Teacher strategies for alleviating EFL speaking anxiety: warm atmosphere, encouragement, L1 use, and learner-centered activities¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The article recommends a set of implementable classroom strategies for reducing students' anxiety in speaking English inside or outside the classroom. Teachers should "create a warm atmosphere in classrooms," respect students, give them enough time to express themselves, build self-confidence through encouragement, provide sufficient input, and "make use of students' L1 in order to decrease their anxiety" by letting students speak in their native language when they cannot recall a target-language word. Reducing classroom noise and raising awareness of foreign cultures are also recommended.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Instructors willing to adopt learner-centered strategies and establish rapport with students

Constraints¶

• Recommended, not empirically tested, in this study; grounded in the survey's identified anxiety sources

Target Learners¶

• Iranian EFL learners in institutes and classrooms

Target Learning Goals¶

• Reducing foreign language speaking anxiety; increasing willingness to engage in speaking tasks

Related Strategies¶

• Use out-of-work immersion practices — reading, original-version media, and speaking with native speakers — to develop English outside the workplace
• Improve voice prompting usability and offer native-language voice prompting before wider instructional adoption

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Sadighi, F., & Dastpak, M. (2017). The Sources of Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety of Iranian English Language Learners. International Journal of Education & Literacy Studies, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.5n.4p.111