Fear of Making Mistakes as a Major of Student's Anxiety in Speaking Section of EFL Classroom

Fear of making mistakes as a Major of Student's Anxiety in Speaking Section of EFL classroom

Author:

Anda Roofi' Kusumaningrum, Andhika Wahyu Rustamaji, Eric Dheva Tachta Armada, Rahmadilla Kurniasari.

Universitas Sebelas Maret

2021

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Stephen Krashen, a foremost scholar, in his book (1982) emphasized three things that affect the affective filters including anxiety, self-confidence, and motivation. He asserted that if the students had anxiety, the affective filters are higher. Consequently, it will hinder the language acquisition process. Hence it is important for teachers to lower the students' affective filters by reducing their anxiety. The way of teaching that is mostly implemented to teach speaking skill, the teachers need to resolve the problem that might cause the student anxiety. The problem that mostly affects the students to be anxious is afraid to make mistakes.

THE CHALLENGES

A high motivation can influence the language learning process. While low motivation can cause the students to have many thoughts on why they are speaking a foreign language. One of the limiting factors related to low motivation in the language learning process is the fear of making mistakes. There are many causes for this fear of making mistakes that range from the lack of vocabulary, fear of being judged and negative feeling when they make errors are negative things that lead to anxiety. To avoid the occurrence of negative factors.

Vocabulary is  frequently known as "all the words known". We can study English more readily if we have a large vocabulary. However, a lack of vocabulary will make it tough for us to study English and speak fluently. Therefore they try to remember the words while speaking. Because we use so many vocabulary when we speak. Vocabulary has a significant impact on our speaking ability. In short, vocabulary is really essential and good communication can help the students to expand their vocabulary in an indirect way.

Students often feel that other students are judging their speaking skills in the classroom. Most speakers feel insecure when they are evaluated by others. They also worry about what others think about them. The worst part is that people will remember what you said and how you said it. Several surveys indicate that the average student believes other students have better speaking skills than their own. This explains why students are likely to worry about sounding dumb in the classroom. This problem underlies the reason behind students' anxiety about their speaking abilities. This insecurity is very real and it may drive many students to shy away from expressing their thoughts in the classroom.

Foreign Language Anxiety means students worry that their errors will get a negative reaction, for instance, a negative reaction from peers or teachers. In Terms of Speaking performance, the students probably believe that their speaking performance is not good enough. For example, her or his pronunciation is mispronounced, their vocabulary mastery is poor, and their speaking skills are not fluent. They think that their errors are a negative thing. Their negative belief affects the students' performance. They are afraid to speak English in the classroom. They don't feel confident to perform their speaking skill. Even though the cognitive approach seems that error is inevitable, it's one of the processes of learning.

FOUR CHANGES TO MITIGATE THE STUDENTS' ANXIETY

Lower speaking anxiety levels is very important to create an environment where all students want to develop their language skills. Kondo (2004) Suggests four strategies to lower their speaking anxiety such as preparation, relaxation, positive thinking and peer seeking. Preparing is a major part of conquering anxiety. By making sure students are prepared before speaking will ease them from their anxious state and make them more relaxed. 

Relaxation is also a huge part of breaking anxiety, students can use relaxation strategies by taking a moment to visualize the words they want to say. Positive thinking is also an essential part of battling anxiety, because if they believe that they can do it, they will most likely perform better. The same goes for peer seeking or encouraging other students to speak more during the classroom.

The first strategy, Preparation. It refers to attempts at controlling the feeling uneasy by improving learning strategies such as giving the students time to answer a question orally, or giving them sufficient time to prepare themselves before speaking in front of the classmates. Applying this strategy is expected to make the students ready and confident during speaking class, and enable reducing their anxiety. 

The second strategy, Relaxation, involves tactics that aim at reducing somatic anxiety symptoms. In order to reduce somatic anxiety symptoms, students need to learn to feel the tension in their muscles and then let it go. When the students become stressed, the breathing becomes short, shallow, and irregular. In contrast when the students are calm the breathing is smooth, deep and regular, also students feel confident and in control while speaking.

The third strategy, Positive Thinking, is attributed by palliative function which emphasized problematic cognitive processes. It underpins the students anxiety, for instance imagine yourself performing a great performance, attempting to relish the suspense. The strategies are proposed to distract the stressful suspense to be positive and enjoyable cues to give support for anxious students.

The fourth strategy, Peer Seeking, is defined by students who actively seek out others to help them and seek out ways to make the processes more comfortable. Also, peer seeking means that students are willing to pay attention and actively seek out others to receive support and advice. So, if someone was going through a similar struggle, they would want to help and ask if they could. If they were willing to talk with someone about their struggles, then they were engaging in peer seeking behavior.

CONCLUSION

Language anxiety is considered as an important affective variable that influences the success of language learning in Foreign Language classroom. (Horwitz, 2001). The language anxiety of students refers to the feeling towards impending threats that they have when they think about the language. In the context of speaking class, the level of anxiety for each student is different depending on the cause of it. Therefore, the major problem of students' anxiety is fear of making mistakes. 

The cause of this problem points to the students' fear of being judged in which most students feel that the classmates judge their speaking skill, the feeling that errors are negative things which means the students worry that their errors will get a negative reaction. Responding to this, the teachers need to realize the cause by providing some changes such as preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, and peer seeking that can be implemented in the classroom in order to reduce the students' anxiety.

REFERENCES

Horwitz, E. 2001. Language Anxiety and Achievement. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. USA: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/S0267190501000071

Kondo, D. S. (2004). Strategies for coping with language anxiety: the case of students of English in Japan. ELT Journal, 58(3), 258--265. DOI: 10.1093/elt/58.3.258