Speaking May Be A Challenge: Understanding Your Introvert Students

Communication is major in building relations in society. The ability to develop linguistic skills for interaction has been widely developed and learned in academics to understand meaningful communication patterns and analyze problems. This ability is even strengthened with rhetorical skills in uplifting a sharp and intriguing discussion among people. This is how the skills function fully in society, that is, to show the people's existence in influencing their doings with language in order to reach their goals. Using language mechanisms such as those of pragmatic strategies such as persuading, explaining, clarifying, comparing, and the like helps people to reach their communicative purposes.

Our collective society is tightly integrated (Hofstede, 1986), with a perception of involving fluent speaking ability as a requirement for having good relations and socialization. This perception has brought the generalization of a notion that all people must act to speak fluently and get along easily in line with social expectations. Introverts may find this challenging.

The collectivist society has been dominated by that extraversion that dominantly reflects a similar perspective in the social tier.  Introversion, on the other hand, is loosely integrated because its traits of being reserved and aloof, which contradicts the social paradigm, focusing on inward reflective behavior and thinking. It mostly regards silence as being observant in their daily interaction. Consequently, some researches conducted and found that introverts are 62% tensed and shy, 73% anxious (Emirza & Sahril, 2021) which leads to psychological effects having pressure in public speaking (Walker, 2006), and probably low self-confidence, too. The psychological tendency in introvert behaviour receives judgment from considering their silence to be problematic and unsociable. It is likely then that negative social milieus severely narrow the possibilities for introverts to hail fruitfulness in social standardized interaction.

Personality is also part of the environmental share where each person contributes to society according to their personal distinctive traits. It is 68% natural or heritable and by chance to be 32% influenced by the environment (Hopwood et al., 2011). Introversion is one of the personalities whose individual's basic orientation is toward the self, to the inner world reflected through concepts and ideas. It differs from the outer world concept in extraversion, where the focus is on objects and people (Myers & Myers, 1995). Thus, the intense reflection of introverts leads them to contemplate judgment and perceptions, making them unconsciously become more hesitant and cautious. This results in working out their ideas more slowly and carefully in speaking.

Introverts spend most of their time alone to invest in ideas of being creative but, fortuitously, end up being misunderstood. Solitude is when they can recharge their well-being -- to work in silence. However, in society, it would be misleading to state that introverts' silence is commonly regarded as passivity. Being silent in the crowd is the actual solitude possession for introverts. So, being passive and being observant are two distinctive patterns. There is no thinking or reflecting process in passivity. Introverts, as being observant, process through deep thinking before speaking, ensuring to relate to topics being discussed. Drnyei (2005) states that introverts have higher cortical arousal levels, enhancing memory consolidation and storage abilities. Thus, the prediction that introverts adhering to long-term memory is demonstrated in retaining more information in the long-term memory system (Cox-Fuenzalisa et al., 2006; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985) consistently makes introverts' responses more stringent and cautious (Gillespie & Eysenck, 1980). They need to buckle down to willingly expose the selves. It is easier for them to speak with a smaller number of people, especially one-on-one communication.

Famous introverts like JK Rowling, Elon Musk, Susan Cain , and many others -- yes, other introverts, as stated that one-third to a half of people in the world are introverts (Cain, 2012), are successfully dealing with their speaking difficulty and blossomed in their efforts and works. Therefore, having poor linguistic capability in being less involved is not really the case for speaking difficulty. Extraversion and introversion have the same chance of developing language ability (Samand et al., 2019; Lestari, 2015; Marashi & Dibah, 2013) for the purpose of communication. Being shy, rather, involves a low level of self-concept in a person that affects their speaking skills but does not fully entail their personality.

Although genetic factors may influence personality, significant others can help shape introversion to stand by their own self-values as well as develop skills in socialization through time. Any educational institutions and teachers should take responsibility for understanding differences in their students' personality traits, moving them to assist their introvert students in the most reasonable and convenient ways. Introvert learners dominantly have lower working memory capacity, while working memory, in fact, links to social activities (Lieberman, 2000). Additionally, guidance and assistance from teachers are important to begin experiencing social interactions in school as lower-level working memory capacity can be modified and increased with practice and training, seeing that working memory capacity changes with experiences and proficiency (Mitchell et al., 2013).  Thus, introverts' hesitancy in speaking performance can be overcome predominantly with plenty of practices over time.

Preparation plays a role as a reinforcer to help introverts strengthen their speaking production in any academic level and social challenges. Reinforcing practical skills enhances students' access to higher linguistic intelligence in using words effectively in their communication with others. Introverts can learn to be more compliant, embodied by external forces through learning. Accordingly, it requires differentiating teaching strategies and approaches in classrooms. Cain (2012) emphasizes that to deal with introvert students, empathy is needed to encourage them to face the fears, especially when speaking in public is too overwhelming for them.

Nowadays, student-centered learning has been reported to be the most relevant and suitable for student learning development. However, teacher-led approach is still relevant because of its effectiveness in helping introvert students. Thus, both approaches are significant for them. Teachers may approach introvert learners personally, ask questions, give feedback, guidance, and encourage with positive words to make them feel valued. They learn more from specialists and adults that they trust. During question-answer time, a one-minute wait time may be given for them to think before answering. Do not haste. It gives them readiness with ideas with more confidence. It is suggested not to point at introvert learners spontaneously as it blocks their thinking. At times, the preference to be quiet or speak what is necessary may be obvious.  

Active learning is another approach which is good for developing all students' sociocultural skills by creating excitement through the cooperative learning or group work. However, introvert learners benefit the learning approach if they are guided, allowing them to know details regarding their tasks prior working with their teammates. They would feel ready after receiving clear instructions to help them reflect and prepare for works that need to be done.

Having them working in smaller groups, such as three-student or pair work, is much more efficient than with larger groups. They tend to be less anxious and less intimidated by those who are dominant in discussion, thus getting more confident in expressing their ideas. Alternately, teachers can occasionally place individual work with individual seats to let the introverts have intermission after discussions. Not only for introverts, extroverts also will learn to create self-regulation through individual work. All students need to explore and reflect on their own attitudes and values. Therefore, writing a brief reflection after the lessons will be suitable to support in-depth thinking.

Students, both introverts and extroverts, will benefit from constructivist-based practices where experiences, project-making, and contributions to society can increase their level of cognitive skills. Speaking task requirement for these experiences can be captured through a video recording or can be facilitated by online learning management system, alleviating students to express opinions with enough stipulated time and prepare for speaking assignments. Writing and brainstorming ideas are crucial in developing introverts' involvement, especially in speaking experiences.

Learning experiences students gain in schools is a part of the learning process given to achieve the expected 21st Century Skills, one of which is the social skill. Therefore, getting them ready for real-life skills and practicing for their future career and social life is essential. Introverts endure different patterns and quality of feelings and attitudes than extroverts towards social interaction. Understanding these diverse qualities in students' personalities takes courage and empathy for them to feel accepted wherever they live and learn. Support from significant others releases their brilliance to be able to grasp opportunities to be successful -- averting them from detrimental and unnecessary judgment.

References

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