Have you ever become speechless when being asked a question in English or any other foreign language? Do you have students who can get even physically sick before an exam or an oral presentation? Well, in this case you might be in front of a person with foreign language anxiety.
A few days ago, I was texting an Italian friend of mine I met in Ireland 11 years ago. I was taking a teaching methodology course at the time, and she was there to improve her English. We were accommodated with the same host family, a lovely senior Irish couple who owned a pair of gorgeous dalmatians. We spent an unforgettable pair of weeks there, which even inspired a fellow teacher to write a novel. I will highly recommend you read it if you can read Spanish.
During those two weeks, my friend and I would share meals together at the house, take trips around Ireland and go out on a regular basis (no kids back then 😂😂😂). You can imagine we had countless conversations between us and also with our lovely host family. For me, English was not an issue back then, as I had been an English teacher for almost 5 years, and I had passed my Proficiency certificate (C2) 10 years before. At home, I would help her with her homework, but I had absolutely no problem having meaningful conversations with her. She was (and is) a fluent speaker of English, despite you can tell she’s not a native speaker. And well, what is the problem with that anyway?
I’m telling you all that because she texted me saying she had had a terrible experience in a job interview. At the end of her online job interview (in Italian) she was asked to talk in English about her job… silence… Then she was asked to maybe talk about her family instead… more silence. She became completely speechless.
I know for sure she can talk about her job and her family in English. If she was able to do it with me over 10 years ago, she can definitely do it now. Some people just freak out when it comes to using a foreign language in an uncontrolled setting, especially if they can feel judged or evaluated.
Whether you are a student or a teacher, you know English learners sometimes just freeze when it comes to give an oral presentation or answer to your questions in class. They sometimes hand in a blank writing or an incomplete exercise you know for sure they could tackle in previous situations, where they weren’t feeling judged.
If you’re a teacher, provide your students with practical situations in a relaxed environment (or as relaxed as possible) to prevent them from becoming anxious. Make sure they get plenty of practice before confronting any type of activity in which they can feel evaluated. Play as much as you can, and take notes of their performance without them noticing it. Reassure them and don’t over-correct them. If they can get the message through, it’s good enough. There’s plenty of time and opportunities to get to correctness, but first we need to help them become fluent.
If you’re a student, please listen to this: your teacher can make mistakes, native speakers make mistakes, so you’re allowed to make mistakes too. Voltaire popularised an Italian proverb that says: “Perfect is the enemy of good” , so try to be good at English, not perfect. This approach will hopefully help you overcome the anxiety you feel, and it’s a general good piece of advise, anyway.
Here comes to my mind the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule (have you noticed Italy is monopolising this post??? 🤣🤣). According to this principle, 20% of your efforts, will bring you 80% of the results. So whenever you’re trying to reach to perfection, you’re just loosing your ability to invest your efforts in newer and maybe better results. Practice, practice, practice. Don’t feel ashamed, don’t compare yourself to your peers, to your teacher or to native speakers. Learning is about you, overcoming your fears and becoming better. Not better tan anyone else, but a better version of yourself. And you know the English phrase “Practice makes perfect”, right? So it’s all about the practice, not the perfection.
ESLgeekTeacher 