ESL Participation Instruction's Impact on Speaking Skills & Anxiety

The observation is done in the classroom through an observation checklist which includes two classes of English department BS I and BS II and the Data collected through observations was studied to support the data collected via questionnaires from the students. The observation was done to find out; how English language speaking anxiety affects the learner's language learning and their speaking fluency. For the analysis of observations, the data was collected by taking necessary notes during presentation session in each classroom to find out reasons of speaking anxiety that affects students speaking fluency.

The observations were basically concerned with both the spoken and non-spoken performance of the students and the teachers attitude on the assigned speaking activities in the class.

As firstly the learners willingness of taking part in English speaking activities is observed. While observing the class of BS I it was observed that some students were very energetic and willingly participating in speaking activities but some of the students were not very much willing to present their assigned topic in front of the class as they were very nervous, shy, and tensed.

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They just come on their turn and just read out the points written on their notes or slides and quickly go back to their seats again, because they are the students who come from an educational background where speaking in the English language is not compulsory. The Environment of classroom and the compulsory rule of giving the entire presentation in the English language is a very new thing for them.

While some of the students were trying to delay their presentation by expressing that they are not feeling well or suffering from a stomach ache or head ach. That clearly shows that they were not willing to give their presentation. Apart from that good behavior and polite attitude of the teachers plays a vital the students in the students’ l2 learning and l2 speaking performance. It was observed that in BS I and BS-II the teachers were somehow very supportive and encouraged their learners to speak fluently in English. As she appreciates the students by giving good remarks such as “good effort” “keep it up” or “well done” etc. but on the other hand some of the teachers also correct the mistakes of the student after their presentation. As the teacher said to one of the students; do not say teaches, say teacher.

As far as the student's fluency is concerned so some of the students were not very fluent and they also speak in a very low tone with poor pronunciations and make many pauses in speaking like 'uh', 'eu', and “umh”. They did not want the others to hear their voice, because they were very much hesitant and anxious of their mistakes. While giving a presentation on “Gulliver’s travel” one of the students due to her nervousness said “she drinks” instead of saying “He drinks”. However, eye contact is very important while interacting. As in BSII the eye contact was greatly observed between the teachers and the student while presentation. But in BSI eye contact was not seen due to the lack of confidence. They were not using proper eye contact with either the teachers or the other students. As they use to look at the paper on which they have written some important points related to their presentation topic. Some students were continuously looking at the front row students whereas some of the just only look at their teacher throughout the presentation. Students also started using Urdu language at the point where they were unable to explain their idea in English. Not very much fluently but somehow they were much better than the other.

It was observed that the student of BSII was very mush confident as compared to BS I students who feel more anxious of being criticized by other. As one of the students get very much anxious and forgot the point of her presentation. As during her presentation when the other students start talking with each other and creating a disturbance in the class. That makes her very much tensed and her hands start shivering and sweating due to the fear of negative evaluation.

Lastly, it was also observed that when their teacher or classmate asks questions about their presentation topic so the students of BSI become anxious than the students of BSII. As the students of BS II were answering the questions very confidently which were asked by their classmates or teachers. Whereas it was highly observed that one of the BSI students become very mush confused due to her nervousness when the teacher asked her to give the summary of chapter 8 of “Gulliver’s travel” which was already discussed by one of her group members, but she still unable to explain it due to her communicative apprehension.