware of the different

terminology, it can be concluded that no variety is better than any other. What really matters

is not the type of variety learners use or whether they are native or non-native speakers of it,

but that they are intelligible and able to get their meaning across in whatever situation arises.

3.2. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

Many authors have defined the concept of lingua franca (LF onwards). For instance,

Kirkpatrick defines it as “the common language used by people of different language

backgrounds to communicate with each other” (2007: 7) or “a language used as a medium of

communication by people who do not share the same first language” (2007: 155). Jenkins

(2007: 1) considers that “in essence, a LF is a contact language used among people who do

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not share a first language, and is commonly understood to mean a second (or subsequent)

language of its speakers”. In connection to that, Seidlhofer pinpoints that “ELF is the most

extensive contemporary use of English worldwide” (2001: 133). Consequently, the reasonable

conclusion that ELF cannot be left aside is easy to reach.

It is also noteworthy to add that a LF has no native speakers, thus native speakers of

ENL should be excluded from the definition of ELF. This line of thought is followed by

scholars such as Firth (1996: 240) or House (1999: 74). Others, such as McKay (2002) or

Seidlhofer (2004), prefer to use the concept of EIL “as a blanket term for all uses of English

involving non-native speakers […] but also interlocutors from inner and outer circles”

(Jenkins, 2007: 144). Nonetheless, ELF is not restricted to those speakers belonging to the

expanding circle and those who use it internationally, it is a far broader concept.

On another issue, ELF possesses a number of advantages in comparison with other

terms such as International English, Global English and the like. This is crystal clear from

Jenkins’s words:

ELF emphasizes the role of English in communication between speakers from different L1s,

i.e. the primary reason for learning English today; it suggests the idea of community as

opposed to alienness; it emphasizes that people have something in common rather than their

differences; it implies that ‘mixing’ languages is acceptable and thus that there is nothing

inherently wrong in retaining certain characteristics of the L1, such as accent (Jenkins, 2000:

11)

In addition, Widdowson (2003: 37) suggests that “with the LF proposal, the modified

forms of the language which are actually in use should be recognised as a legitimate

development of English as an international means of communication”. Therefore, some of

those “modified forms” Widdowson mentions are summarized by Seidlhofer (2004: 220) and

are included in table 2:

Characteristic Example

Non-use of 3rd person present simple tense She look very sad

Interchangeable use of the relative pronouns who and

which

A book who / a person which

Omission and insertion of definite and indefinite articles My sister loves the cars

Use of an all-purpose tag question such as isn’t it? or no?

instead of the correct counterpart (e.g. shouldn’t they?)

They should arrive soon, isn’t

it?

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Increasing redundancy by adding prepositions or by

increasing explicitness

We have to study about…

How long time? / How long?

Heavy reliance on certain verbs of high semantic

generality

Do, have, make, put, take

Pluralisation of nouns which are considered uncountable

in native-speaker English

Informations, staffs, advices

Use of that clauses instead of infinitive constructions I want that we discuss about

my dissertation

Table 2. ELF key features (Seidlhofer, 2004: 220)

In conclusion, although some sort of reduction can be observed, the main purpose of

using a language, i.e. communication, is not restricted but enhanced since “it enables the user

to express themselves more freely without having to conform to norms which represent the

sociocultural identity of others” (Widdowson, 2003: 112). Nonetheless, is ELF an option for

teaching English in the Spanish context? What implications does it have for language

teaching? We will try to answer this in the next heading.

3.3. Implications for language teaching

Bearing all the aforementioned issues in mind will indeed exert some sort of influence upon

language teaching and the variety of English to be taught. As said in heading 2.1 above,

“variation affects languages as a whole and identities individually” (Kirkpatrick, 2007: 171)

and, taking into consideration that contact between speakers of different languages is a

constant reality, variation should become a pervasive component in whatever language

teaching context. Many support this idea by saying that “the evidence of ELF suggests that we

should change what we teach” (Harmer, 2013: 21).

In the same line, it would also be necessary to bring about two of the main functions

that language has. These are communicating and establishing identity, to which Kirkpatrick

(2007: 172) refers as the identity-communication continuum. In his very own words, this

continuum explains that “the need for people to communicate beyond their own speech

communities has ensured the maintenance of varieties of English that are internationally

intelligible” (2007: 172). As a consequence, this is what this continuum brings to the fore:

When speakers wish to highlight their identity and membership of a speech community, they

will choose to use a highly localised, informal variety of English. Or, if they wish to identify

themselves as members of a specialist profession, they may use a highly specialised variety or

18

register for his purpose. These variations are likely to be unintelligible to people outside the

particular speech community (Kirkpatrick, 2007: 172).

In Smith’s words, “our speech and writing in English needs to be intelligible only to

those with whom we wish to communicate in English” (Smith, 1992: 75). This comes to

explain that the main purpose when teaching English is to provide students with a number of

tools so that they are able to use the language in the commonest contexts and, from a personal

standpoint, with a finite number of resources that help them to find their way out of

unexpected situations that they may come across.

All in all, there are two alternatives which are the most widely used when deciding

which type of model of English will be taught in order to better suit our learners’ needs. These

are an exonormative native speaker model and an endonormative nativised model, which are

deeply analysed in Kirkpatrick (2007).

3.3.1. Exonormative native speaker model

This model has been traditionally the one that most outer and expanding circle countries have

selected. Among the reasons that explain this, there can be found the level of prestige and

legitimacy that a native speaker model offers, the wide availability of materials for teaching

the English language, or the dominant position of the thriving language teaching industries in

the USA and UK (which sell those materials, provide training and courses, international

examinations, etc.). In simpler words, the native speaker variety is seen as the end point and

perfect model to learn English.

That is why native speaker teachers are in great demand across the countries which back

this paradigm. But what happens when the Ns who has no specialist formation in language

teaching is employed just because of his or her being a Ns? In Kirkpatrick’s words, “this is

risky pedagogically speaking” (2007: 185). Accordingly, NNs teachers are disadvantaged

because, among many other reasons, they are somehow “required to teach a model of English

which they do not speak and which can severely reduce their sense of self-confidence”

(Medgyes, 1994: 359).

Another real drawback with this model is that monolingualism is fostered in Ns English

language teaching lessons whereas “in fact, being multilingual and knowing the language of

their students should be seen as important strengths for any language teacher for a range of

reasons” (Cook, 2002: 231), some of which can be experience in L2 learning or ability to

better spot learning difficulties and weaknesses. According to Brutt-Griffer (2002: 26), “the

19

great majority of English language learners are at least bilingual” and they benefit from and

respect bilingual teachers.

All these issues made Jenkins reconceptualize the ‘native vs non-native speaker

paradigm’ and propose the following system. Instead she uses MES (Monolingual English

Speaker) for those “who speak no other language than English” (Jenkins, 2007: 90), BES

(Bilingual English Speaker) for those “proficient speakers of English and at least of another

language” (Jenkins, 2007: 90), and NBES (Non-Bilingual English Speaker) for those “who

are not bilingual in English but are nevertheless able to speak it at a level of reasonable

competence” (Jenkins, 2007: 90). This reinforces the idea that monolingualism is not the

“preferable condition and lead[s] to the end of discrimination against teachers of English on

the grounds that they are not so-called ‘native speaker’” (Jenkins, 2007: 90).

In conclusion, three main ideas can be implied from what has been discussed above.

First, monolingual Ns teachers are not better than bilingual-multilingual NNs teachers.

Second, the model chosen must be seen as attainable by the students. And third, it can become

demotivating to have Ns English as the final aim, not only for students but also for teachers.

3.3.2. Endonormative nativised model

Among the countries to go for this model are outer circle countries, which seem to be the

most likely, where “the local variety of English has become socially acceptable” (Kirkpatrick,

2007: 189).

On the one hand, Kirkpatrick (2007) numbers a series of advantages within this model.

It can be said that local teachers are empowered since they see their self-confidence and self-

esteem increase; multilingual-competence is boosted in the classroom since English is not the

only language during lessons; the final aim is not the Ns but the teacher, who makes that

objective both attainable and appropriate; students, teachers and school are familiarized with

culture and with social and educational norms; and, in Goethals’ words, “it favours sensitivity

to English as an international language” (Goethals, 1997: 110).

On the other hand, “if the local model has not yet been codified and there are no

grammars and no textbooks or materials, then a Ns variety could be used as norm rather than

as model” (McKay, 2002: 127), a fact which would not be positive for either teacher or

student because the Ns would remain the source of ‘correctness’.

That is the reason why adopting what might be called a ‘bilingual’ or ‘lingua franca’

approach to the teaching of English could become a practical and realistic alternative to both

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the Ns and nativised models displayed above. This has been the case of many countries of the

EU in recent years, as van Essen (1997: 98) states.

Embracing a LF model entails “to move the focus of the classroom from the acquisition

of the norms associated with a standard model to a focus on learning linguistic features,

cultures information and communicative strategies that will facilitate communication”

(Kirkpatrick, 2007: 194). With the main aim being communication using English, the

curriculum should centre around three core components thoroughly discussed by Kirkpatrick

(2007) and briefly summarized below.

Firstly, students should know about linguistic features which cause major problems of

understanding, e.g. Jenkins (2000, 2002) proposes to work on the phonology of international

English. Secondly, they should learn basic differences between cultures as well as the

implications of such differences for communication across cultures. And thirdly, teachers

should put at their students’ disposal a number of communicative strategies that facilitate

cross-cultural communication.

All these things considered, “the teaching of English should be framed within the goal

of creating bilingual or multilingual citizens” (Hoffman, 1996: 54). This is one of the declared

intentions of implementing bilingual programmes and methodologies, such as CLIL, across

Europe.

To finish this chapter, on account of the bewildering variety of situations existing in English

around the world, what is self-explanatory is that the English we decide to teach must cater

for our students’ needs and context. Besides, our students need to know about different

varieties and cultures as well as about the differences among them in order that, with the

focus put on communication, they can use the language comfortably and intelligibly. By

clarifying that the best model for them is the one they use, that “English is not the sole

property of NS” (Kirkpatrick, 2007: 197), they will start to feel more comfortable with it and

their levels of anxiety can be reduced when finding themselves speaking to other people, but

this will be the core of next chapter.

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4. LANGUAGE ANXIETY IN ORAL TASKS

Every single student, at some point in their language learning process, has experienced a

feeling of discomfort and uneasiness when that language had to be used. Dry mouth, hands

tremor, blushing, stuttering, cold sweating, shortness of breath, to name some instances, may

be some of the symptoms which let us see how some type of language anxiety becomes

present and visible. It could also be the case that not all of these appear concurrently or that

some only emerge out of a particular type of activity or when working on a specific skill.

Having dug into how the spoken language should be addressed in language teaching in

Chapter 2 and what its aim should be independently of the type of variety to be taught in the

English classroom in Chapter 3, this chapter now turns to the broad and complex concept of

language anxiety. The main objective is to fully clarify what language anxiety is, how it

affects language learning, how it presents itself in oral tasks, and what teachers can do in

order to reduce learner’s anxiety-related difficulties in oral contexts.

All these issues will be considered throughout this chapter so that the language teacher,

at a quick glance, knows more about how to proceed when observing language anxiety

problems in their English lessons.

4.1. What is language anxiety?

Anxiety started to draw the attention of scholars during the 1970s when they came to realize

that affective factors and personality exerted their influence upon language learning. In the

first efforts to define this concept, Scovel (1978: 139) considered that language anxiety (LA

onwards) was brought about by “the transfer of other types of anxiety into the language

learning context”. However, it was not until the mid 1980s that Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope

defined LA as “the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry

associated with an arousal of the automatic nervous system” (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope,

1986: 125).

Gardner and MacIntyre added that this appears not only when learning a second

language but also “when a situation requires the use of second language with which the

individual is not fully proficient” (Gardner and MacIntyre, 1993: 5). These authors also

contribute that “LA is seen as a learned emotional response” (Gardner and MacIntyre, 1993:

6) made by those people who have got negative experiences with a second language and that

it might affect future learning. Nonwithstanding, they also point out that “the negative effects

of LA would be expected to diminish over time as proficiency increases and more positive

22

experiences accumulate” (Gardner and MacIntyre, 1993: 6), a reason why, fortunately, there

is no need to be a prophet of doom with those learners who suffer from LA.

Later in time, MacIntyre (1995) clarifies two different ways to consider language

anxiety. On the one hand, it can be seen as a social uneasiness, which is defined by “feelings

of tension and discomfort, negative self-evaluations, and a tendency to withdraw in the

presence of others” (MacIntyre, 1995: 91), and that respond to “common forms of

apprehension which spread among psychologically healthy people” (MacIntyre, 1995: 91).

On the other hand, anxiety from a cognitive perspective is concerned with those “feelings of

worry and emotionality that cause distressing preoccupations and concerns about impending

events” (MacIntyre, 1995: 91). It is in this second paradigm where suggestions about anxiety

being able of improving performance can be found and from where the concept of facilitating

anxiety comes.

Therefore, a distinction must be established between facilitating anxiety and debilitating

anxiety. The former comes to light when the anxious subject is able “to compensate for the

increased cognitive demands by increased effort” (MacIntyre, 1995: 92). However,

sometimes that increased effort is not enough to decrease anxiety, hence debilitating anxiety

making its appearance. This latter type of anxiety was defined as “the one that impedes

successful learning” (Horwitz and Young, 1991: 153).

Apart from this distinction, another one proposed by Spielberger (1983) needs to be

mentioned. This is between state and trait anxiety. State anxiety is “an immediate, transitory

emotional experience with immediate cognitive effects” (MacIntyre, 1995: 93). On the

contrary, trait anxiety is “a stable predisposition to become anxious in a wide range of

situations” (MacIntyre, 1995: 93). In other words, the former is like the reaction a learner has

in a particular situation whereas the latter reflects a tendency to react in an anxious way in

different contexts.

Besides, Horwitz (2001) considers LA as a situation-specific type of anxiety since “it is

found to occur repeatedly in the context of language learning and during foreign language

performance” (Baran-Łucarz, 2011: 493). The focus of attention of the present dissertation

will be a situation-specific state type of anxiety because we will be concerned with how

students react and perform in a very particular context, the classroom.

4.2. Effects of anxiety on language learning

23

As briefly anticipated in the previous heading, anxiety may enhance a negative impact on

many aspects related to students in the context of the language classroom. For example,

Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) highlight the importance to tackle this problem because it

affects communication strategies employed by students. Paraphrasing their words in this

respect, the individual will not be able to express the intended meaning as accurately as those

anxiety-free subjects and, in their attempt to achieve their purpose, they make every effort to

utter “less interpretive, hence more concrete messages” (Steinberg and Horwitz, 1986: 98)

and “tend to avoid attempting difficult or personal messages in the target language” (Horwitz,

Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 126). It is because of these issues that students who experience LA

undergo worry, apprehension and, in some cases, even dread, which leads them to present

problems in terms of concentration, memory, class absenteeism and/or homework

postponement.

Furthermore, there are reports which prove that students, whatever their level of anxiety

is, behave differently depending on the type of activity to be done. In other words, learners

often describe that “they feel fairly comfortable responding to a drill or delivering prepared

speeches in their foreign language class but tend to ‘freeze’ in a role-play situation” (Horwitz,

Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 126). In order to overcome those more uncomfortable situations,

students decide to overstudy or work harder, which, more often than not, makes frustration

appear because this extra effort does not prevent making slips and mistakes which will be

penalized in, particularly, testing situations.

This is the reason why many a learner believes that “nothing should be said in the FL

until it can be said correctly and that it is not okay to guess an unknown foreign language

word” (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 127), and, as a consequence of this, the teacher

may carry out an inaccurate evaluation regarding the student’s aptitude or motivation level.

This vicious circle should be broken by means of getting to know students’ tensions and

discomforts as well as their preferences about any single aspect concerning the foreign

language lesson so that incorrect evaluations about students never be made.

It is because of that principle that every language teacher should know about the three

related performance types of anxiety discussed in the section below.

4.2.1. Performance types of anxiety

This model comes to establish that students may feel anxious in rather different situations

based on what they expect to receive from their performance, and on the conception that

24

foreign language anxiety is a mixture of “self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors

related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning

process” (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 127).

The first type is called communication apprehension. It is focused on interpersonal

interactions, which are the starting point of most English language lessons nowadays. Shyness

made out of fear for talking to others in a not mastered language provokes difficulty in

speaking when working in pairs or groups, i.e. oral communication anxiety, or in having to

talk in front of an audience, i.e. stage fright. This typology also includes those problems in

listening to those taking part in any of the situations mentioned just above. However, as

Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986: 127) mention, some learners “may find that

communicating in a foreign language makes them feel as if someone else is speaking and they

therefore feel less anxious”, hence activating what has been previously referred to as

facilitating anxiety.

The second type concerns test anxiety and stems from the student’s fear of failure.

Those who are framed in here are described as demanding and perfectionist and go the extra

mile to achieve their aim. The problem with this is that test-anxious students consider that

anything below the highest mark is unacceptable and disastrous, which takes them to believe

that they are not capable enough. It is relevant to add that both communication and test

anxiety may appear together in oral tests for those sensitive students.

Last but not least, the third type refers to fear of negative evaluation, which is defined as

the “apprehension about others' evaluations, avoidance of evaluative situations, and the

expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively” (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope,

1986: 127). This type of anxiety is broader in the sense that it does not only occur in test

situations, but may extend in other contexts, such as a job interview or simply speaking in a

foreign language class.

4.2.2. Identifying anxiety

It is because of this variety in terms of types of anxiety along with the effects that they can

exert on the language learner that LA needs to be identified as soon as possible in order to

decrease that dramatic impact it may have on language learning. That is why Horwitz (1984)

developed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) which has been

employed to examine language anxiety severity by means of analysing students’ behaviours

and feelings while being in the foreign language lesson. This scale is said to “have

25

demonstrated internal reliability, achieving an alpha coefficient of .93 with all items

producing significant corrected item-total scale correlations. Test-retest reliability over eight

weeks yielded an r = .83 (p <.001)” (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 129).

To date, the results obtained from using the aforementioned scale prove that students

with debilitating anxiety in a foreign language classroom context can be recognized and that a

number of common features spreads among them. Some of the items which form part of the

scale are more usually marked by those undergoing anxiety, such as:

“I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class” (49%); “I get

nervous and confused when I am speaking in my language class” (33%); “I feel very self-

conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other students” (28%) (Horwitz,

Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 130).

Along with making use of the FLCAS, teachers need to make class observation a key

element of their teaching process. By means of observation the necessary information to take

further decisions will be collected in order that particular aspects, as language anxiety

students are, can be handled differently with the purpose of helping them overcome that

adverse condition. Keeping diaries, by both teachers and students, conducting interviews with

students or analysing students’ questionnaires are three possibilities to get to know students’

position regarding their anxiety level. After all or some of these instruments have been

checked, teachers can begin their course of action to decrease or eradicate language anxiety.

4.3. Language anxiety in oral tasks

Using the productive skill of speaking in the foreign language classroom has been one of the

main focal points stressed by scholars since LA started to be addressed. This could already be

observed in these words: “Difficulty in speaking in class is probably the most frequently cited

concern of the anxious foreign language students” (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 126)

and many studies related to this issue have been conducted.

One of those, undertaken by Young (1991), demonstrates that students suffering anxiety

have reactions which are difficult to control when having to speak or when being asked in the

foreign language. Some of those reactions are “distortion of sounds, inability to reproduce the

intonation and rhythm of the language, freezing up when called on to perform, and forgetting

words or phrases just learned or simply refusing to speak and remaining silent” (Young, 1991:

430).

26

In this regard, Stephenson (2006) states that when students have enough time to prepare

what they are expected to deliver, for example, at home, “the learning/teaching environment

becomes less uncomfortable” (Stephenson, 2006: 104). She, referencing to Horwitz, Horwitz

and Cope’s (1986) studies on LA, also points out that not all oral activities produce the very

same reaction on anxious students because the demand of some of those exercises is not so

anxiety-creating. Thereby, “learners did not feel too apprehensive during drills or about

speaking if they had time to plan their spoken interventions, but would “freeze” if they had to

speak spontaneously” (Stephenson, 2006: 193).

Despite this, the big majority of anxious students prefer not to be asked in the foreign

language because they consider that they do not possess a good level of English and feel

intimidated by it. That is why many of these would “like to have more practice speaking in

class, especially for oral exams, and have their errors corrected” (Young, 1991: 540) so that

they are able to learn from their mistakes.

If, as mentioned above, some activities are less anxiety-creating, there are some which

worsen anxiety-related levels of those who are more susceptible to it. According to Young

(1990), MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) and Stephenson (2006), these activities are the ones

listed, from lowest to highest anxiety level, below:

Presenting a prepared dialogue in front of the class

Making an oral presentation in front of the class

Answering an unexpected question from the teacher in front of the class

Role-playing a situation spontaneously in front of the class

It can be implied that anxious learners do not like to be required to do something they

do not expect, and, as a consequence of that, “they will behave reluctantly and will not

express personally relevant information in a foreign language conversation” (MacIntyre and

Gardner, 1991: 107). This will limit the possibility of the teacher getting to really know the

learner, a fact which compels teachers to establish a good rapport with students from the very

beginning, to reduce tense situations to the minimum and to make use of those instruments

discussed in section 4.2.2 above.

On a related issue, apprehensive students fear to make mistakes in front of other peers

because they believe it will cause derision. But not only that, they also consider that if the

teacher is correcting their mistakes, “they perceive every correction as a failure” (Horwitz,

Horwitz and Cope, 1986: 130). Consequently, they will prefer not to talk, or if they make an

27

attempt, “they normally forget what they know, especially if it is an oral test” (Stephenson,

2006: 105). With that in mind, mistakes correction should be dealt with thoughtfully and

tactfully, letting the student know what the purpose of each activity is (e.g. is it fluency or

accuracy?), and presenting mistakes as a sign from where to start improving their language

proficiency.

4.3.1. Coping with anxiety when working on oral tasks

In this section, references will be made to four main authors who have suggested several

techniques which contribute towards the reduction of oral language anxiety. These are

Phillips (1992), Brophy (1999) and Gregersen and Horwitz (2002).

To begin with, the first author affirmed that “nurturing a relaxed atmosphere” (Phillips,

1992: 20) would foster students to focus on communication rather than on negative thoughts

and feelings surrounding the classroom context. She also recommended helping students by

discussing anxiety with them, by means of some experiences, for instance, so that they could

see that many learners go through it and that it is not the end of the world. Besides, building

“realistic expectations” regarding the time needed to master a language and the normality of

making mistakes in that long and complex process. She gives two pieces of advice for oral

tests which should not be ignored. First, sufficient practice should be done so that students

familiarize with the situation, and, second, that “evaluations in pairs and groups may help

dispel nervousness” (Phillips, 1992: 20).

Along the same line are Brophy’s suggestions. They seek to tackle this problem by

building a warm classroom atmosphere (really connected to Phillips’ first idea), by limiting

students’ fear of mistakes and by presenting themselves as helping and assistant professionals

whose one and only aim is “to nurture their learning” (Brophy, 1999: 2). The teacher is not in

the classroom to make them feel bad and uncomfortable, but the other way round entirely.

Besides, Stephenson (2006), following Brophy’s recommendations, concludes that teachers

should be open to changes and adaptable to students’ needs, “pointing out that perfectionism

can be detrimental to their progress” (Stephenson, 2006: 162). In other words, teachers should

be role models who can assist students in anything they need and in the best ways for them.

As far as the third and fourth authors are concerned, teachers should be able to guide

students in “controlling their emotional state” (Gregersen and Horwitz, 2002: 569) when

using the foreign language in oral activities. One possibility they offer is to ask them to

imagine themselves being calm when making a mistake or when speaking in front of their

28

classmates. Moreover, these authors also promote that students should not stop talking despite

making mistakes: “continuation should be given precedence over errors” (Gregersen and

Horwitz, 2002: 560).

To conclude this section, these words by Liu (2013) based on a recommendation by

Dörnyei (2001) complement everything discussed above:

Dörnyei (2001) proposed that one useful motivational strategy in the language classroom is to

encourage positive self-evaluation. Language instructors should treat students with greater

patience, particularly encouraging those with underachieving performance to attribute their

unsatisfactory achievements to the inappropriate use of learning strategy or lack of effort

rather than academic incompetence (Liu, 2013: 84).

In other words, in addition to all the suggestions mentioned above, motivation and

promoting self-evaluation might be two key factors in the reduction of anxiety-related

difficulties in oral activities.

All the aspects referred to in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 will be drawn on in the experimental

part of this MA dissertation presented in the next chapter.

29

5. EXPERIMENTAL PART

This chapter puts in practice all the theory described in the previous pages in an attempt to

analyse language anxiety in oral tasks. In order to do so, the procedure to be followed will

consist of several parts. First, students will be administered a questionnaire (called the

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, i.e. FLCAS, discussed in chapter 4, section

4.2.2) to know about their feelings and sensations in relation to foreign language anxiety.

After that, students will be recorded carrying out an oral task, which will be described later,

and, based on that, their performances will be delved into. Last, some pedagogical

implications will form the core of the final conclusions.

In other words, the chief purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate that oral language

tasks should be approached differently to other types due to the features it possesses, that

communication should be the central aim whenever oral language is being used instead of

perfection or, for example, native-like pronunciation, and that language anxiety should be

addressed whenever it is observed in order that students get to know what it is and how to

manage it.

5.1. Population and school context

The subjects under research are six students (three boys and three girls) aged between 15 and

16 years old and currently studying the 4th grade of compulsory secondary education in IES

Santa Teresa, Jaén. The school has turned bilingual for the first time in 2016/2017, hence the

group of students under concern are not part of the bilingual project. However, the average

level of English among students of this age is pre-intermediate (i.e. between A2 and A2+,

according to the CEFR), with some students standing both above and below it.

It must be mentioned that out of the twenty-seven students from the group of the

aforementioned course, only these six have been selected on the basis of class observation

throughout the second and third terms, of their answers to the questionnaire (i.e. the FLCAS)

and of the performance in the oral tasks they have been doing. Any sign of personal reference

to the students will be omitted and they will be referred to as numbers.

Generally speaking, the six subjects perform well in written exams, put much effort into

their work on a daily basis, show their interest in learning English for their future lives and

present high levels of motivation and autonomy. Nonetheless, their levels of participation in

class when, e.g., correcting exercises or when asking for volunteers are not so high, only

participating if the teacher asks them to do so.

30

5.2. Procedures for data collection

Following Madrid and Bueno (2005: 648), classroom observation is “one of the most

important techniques to study what actually happens inside the classroom in a systematic

way”. Hence, it has been key for the present research to pay attention to students’ behaviour

during oral tasks. Monitoring pair and group work, taking notes of the student’s levels of

participation, analysing recurring reactions when having to orally answer a question, and

comparing students’ output, in both anxiety-provoking situations and others less disturbing,

served as the starting point of the results to be studied later. All these straightforward

procedures have been followed for the last four months (from March to June) in order to

identify language anxiety samples during the English lessons.

Once the six subjects were selected, they were asked to fill in the Foreign Language

Classroom Anxiety Scale, which can be found in Appendix 1. This questionnaire comes from

Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986: 129-130) and was published in the article “Foreign

language classroom anxiety”. The Spanish-English option provided to the students is sourced

from Stephenson (2006: 391-393), since it was considered that offering it bilingually would

prove easier for students and would collect more reliable data.

Regarding its characteristics, the FLCAS is made of thirty-three items to be answered in

a structured manner. In other words, students are expected to tick the boxes that show their

opinion about the situations presented as follows: SA= strongly agree; A= agree; N= neither

agree nor disagree; D= disagree; SD= strongly disagree. Each item was carefully explained to

the students so that they could perfectly understand what it was about, and they were given as

long as they needed to complete it. It was responded to on 29 May.

After that, students started to prepare the oral task which they had to carry out in the

week of 12 to 16 June. The task required students to prepare a long turn (not longer than one

minute) speaking about a topic they were interested in. They had to do the pertinent research

about it and organize their turns so that the final result could be understood by their

classmates. Then, they would have to answer an unprepared question from the teacher related

to their topics.

The reason why the task first demands a long turn is because, as mentioned in section

2.2.1, the difficulty posed by this type of turn is more demanding for students and requires

“an ability that needs both training and work behind” (Brown & Yule, 1983: 19), therefore

possible cases of language anxiety are to appear more openly. Besides, the short question that

31

students were asked after their intervention would help the teacher assess their command of

basic expressions and constructions that will be used in order to keep oral conversations

going, as well as how capable they are to manage unexpected questions in the foreign

language.

Apart from supporting the elaboration of the task, some helpful pieces of advice were

passed on to the students in order that they could better handle the situation of speaking alone

in front of an audience. For example, some ideas discussed in section 4.3.1, such as

contributing to a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom, seeing mistakes as signs of

improvement, talking about breathing and relaxing while speaking, about visualizing

themselves doing the task and coming up with a positive result, were used in an attempt to

lower these students’ increased discomfort when speaking the foreign language.

Once every aspect was set and ready, students delivered their speeches, which were

recorded (their scripts can be found in Appendix 2). It has to be said that the possibility to do

the task during a study break was offered to all students. Those who did it in front of the

whole class received an extra mark whereas those who preferred the break did not receive any

extra marks, since the audience would be smaller. Out of the six students recorded, three

decided to do it in front of all their classmates (subjects 4, 5 and 6) and three in the break

(subjects 1, 2 and 3). The results are analyzed and discussed in the next section.

5.3. Analysis and discussion

To begin with, the questionnaire’s answers will be studied. Nonetheless, it must be pointed

out that only those items receiving more striking ticks will be discussed since their relevance

will be higher to this discussion. After that, the section will focus on the analysis of the

scripts, which are included in Appendix 2.

5.3.1. Questionnaire discussion

Having said that, five subjects (students 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6) tick the ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’

boxes referring to their never feeling completely sure when speaking in English (item 1). This

can be connected to item 18 about their levels of confidence when practicing speaking, in

which students 1 to 5 mark the ‘neither agree nor disagree’ box. It seems clear that they do

not feel totally confident about using the language orally, especially subject 6, who in both

items checks the ‘strongly agree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ boxes, respectively.

It is also interesting to refer to items 2 and 19, which deal with errors and their

correction. The answers to item 2 do not seem to be too striking but those to item 19 are. Four

32

subjects (1, 2, 3 and 5) admit that they are not worried about being corrected, an important

fact which implies that the idea that mistakes should be seen as signs of improvement has

caught on. Subject 5 is the only one who is preoccupied with the teacher being ready to

correct every mistake. However, it should be added that the teacher is not constantly

correcting students’ oral mistakes but only once their practice has finished and if the mistakes

have prevented communication from taking place.

Items 12 and 27 ask about nervousness in the English class. In this regard, three

students (3, 5 and 6) recognise that they can forget things that they know because they get

nervous in class while four students (3, 4, 5 and 6) admit that, to some degree, they get

nervous and confused when having to speak in English. The fact that there were three students

(3, 5 and 6) answering similarly caught the teacher’s attention and helped him act accordingly

when assessing students’ performances.

These results can be in connection to the answers to items 13 and 20, respectively

dealing with embarrassment and reactions when asked to speak in English. According to the

former, four students (1, 2, 5 and 6) either strongly agree or agree with their reactions when

volunteering in class, i.e. they feel embarrassed, therefore they prefer not to volunteer.

Regarding the latter, students 1 to 5 do not feel their heart rate increases when speaking but

student 6 feels so. However, subjects 3 and 4 worry about derision (item 31) and the others do

not mind whether that situation takes place or not.

In addition, it would be key to discuss the answers to items 9, 16 and 33, which delve

into levels of preparation when speaking in English. In item 9, four students (1, 4, 5 and 6)

recognize that they start to panic when having to speak without preparation. However, in item

16, only two subjects (4 and 6) still feel anxious despite having prepared for the lesson, and,

in item 33, only two subjects (5 and 6) admit that unprepared questions make them feel

nervous. In these two latest items, subjects 1, 2 and 3 go for the ‘neither agree nor disagree’,

and the ‘disagree’ boxes. This proves that if students have to answer short questions, they do

not feel so concerned as if they are expected to speak a longer unprepared turn.

To conclude, it seems that the classroom environment facilitates students’ learning and

comfortability. This can be implied from item 8, in which five students (1 to 5) agree with

their feeling at ease during exams, but not for student 6, who feels the opposite. And also

from item 17, in which the six students disagree with not feeling like going to the English

class, a fact which shows their keen interest and strong motivation for improving their English

33

skills. Before commenting on the students’ oral tasks recordings, the table below describes the

students following their answers to the FLCAS.

Student Description

1 He seldom feels completely sure when speaking in English, so he does not mind

being corrected when making mistakes. Sometimes, he forgets things he knows

because he gets nervous but, surprisingly, recognizes that he does not always get

nervous when he has to use the language orally whenever he has time to prepare

what he has to say.

2 She never feels completely sure when speaking in English and does not worry

about making mistakes because she knows they will be later corrected. She does

not get nervous in the English class but that does not prevent her from getting

confused sometimes. She does not like to volunteer. Despite admitting that she

does not feel anxious when she is prepared to speak, she was not able to carry

out the oral task (see Appendix 2, subject 2).

3 She does not feel 100% sure when speaking in English, and is not afraid of

making mistakes because they will help her improve. Sometimes, she forgets

things she knows because of being nervous and worries about derision. However,

she is able to control her nervous feelings because she trusts her command of the

language.

4 Depending on the type of activity, she feels more or less confident when

speaking in English. She does worry about making mistakes and being corrected

because she is a perfectionist. That is why she tends to thoroughly prepare

everything with time, and why she tends to feel uneasy when having to practice

speaking unexpectedly. However, if the unprepared oral exercise is about short

questions, she is fine with it.

5 He has mixed feelings about his levels of confidence when having to speak in

English and enjoys being corrected because he worries about making mistakes.

He forgets many things he knows when speaking and sometimes even makes his

speech difficult to understand. He does not like to volunteer or to be asked

unexpected questions, but he makes a big effort to handle those situations.

6 He is insecure and lacks confidence, is worried about mistakes, forgets things he

knows, and even feels his heart pounding when having to speak in English. He

also recognizes that he trembles and panics, especially in unexpected speaking

34

situations. However, he is able to go the extra mile to overcome his language

anxiety and the results he finally comes up with are quite positive.

Table 3. Students’ descriptions based on their FLCAS answers

5.3.2. Scripts discussion

In order to analyse the scripts from the students’ performances, references will be made to

Appendix 2, in which the scripts can be found. The analysis will be carried out student by

student so that a deeper analysis can be undertaken.

Student 1 packs his long turn with fillers which buy him some time to think about

what to say next (e.g. “er”, “erm”) as well as with repetitions which hold his speech together

(see Appendix 2, student 1). He makes minor mistakes that he is able to self-correct (e.g. “At

then, [lack of breathing] er, and then…”), misses some words (e.g. “the Targaryen were also

[word missing] by Robert Baratheon…”), or slips some final –s in pronunciation (e.g. “the

seven western kingdom”). He seems nervous while speaking, avoiding eye contact with the

teacher and classmates, and, at some point, is short of breath (e.g. “At then [lack of

breathing], er…”).

However, as his speech progresses, he becomes calmer and seems more comfortable.

Regarding the short questions asked by the teacher, he answers with short responses (e.g.

“No, I have no…” or “Yeah”) but when he is required to extend his answer he does (e.g.

“Because he’s the ch-, he’s the funniest character.”). At some point, he even goes back to his

mother tongue in order to ask a doubt (e.g. “And cómo, y cómo se dice y va en contra?”). In

general terms, despite doing the task in a study break and not in front of a big audience,

communication is achieved, his message understood, and the student is able to control his

nervous feelings towards unprepared questions.

Student 2 rejected to carry out the task despite having prepared everything in advance,

without giving compelling reasons. Knowing how the student reacted in other speaking tasks

(voice trembling in oral presentations, or answering questions very briefly), the teacher

decided to maintain a dialogue with her about her topic since this is less anxiety-creating. Of

course, she would not be awarded the full marks but could obtain some.

The script included in Appendix 2 shows that the student perfectly understands all the

questions but tends to answer them very briefly (see Appendix 2, student 2). Fillers also come

to appear and she even remains in silence some times in order to think how to answer them as

correctly as possible (e.g. “because I … prefer, mmm”). Besides, she starts answering

35

questions very low (e.g. “Student: Fitness (too low) / Teacher: About? / Student: Fitness (a bit

louder)”), leaves some sentences unfinished (e.g. “I think they are better than…”) and leaves

the teacher to take the wheel of the conversation. In conclusion, she is capable of keeping

conversations whenever there is a person taking the initiative but presents anxiety-related

difficulties when having to speak alone in front of a big audience, a reason why she did the

task in a study break.

Student 3 shows a good command of English and speaks fluently and accurately. She

barely makes mistakes during her long turn, includes several fillers (e.g. “mmm” or “er”) and

is perfectly understood. However, when the short questions are asked, she chooses short

answers (e.g. “No”, “Yes”) and seems not to fully understand the last question, which she

answers with doubts (e.g. “[Thinking time] In a trip of school, for example. When I improve

my English”). The student decided to do the task in a study break because she recognizes that

she is worried about derision, but she is able to continue speaking despite being interrupted by

a classmate while she was speaking.

Student 4’s performance was quite similar to that of student 3 but with the difference

that this one did the task in front of the whole class. This student does not make use of any

fillers or repetitions, a fact which is rather surprising, during her long turn. She makes minor

slips (e.g. “…science which studies the pass of money (instead of ‘time’)”) and pronunciation

mistakes (e.g. “It is divided [pronounced as ‘divide’] in four periods”) which do not avoid

communication. Her uneasiness comes to show up when she is asked short questions, which

she answers with short responses or phrases (e.g. “The Modern Age” or “I don’t know”), and

when she does not know how to answer them, she resorts to her mother tongue (e.g. “mmm

Es que no sé cómo decirlo”). In the end, she communicates her message and is fully

understood by her classmates.

Student 5’s script is full of fillers (e.g. “erm”, “mmm”, “er” or “uy”), repetitions (e.g.

“the current wage, current wage” or “it’s a very bad er, big, bad problem”) and rephrasings

(e.g. “employed person accepts to want, mm sorry, wants to work and accepts” or “mm you

have, you probably, of course, but you don’t have”). The problem with his long turn is that he

wants to do it so well that he rushes, and at some points his message is not understood.

However, in the short turns, he handles better the situation, answers the questions

appropriately (e.g. “Ah very bad, because mmm work is very important for the family” or

“She can’t bring food for us. My father work”) and even asks for clarification when he does

not understand (e.g. “Sorry?”). During the task, he seemed quite nervous but made an effort to

36

control the situation, used his hands quite well and kept eye contact with his classmates and

teacher. Nevertheless, some of the classmates did not understand the first part of his long turn.

Student 6, who according to his questionnaire’s answers was the most anxious student

of this group, performed in front of his classmates despite his hands trembling and seeming

quite uncomfortable. Surprisingly, his final outcome was really good and he was able to

nicely manage the task. He used fillers (e.g. “erm” or “mmm”) and made minor pronunciation

mistakes which did not avoid communication (e.g. “massive” or “seems”). While trying to

keep eye contact with his classmates, just in the middle of his long turn, he lost his track and

remained in silence for some seconds, not knowing what to say. His classmates’ reaction was

excellent, trying to calm him down with hand signals, and the teacher also did the same thing

along with a face sign indicating that there was no problem. The student was able to restart his

speech, although a bit nervous, and finished with self-corrections (e.g. “I think English is,

bueno, sorry, has an important…”) and asking a question to the audience in an attempt to

make them take part in the activity (e.g. Student 6: “Do you agree with me?” / Classmates:

“Yeah”). His answers to the questions by the teacher are good and complete (see Appendix 2,

student 6) despite including some mistakes which do not interfere with communication. In

general terms, student 6 has been working really hard the whole academic year to overcome

his troubles when speaking in English and his improvement has been more than remarkable.

5.4. Limitations and further research

To conclude, this practical experiment presents some weaknesses. For example, it has been

quite context-specific and with a not big amount of subjects involved in order to make

sweeping generalizations. In addition, its cross-sectional nature also proves to be a limitation

but it becomes exceedingly difficult to carry out a longitudinal study in such a limited amount

of time.

Bearing this in mind, future lines of research about this topic could include a bigger

population from a more varied context or making use of other data collection procedures.

Another possibility could be to employ other type of oral tasks to test foreign language

anxiety or to compare the results with anxiety-related problems in other skills, such as

listening. Be that as it may, this particular topic seems to be quite open in terms of

possibilities for further research.

37

6. CONCLUSIONS

In order to foreground the crucial points of this MA dissertation, this section will go back

over some of the chapters previously discussed in an orderly manner. To begin with, returning

to the questions posed in the introduction, it is now possible to state that language anxiety

exerts its influence on language learners who suffer from it.

As demonstrated in the practical part, LA can be detected via observation procedures or

the FLCAS questionnaire so that a course of action to reduce it can be taken. Some of the

procedures to be followed include creating a relaxing classroom atmosphere, building up

good rapport with the students, and, of course, by means of practice, experience and time.

That is why teaching the student to learn to live with it and turn it into an advantage would be

paramount to their success in foreign language learning.

The evidence from this study suggests that the oral language must be trained in all its

typologies. In other words, as presented in chapter 2, both short and long turns are equally

important for students to manage. In this sense, the results from the research taken in chapter

5 proved that long turns tend to be more anxiety-creating for students since they require more

time and work to be controlled. At the end of the day, whatever type of turn is worked on,

their focus must be always given to achieving communication, hence helping students feel

more comfortable and confident when speaking English.

Consequently, mistakes should not be continuously corrected, especially while students

are speaking. This could considerably boost their uneasiness when using the language orally.

In this sense, perfection is not the aim, let alone native-like English, which is not always

perfect either. That is the reason why students need to know about English varieties and

English as a Lingua Franca so that each student speaks in a way which they are comfortable

in and identified with. After all, as mentioned in chapter 3, they also own English since, like

any other foreign language speaker, they are using it on a nearly daily basis, gradually

changing it and adapting it to situations that they find themselves in. Once again, being able to

communicate is the key.

Another important implication is that teachers need to let students know about language

anxiety. They should be familiar with what it is and how to handle it. LA should not be seen

as an unresolved problem but as a small fence that can be jumped over. Techniques about

learning to breathe calmly and relaxingly, smiling and keeping eye contact while speaking,

visualizing unexpected situations and being positive about the final outcome can be useful for

38

those who feel uncomfortable when having to speak English. Other possibilities could be to

record oneself speaking in order to later listen to how one sounds, to speak in front of a mirror

to gain confidence with practice, or, from the point of view of teachers, to provide students

with fillers and phrases used while speaking in order to buy time to think. As seen in the

scripts of the recordings from the research, speakers make use of them almost unconsciously.

In addition, teachers should also use a wide amount of techniques to practice speaking,

such as open and closed pairs, group work, oral presentations, role-plays, short dialogues, or

debates, of course facilitating models and language to carry them out and putting students in

different situations in an attempt to contribute to their learning to deal with unexpected ones.

Moreover, mistakes correction procedures should be clear to students beforehand, e.g. is

the focus on fluency or accuracy? Or, is correction taking place while or after speaking? As a

personal contribution, I would suggest mistakes should be addressed once students are

finished speaking, in a calm and relaxed atmosphere, presenting them as a starting point for

language improvement, and correcting only those which interfere with communication. By

doing so, LA students will more easily turn their possible debilitating anxiety into a

facilitating type of it.

To conclude, oral language’s role must be as highly considered as that of written

language in foreign language teaching because that will facilitate students to learn more about

themselves, about others, and about other languages, varieties and cultures. Foreign language

teachers, besides, should make use of the different techniques to practice it and, whenever

cases of LA are spotted, they need to be addressed and worked on. It is possible to control LA

in speaking. It is possible to improve language proficiency if a student suffers from LA. But it

is necessary that all teachers know about what it is, how to identify it, and how to provide

students with the sufficient tools to learn to overcome it.

39

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APPENDIX 1

The foreign language classroom anxiety scale (with answers from students)

The FLCAS (E. K. Horwitz, M. B. Horwitz & J. Cope, 1986: 129-130) was included in the

article “Foreign language classroom anxiety”, in The Modern Language Journal, 70(2), 125-

132. The Spanish-English option below is sourced from Stephenson (2006: 391-393).

Tick the boxes that show your opinion as follows:

SA= strongly agree / totalmente de acuerdo; A= agree / de acuerdo; N= neither agree

nor disagree / ni de acuerdo ni en desacuerdo; D= disagree / en desacuerdo; SD= strongly

disagree / totalmente en desacuerdo

SA A N D SD

1. Nunca me siento del todo seguro/a de mí mismo/a cuando hablo

en mi clase de inglés (I never feel quite sure of myself when I am

speaking in my foreign language class.)

2 3 1

2. No me preocupa cometer errores en la clase de inglés (I do not

worry about making mistakes in language class.)

1 2 2 1

3. Tiemblo cuando sé que me van a pedir que intervenga en la clase

de inglés (I tremble when I know that I’m going to be called on in

language class.)

2 2 2

4. Me incomoda cuando no entiendo lo que está diciendo en inglés el

profesor (It frightens me when I don’t understand what the

teacher is saying in the FL.)

2 1 1 2

5. No me importaría en absoluto hacer cursos de otras lenguas

extranjeras (It wouldn’t bother me at all to take more FL classes.)

2 1 2 1

6. Durante la clase de inglés, me doy cuenta de que estoy pensando

en cosas que no tienen nada que ver con la asignatura (During

language class, I find myself thinking about things that have

nothing to do with the course)

2 4

7. Siempre pienso que mis compañeros/as son mejores que yo en los 1 2 1 1 1

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idiomas (I keep thinking that the other students are better at

languages than I am)

8. Normalmente me siento tranquilo/a durante los exámenes de

inglés (I am usually at ease during tests in my language class)

3 2 1

9. Me entra el pánico cuando tengo que hablar en inglés sin haberme

preparado nada en la clase de inglés (I start to panic when I have

to speak without preparation in language class)

1 3 2

10. Me preocupan las consecuencias de suspender la asignatura de

inglés (I worry about the consequences of failing my FL class.)

4 1 1

11. No entiendo por qué a algunas personas les afectan tan

negativamente las clases de idiomas extranjeros (I don’t

understand why some people get so upset over FL classes.)

1 2 3

12. En la clase de inglés, puedo llegar a ponerme tan nervioso/a que

olvido cosas que sé (In language class, I can get so nervous I

forget things I know.)

3 2 1

13. En la clase de inglés me da vergüenza ofrecerme de voluntario/a

para dar respuestas (It embarrases me to volunteer answers in my

language class.)

1 3 1 1

14. No me pondría nervioso/a al hablar en inglés con hablantes

nativos/as (I would not be nervous speaking the FL with native

speakers.)

1 2 1 1 1

15. Me incomoda el no entender lo que el profesor está corrigiendo (I

get upset when I don’t understand what the teacher is correcting.)

2 1 1 2

16. Incluso cuando estoy bien preparado/a para la clase de inglés, me

siento ansioso/a (Even if I am well prepared for language class, I

feel anxious about it.)

2 1 2 1

17. A menudo siento ganas de no asistir a mi clase de inglés (I often

feel like not going to my language class.)

1 5

18. Me siento seguro/a de mi mismo/a cuando hablo en la clase de

inglés (I feel confident when I speak in the FL class.)

5 1

45

19. Me da miedo que mi profesor esté dispuesto a corregir cada uno

de los errores (I am afraid that my language teacher is ready to

correct every mistake I make.)

1 1 4

20. Siento que el corazón se me va a salir cuando sé que me va a pedir

que intervenga en la clase de inglés (I can feel my heart pounding

when I’m going to be called on in language class.)

1 3 2

21. Cuando más estudio para un examen de inglés, más confundido/a

me siento (The more I study for a language test, the more

confused I get.)

2 4

22. No me siento presionado/a a prepararme muy bien para la clase de

inglés (I don’t feel pressure to prepare very well for language

class)

1 4 1

23. Siempre pienso que mis compañeros/as hablan mejor inglés que

yo (I always feel that the other students speak the FL better than I

do.)

1 3 1 1

24. Me da mucha vergüenza a la hora de hablar en inglés delante de

otros/as alumnos/as (I feel very self-conscious about speaking the

FL in front of other students.)

2 4

25. Las clases de inglés van tan rápido que me preocupa quedarme

atrás (Language class moves so quickly I worry about getting left

behind.)

1 1 4

26. Me siento más tenso/a y nervioso/a en mis clases de inglés que en

el resto de las clases (I feel more tense and nervous in my

language class than in my other classes.)

1 1 1 1 2

27. Me pongo nervioso/a y me confundo cuando hablo en mi clase de

inglés (I get nervous and confused when I am speaking in my

language class.)

1 2 2 1

28. Cuando voy camino a la clase de inglés, me siento muy seguro/a y

relajado/a (When I’m on my way to language class, I feel very

sure and relaxed.)

2 2 2

46

29. Me pongo nervioso/a cuando no entiendo cada una de las palabras

que dice el profesor (I get so nervous when I don’t understand

every word the language teacher says.)

2 2 2

30. Me siento abrumado/a por la cantidad de reglas que hay que

aprender para hablar inglés (I feel overwhelmed by the number of

rules you have to learn to speak a FL.)

1 1 4

31. Me da miedo que mis compañeros/as se rían de mí cuando hablo

en inglés (I am afraid that the other students will laugh at me

when I speak the FL.)

2 4

32. Probablemente me sentiría cómodo/a con hablantes nativos de

inglés (I would probably feel comfortable around native speakers

of the FL.)

3 2 1 1

33. Me pongo nervioso/a cuando el profesor de inglés hace preguntas

que no me he preparado con antelación (I get nervous when the

language teacher asks questions which I haven’t prepared in

advance.)

1 1 2 1 1

47

APPENDIX 2

Students’ oral tasks scripts

Student 1

Student: Er Hi. Er Hi. Er I’m going to talk about Game er Game, Game of Thrones er. This

series “transmiending” in the seven western kingdom. The story tells about some

kingdoms, er, ending, ending and dominating this country. “At” then [lack of

breathing], er, and then, as this nation were, er, unified, er by iron [not understood]

from, from the Targaryen house. Er, two hundred, two hundred and eighty three year

after the conquest, er, the conquest of iron, the Targaryen were also [word missing] by

Robert Baratheon in a civil war known as the war, er, the, erm, ay, as the war of the, of

the Usurper. Robert Baratheon acceded to the iron throne after winning in a singular

combat to the prince Rhaegar, from the Targaryen house, erm, in a combat, in a combat

of the Trident, erm, and thanks to, and thanks to to the endorsment of his friend lord

Eddard Stark. Er the series begins with Aesen contest, or better known as the Mad King,

er Westeros, er, Westeros is controlled by houses. The royal houses of Westeros are

Stark, Arryn, y Lannister, Baratheon, Targaryen, Martell, Tyrrell, and Tully.

Teacher: Ok, have you read the books?

Student: No. I have no, no…

Teacher: They’re a bit long.

Student: Yeah.

Teacher: But I recommend you to read the books because they are really good. I have read the

five books which are published so far and they are excellent. Can you tell me the name

of your favourite character?

Student: Tyrion Lannister.

Teacher: And…

Student: Because he’s the ch-, he’s the funniest character. And cómo, y cómo se dice y va en

contra?

Teacher: He goes against…

Student: He goes against er with er bueno with his house the Lannisters.

Teacher: Ok!

48

Student 2

Teacher: Can you tell what your topic is about?

Student: Fitness (too low)

Teacher: About?

Student: Fitness (a bit louder).

Teacher: Fitness. And what do you usually do to keep fit?

Student: I usually play football three times a week.

Teacher: mm And apart from football. Would you like to do, or to practice any other sport?

Student: I would like to practice athletics because it is similar to football.

Teacher: It’s similar to football, Ok. Erm, Tell me something about your favourite football

team. Which is your favourite football team?

Student: I don’t have a favourite football team because I … prefer, mmm, it a football player

because I think they are better than…

Teacher: Ok. Erm, and which is, who is your favourite football player?

Student: My favourite football player is Iker Casillas because he is a very honest person.

Teacher: Ok. And he has won many titles too.

Student 3

Student: I am going to talk about London, which is the capital of England and the UK. It is on

the roads of the river Thames. It is a world culture capital with a lot of foreign people

from other cultures. Erm, there are many places to visit like Royal Botanic Gardens, the

Tower of London, mmm Buckingham Palace, and Trafalgar Square. The traditional

meal is fish and chips and tea too.

Teacher: Mm

Student: The curiosity of London is the ghost of Ana Bolena in the tower of London. Er many

people say that they saw her because [student comes into the classroom and interrupts

her speech, but she continues] er, because here is the place of her death. So you can [not

understood because of disturbing sound outside the classroom].

49

Teacher: Have you ever been to London?

Student: No.

Teacher: Have you ever been to England?

Student: No.

Teacher: Ok. And, would you like to go to England?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: When do you think you will be able to go to England?

Student: [Thinking time] In a trip of school, for example. When I improve my English.

Student 4

Student: Hi. Today I’m going to talk about history. History is the science which studies the

pass of money [instead of ‘time’]. It is also the period of time that elapses from the

appearance of the [not understood] to the present. It is divided [pronounced as ‘divide’]

in four periods. The Dark Ages from the invention of the write to the found of the

Roman Empire. The Middle Age, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the discovery of

America. The Modern age, from the discovery of America to the French Revolution.

And the, and the Contemporary age, from the French revolution to the present.

Historians are people who study the history. Some famous historians are Herodoto, [not

understood] and Manuel Tamayo.

Teacher: Ok. Which is your favourite period of history?

Student: The Modern Age.

Teacher: And why?

Student: I don’t know.

Teacher: Give me a reason.

Student: mmm Es que no sé cómo decirlo.

Teacher: Can you tell me something, or some things that happened in the Modern Age?

Student: Er, the discovery of America, the war…

Teacher: Ok. Thank you.

50

Student 5

Student: Hello. I’m going to talk about unemployment. Unemployment is the situation of

[lacks sth] who can and want to work. But lost their work or [not understood word]

normal working [not understood] until the final day. [not understood] the salary is [not

understood] for the competition. Erm for there to be unemployment it’s the right that

employed person accepts to want, mm sorry, wants to work and accepts the current

wage, current wage, begin [lack of breath] type at [not understood] time. The causes of

this situation [not understood] resulting in different types, cyclical, structural, fictional

and monetary. It is sometimes used as a tool, uy [not understood]. Erm, today there are

about four million people, erm, of forty six, erm, million people have unemployment. In

my opinion, it’s a very bad er, big, bad problem because erm si you, if you don’t have I

need the work, emm you have, you probably, of course, but you don’t have food, you

don’t have any clothes, you don’t have nothing.

Teacher: Ok. Do you know anyone who is unemployed at the moment?

Student: Mmm My mother.

Teacher: Yes?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: And, how she feels about being unemployed?

Student: Sorry?

Teacher: How she feels?

Student: Ah very bad, because mmm work is very important for the family.

Teacher: Ok.

Student: She can’t bring food for us. My father work.

Student 6

Student: Hello. My name is … and today I am going to talk about the importance of the

English language in today’s world. Ok. Erm. English nowadays has an important role in

our daily life, em, it’s the most massive means of communication. Erm learning to

speak English well may be the best way to improve our life. Erm, it seems all the people

of the world have agreed to use English to talk to each other. It’s called, erm, lingua

51

franca. Erm, we can, emm, mmm, we can [silence: 5 seconds], mm we can speak about

our ideas or opinions on Internet discussion groups, or learning, erm sorry, erm,

speaking English well, erm, we can travel more easily. I think English is, bueno, sorry,

has an important, is an important role, is an important tool in nowadays, erm, to get a

job. Do you agree with me?

Classmates: Yeah.

Teacher: It is important to get a good job. Can you tell me, em, would you like to learn other

languages apart from English?

Student: mm I like to learn new language because I think it’s important to get a job, for

example. And I think it’s, ah, a good way to communicate with other person who lives

in other countries, for example.

Teacher: And any idea about any language? For example, German, French, Chinese. Any

language?

Student: Any language that I can learn?

Teacher: That you would like to learn.

Student: Erm, yes. I would like to learn, erm, English well. Ah, French, I’m studying French

with [name of teacher] Mmm other language, erm, such as, erm, German and, erm,

Chinese, But it’s not, I’m not…

Teacher: It’s very difficult, Chinese. Ok.

Student: Yes.

Teacher: Thank you.