Dealing with foreign language anxiety A study of how English teachers in Sweden help students overcome anxiety in oral presentations in secondary school

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Örebro University

Department of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences English

Dealing with foreign language anxiety

A study of how English teachers in Sweden help students overcome anxiety in oral presentations in secondary school

Author: Simon Bergquist Degree Project Essay Term 8 Supervisor: Dr. Nele Põldvere

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Abstract

In this study, I investigate how foreign language anxiety affects students’ performance during oral presentations. The study also explores how secondary school teachers in Sweden work with anxious students before, during and after an oral presentation and what approaches and exercises they find effective to use when doing so. Foreign language anxiety is a relatively new subject within language education and impacts language learning in various, mostly negative, ways. The data is collected from interviews with secondary school teachers in Sweden. The result show how these teachers identify FLA and what effects they believe it has on their students. The result also gives insight into how the teachers approach all three stages of an oral presentation to reduce symptoms that lead to increased anxiety. The study

concludes by comparing the teachers’ choices to theories within language teaching to establish a pattern of what strategies are effective when dealing with FLA. In this study, I highlight the benefits of using oral presentations based on research and why every student should be given help to overcome their anxiety, so that they are prepared to use their English in high-pressure situations, such as during an oral presentation.

Key words: foreign language anxiety; oral presentations; teaching strategies; speech anxiety; communicative classroom; holistic approach; audience

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1. Introduction

Anxiety is a common emotion associated with speaking. One form of anxiety is called foreign

language anxiety (FLA), which refers to a specific type of anxiety when using a language

different from one’s native language. According to Horwitz et al (1986), FLA is tied to a specific situation where students feel a negative emotion towards learning a second or foreign language, which limits their language learning in the classroom (p. 125). Based on that

definition we could assume that this type of emotion occurs in a variety of situations. One specific situation where FLA has a counterproductive effect is during oral presentations. When a student is speaking, they need to simultaneously manage both the mental process of figuring out what they are trying to convey as well as the articulatory process (Goh, 2018, p.208). Struggling with anxiety simultaneously only makes things harder for the student, which ultimately hinders their ability to perform up to the best of their abilities. Oral presentations are considered a stressful task that may cause a lot of anxiety for the students. Standing in front of a class all alone with the other classmates watching is to some

frightening. It is, therefore, crucial that all students have ways to deal with their anxiety towards speaking a foreign language during this time so that their ability to perform is not hindered by something unrelated to their English-speaking abilities.

In the curriculum, there are references to students’ ability and confidence to use English in various situations. This is explicitly mentioned under the aim of the subject as follows:

Undervisningen i ämnet engelska ska syfta till att eleverna utvecklar kunskaper i engelska språket och kunskaper om områden och sammanhang där engelska används samt tilltro till sin förmåga att använda språket i olika situationer och för skilda syften.” ‘The English classes should be used to develop students’ abilities in the English language and in areas where English is used as well as create

confidence in their ability to use English in a variety of situations for different purposes.’ (Skolverket, Läroplan 34).1

This means that teachers need to help their students build confidence so that their students can successfully participate in various situations that they are going to face both in their future education as well as in different working environments later in life. Furthermore, this

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2 indicates that teachers are required to work with students that are showing signs of FLA, so that the students are well equipped to handle any situation that they face.

A common exercise that is used when teaching spoken English is oral presentations. Živković (2014) argues that students need opportunities to develop and practice their language abilities in situations where their communicative skills are being put to the test (p.468). By using oral presentations to test students’ English abilities, teachers create a high-pressure situation such as standing in front of an audience. This is stressful as the student needs to share their

knowledge with their peers while knowing that they are simultaneously being graded on their performance. While this is a good way to test how students perform orally, it also creates problems for students struggling with FLA. Therefore, teachers need to be aware of the complications that may appear before they pick oral presentations as a task. According to Hedge (2011), teachers always need to think about the purpose and characteristics of the spoken assignment as it will help them navigate the language skills that they are focusing on (p.264). If a student shows any signs of FLA, then the teacher’s preparation should work as a guide to help them plan how they will assist their student so that the student can overcome the anxiety that they may feel. Despite the stress that comes with oral presentations, studies show the importance of presentation skills for future academic success (e.g. Živković 2014;

Pappamihiel, 2002), providing support for the usefulness of oral presentations in educational situations. Thus, teachers seem to have no choice but to work to alleviate the negative effects of FLA on oral presentations.

Several studies mention that FLA is a problem that plagues a lot of students and hinders their ability to perform (e.g. Horwitz et al 1986; Mac lntyre & Gardner, 1989; Pappamihiel, 2002). However, it is not a topic that is often discussed in the Swedish educational context or the curriculum published by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket). In fact, in the curriculum it is not even mentioned once, neither emphasized nor talked about. To many, it is a foreign topic and it is not something that, in my opinion, is being given enough

attention in the subject-teacher program. Before doing this study, I had personally never even heard of the topic. The fact that new teachers begin working without any knowledge related to FLA and are supposed to find out about it along the way is a major concern based on what we know about its negative effect on learners from previous research. With research addressing FLA since the 80s and teacher education programmes still needing to catch up, I believe that this study is very important for the Swedish school system and for teachers unsure about ways to work with FLA.

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1.1 Research questions

In this study, I will investigate the effects of FLA on students learning English as a second language and identify the exercises, strategies and methods that English teachers in Swedish secondary school use to help their students reduce their anxiety. I will specifically look at how teachers work with their students before, during and after an oral presentation. I will explore the teachers’ approaches to reducing anxiety, specifically in the areas that they believe are important to work on to improve confidence in speech and presentation. My two research questions, which are the foundation of my study, are as follows:

1) How does foreign language anxiety affect performance during oral presentations in Swedish secondary school?

2) In what way do teachers help their anxious students before, during and after an oral presentation?

My hypothesis is that FLA affects student performance negatively during oral presentations and that teachers use various methods to ensure that every student is prepared to perform to the best of their abilities. I hypothesise that the methods used are similar to the ones used within communicative language teaching (CLT). Finally, I assume that the teachers will implement a similar if not the same approach that they used before the presentation to further help the students improve on areas that affected their performance. The data will be gathered by interviewing active secondary school teachers that are currently teaching English.

2. Background

This section provides insight into the two main areas that my study will focus on. It comes in three parts. The first part will focus on foreign language anxiety, its definition and how it affects second language (L2) learner’s ability to learn English. The second part focuses on FLA in relation to oral presentations, why it is used as a form of examination and the benefits of using it in education. The third and final part will focus on various teaching

strategies/approaches and how they are used to improve certain language skills that are affected by FLA in oral presentations. The purpose of this part is to give a theoretical

foundation behind the choices that teachers make when working with students before, during and after presentations.

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2.1 Foreign language anxiety

Horwitz et al (1986) describe FLA as a collection of feelings that negatively impact foreign language (FL) learners’ communicative abilities, especially in the form of anxiety or stress (p.127). The topic itself is relatively new within teaching. Kráľová and Sorádová (2015) explain that FLA appeared on the researchers’ radar in 1981 when Krashen (1981) first

brought up that there could be other factors affecting foreign language learners negatively that does not relate to lack of language knowledge (p.2). Krashen (1981) began looking into external factors such as anxiety as something that could affect how well students in educational systems perform over a certain period of time. The feedback was often that learners felt stress in situations where they were to be evaluated on their progress, resulting in increased anxiety (Krashen, 1981 p.23). Increased anxiety is a major problem for L2-learners. Gregersen (2008) explains that FLA students usually have a very high or unrealistic view of what is expected of them, which leads to negative thoughts and poor performance. This in turn impacts language learning. The effect of anxiety on L2 student development is according to Dörnyei (2005) directly tied to how well they acquire a foreign language. He explains that learners dealing with FLA will show worse verbal abilities compared to their peers and struggle with oral delivery, hindering their ability to develop as English speakers (Dörnyei, 2005, pp.199-201).

According to Horwitz et al (1986), FLA is physically visible for teachers in the classroom. Some noticeable signs include sweating, apprehension, freezing, difficulty concentrating, going blank and avoidance behaviour (p.127). Horwitz et al (1986) explain that students who display avoidance behaviour are inclined to miss class and postpone homework, which interferes with their language learning process. This is similar to how avoidance behaviour is understood in the field of communication approach, which is discussed in more detail in Section 2.3 below. The signs above can be noticed in all four language skills but are most visible for teachers during speaking exercises (Horwitz et al, 1986, p.126).

Gregersen (2008) explains a few ways that FLA effects students in the English classroom. He argues that students who experience FLA may forget previously learned materials, be less likely to put in the required amount of work needed in areas they feel uncomfortable in and may even miss class on the assignment dates (Gregersen, 2008, p.388). Liu and Chen (2015) also mention self-esteem as directly linked to FLA, as learners with low self-esteem usually fear to speak in front of the class, leading to built-up stress (p.195). The negative effect of FLA on a students’ language development makes it so that those unaffected can improve on a

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5 better and more frequent basis, creating a divide in the classroom’s overall progression. Skills that are affected include pronunciation, fluency and depth, which may slow the student down. If not led in the right direction their long-term growth could be severely reduced. Horwitz et al. (1986) discuss using systematic desensitization to reduce FLA. This is a method that therapists sometimes use to treat different types of anxiety such as language learning anxiety, where the student is gradually exposed to a certain situation that they feel uncomfortable in (p. 131). One specific situation where this may be useful in education is when a teacher is working with an activity that causes a lot of pressure for their students, such as oral presentations.

2.2 Foreign language anxiety and oral presentations

Speaking in front of a crowd is for many people a common occurrence, whether in a work-related context or during studies. Oral presentations, as a method of practising talking in front of an audience, have for a long time been considered a good activity for teachers to use to help develop communicative competence for L2- learners (King, 2002 p.401). Knowing how to talk to multiple people with a purpose of convincing/informing is a vital skill to have so that the student will be able to manage a variety of jobs in a global society outside of the academic setting (Sadhwani & Sheetz, 2018; Živković, 2014). Therefore, the teacher must give the L2-learner multiple opportunities to practice this specific method of communication during their education. An oral presentation does not only test a student’s ability to study a topic and present it. It also includes listening to other people present, which makes the student reflect on their performance (Živković, 2014, p.129). However, oral presentations are

considered a high-pressure situation that can undermine a student’s confidence and lead to complications in the learner’s development (King, 2002, p.403). Sadhwani and Sheetz (2018) explain that teachers use oral presentations to give feedback to their students based on

performance and skill level or to grade the students’ current abilities (p.2). A student dealing with FLA could, therefore, receive feedback or a grade tainted by their anxiety. This shows how important it is for teachers to be able to identify FLA students so that they can assist them before, during and after their presentation.

According to King (2002), three factors may lead to a student failing to deliver an oral presentation, speech anxiety, group boredom and limited presentation skills (p.404). Firstly, speech anxiety can be compared to FLA in many ways. According to Mulac and Sherman (1974), signs of speech anxiety “include a quivering or tense voice, lack of volume,

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6 tension, fidgeting or motionless arms and hand.” (p.304). These signs are similar to the

physical signs of FLA illustrated in Horwitz et al (1981). Secondly, during a presentation, it is the teacher’s job to make sure that group boredom does not affect the person standing in front of the class. The classroom needs to have the right conditions for the students presenting, to make sure that they do not get negatively affected by their classmates. Finally, presentation skills can be practised in advance to make sure that the student can present optimally. This includes showing the students how they can use tools such as PowerPoint or showing a video of someone delivering a presentation and discussing the good and bad qualities of the

presenter. It is, therefore, important that the teacher is aware of these aspects before choosing oral presentations so that their students can perform to the best of their abilities.

2.3 Approaches to reducing anxiety before, during and after oral presentations

A teacher uses various teaching approaches when they’re teaching in a classroom. These teaching methods can be used to target certain skills that the teacher wants to practise. If a teacher decides to use oral presentations in their education, then they need to be aware of various language skills that may need training before the student is ready to perform. This is where the teacher needs to evaluate the teaching approaches that they want to use so that they can reach the goal they have in mind for their students. These approaches need to be

considered before, during and after the presentation. The teacher needs to be able to prepare their students before they go up, help them during their presentation and have a plan to follow up on their work to help them for further presentations. King (2002) argues that the teachers’ role becomes very time consuming and demanding if they choose to do oral presentations. She explains that the teacher must put a lot of time into preparation to achieve the desired results. King (2002) explains that the teacher serves as the guide that the student can listen to and that they turn to for help. It is the teacher’s job to organize, help pick topics or guide the students’ research to make sure they can deliver a successful presentation (pp.407-408). This requires the teacher to be aware of the different scenarios that may occur and have prepared strategies for dealing with any possible outcome.

As oral presentations are a stressful task with many obstacles, it falls on the teacher to find a way to make them doable. The teacher’s job is, therefore, to know what strategies and exercises are suitable for them to use, so that they can help their students before, during and after the presentation. These teaching tools function as a nice foundation that teachers can base their choices on when they are teaching in the classroom. Burns (1998) explains that teachers usually use either a direct/controlled approach or an indirect/transfer approach when

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7 teaching spoken English. The direct/controlled approach focuses on the development of the speaker’s accuracy through controlled language use and practice. This can, for example, be practised using pattern practice, drills and consciousness-raising (Goh,2018, pp.206-207). The indirect/transfer approach, on the other hand, focuses on fluency with the aim to develop learners’ communicative skills in everyday activities. These activities are usually more centred around the students and is practised in discussions and debates (Goh,2018, p.207). Teachers may, therefore, use the approach that focuses on aspects that they want their students to improve on.

With regards to FLA, the teacher needs to make a choice on how they want to help their students. Before doing an oral presentation, the teacher needs to identify the students that are dealing with FLA, so that they can properly plan to reduce the students’ anxiety over the course of their lessons. Gregersen (2008) states that the teacher’s ability to understand the nonverbal cues from an L2 student that struggles with FLA and how they differ from the behaviour of a student unaffected by FLA is of key importance to solving the matter (p.390). It could be patterns that show over time such as acting a certain way in the classroom, negatively reacting to certain tasks or avoiding sharing their progress on their topic. The teacher could also pay attention to physical signs to identify certain behaviours that are related to FLA. According to Faerch and Kasper (1983), teachers need to be aware of two types of learners when working with a communicative task. These learners are categorized into students who engage in avoidance behaviour and students who engage in achievement behaviour. A teacher may identify avoidance behaviour in the classroom if they notice that a student tries to eliminate their problem by either changing the topic or not participating in a conversation (Hedge, 2011, p.265). This is different from achievement behaviour, which is where the student figures out their strategies to deal with the issue. An example of a student showing achievement behaviour may include dealing with the lack of linguistic knowledge by using their first language to complement their English vocabulary or talking around the sentence to describe what they mean (p.266). This is especially relevant for this study because Horwitz et al (1986), describes avoidance behaviour as one of the signs of FLA. In a study by Goh (2018), further connections between anxiety and avoidance behaviour are made, which shows the importance for teachers to be aware of this behaviour (p207-208). This allows, the teachers to identify as early as possible what students may need some extra help and

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8 When teaching spoken English teachers may use a CLT approach. This focuses on the spoken interaction between learners with the goal that the students should learn a language through communicating in a specific language. One important aspect for teachers teaching spoken English in a communicative classroom is that the students can feel confident in their spoken abilities so that they feel comfortable in expressing their ideas. This is referenced in the curriculum as well, emphasising the importance of confidence in various situations

(Skolverket, 2011, p.34). Hedge (2011) explains that using controlled practise in a group of students can create a good environment where they can practise their language together (p.276). Mainly, as the pressure is less because there are fewer people listening. This can be done, for example, by doing pair work exercises or discussing a chosen topic in a small group. This would, according to Hedge (2011), ease stressful situations and lower risk-taking when learning a language. Doing exercises in a less stressful environment may, therefore, help build confidence towards a high-pressure task, such as an oral presentation. It is crucial for teachers to make sure that their students are feeling comfortable and confident before and during an oral presentation, to ensure that the student performs to the best of their abilities. A confident student is more likely to be able to handle the effects of FLA, resulting in better foreign language performance (Horwitz et al, 1986). Confidence in spoken English comes from being well acquainted with the language, usually by having a rich vocabulary and being well

practised in using it. It is, therefore, beneficial for teachers to make sure their students can practise their vocabulary in multiple situations so that they feel confident in their spoken skills. This includes using the appropriate English vocabulary when speaking to other people, such as when to use formal words or a more relaxed language.

One useful approach that teachers can use when teaching spoken English is called a holistic approach, which covers a variety of language skills targeted in communicative teaching. One of these language skills deals with key features of speech. According to Hedge (2011), this includes features such as rhythm, stress, pitch, volume, pace and voice setting indicating attitude or mood (p.270). We know that all these factors are present during an oral presentation and that each student is better or worse at them. If the teacher notices that a speaker is struggling with any one of these features, then they can use exercises related to vocabulary training to improve in these areas before the students’ next presentation. The holistic approach includes a variety of relevant exercises that may help. For example, asking students to repeat certain sentences they hear, check up on pronunciation from time to time by asking them to pronounce a certain word or listen in on student conversation, to name a few

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9 (p.271). In sum, once a teacher has noticed signs of FLA and can identify the source of the anxiety that affects the student’s oral presentation, they can use a method that they believe will help their students overcome their anxiety.

3. Method

The method section provides further details about how the empirical study was planned, completed and analysed. This includes the choice of data collection method, which in this case was interviews with English teachers, including the reason why it was chosen over other methods, ethical considerations, the participants of the study and the procedure of carrying out the interviews.

3.1 Semi-structured interviews

A common method within applied linguistics is semi-structured interviews (Dörnyei, 2007, p136). Semi-structured interviews were also the method chosen for this study. Interviews were preferred over questionnaires as they provide specificity and depth as well as allow the researcher to adjust their questions during the qualitative interview. As argued by Cohen et al (2007), interviews allow for flexible data collection and give space for spontaneity where the interviewer can make sure to elicit comprehensive and in-depth answers (p.349). Being flexible allows the researcher to ask follow-up questions based on the teachers’ answers and receive more detailed answers, which is not possible with a quantitative method. Interviews do, however, require a lot of time, as the researcher needs to plan their interviews, find

participants and transcribe the data under a set time. This ultimately means that the researcher is limited to how much data they can collect based on how much time they have and how willing the participants are to participate. The interview followed an interview guide approach, which means that the questions and topics were all specified in advance. My

interview guide was based on Brymans (2011) model of preparing qualitative interviews, with clear themes that allowed the interview to flow naturally (p.422).

3.2 Participants

A total of 8 secondary school teachers were asked to participate and out of the 8, 3 teachers agreed to participate.2 The participants in this study were all English teachers at a secondary

school in Sweden. All three teachers were responsible for a specific year group, meaning that they were teaching years 7, 8 or 9. They came from different parts of the world where English is the native language. Also, they had different experiences in teaching English. The number

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10 of years that they had been a teacher in Swedish secondary school varied from around a year to over 15 years. The teachers will be referred to as T1, T2 and T3 when discussed later. In addition, I interviewed one teacher currently teaching younger students in “mellanstadiet”.3

She will be referred to as T4. However, her data was not used to answer the research question, but it helps to give some context and understand the prior work that the students may have gone through before they come to secondary school. It also confirms some of the speculations among secondary school teachers about what previous work former teachers have done. Therefore, the responses of T4 will be brought up very briefly in response to what the secondary school teachers say.

3.3 Procedure and ethical considerations

The interviews were carried out over the course of one week in April 2020 and took slightly over 40 minutes each. Prior to the interviews, the guide was piloted by first being discussed during a workshop about interviews and questionnaires and afterwards with an English teacher trainee not present during that workshop. The ideas from the workshop and the feedback from the trainee were used to make sure each question was clear before the real interviews were conducted. All interviews were held in English.

Before conducting the interviews, ethical considerations needed to be addressed. Each participant received an explanation of the study before the interview day and was given time to read through an informed consent form explicitly stating how the data will be used. The consent form also provided information about the participants’ rights to withdraw their consent to participate at any time. The participants picked their preferred location and the time/date that they wanted to do the interview to make sure they were in a relaxed

environment and not under time pressure. This was important due to the stressful situation around the COVID-19 pandemic. The teachers were asked if they were fine with being recorded prior to starting the interview. In sum, the study was conducted in line with the rules and regulations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

After recording each teachers’ responses, I transcribed each interview in order to turn the teachers’ responses into written form. According to Cohen et al. (2007), transcription is a crucial step in the data collection process to prevent mass data loss, which in turn can result in the loss of valuable information (p.365). To use the most out of the transcript I coded my data and categorized them in groups of meaning (themes). Based on how often something was

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11 mentioned, the response was slotted into a fitting group then used for the analysis (Cohen, et al. 2007, 356). This also helped me notice similarities in the answers during the interviews and use them to draw a conclusion related to my research questions.

3.4 Interview questions

The interview guide used in this study had three background questions and a total of 6 main questions with a final question that allowed the interviewee to add further comments in case they felt that I had missed something. Each main question had sub-questions that aimed to either collect information that might have been missed during one of the main questions or to add further depth to the answers. The main questions were divided into two categories. The full interview guide can be found in Appendix A.

The first category consisted of questions focusing on foreign language anxiety. It focused on how the teachers identify students struggling with FLA, how they work with those students before, during and after an oral presentation and the effects FLA has on their

performance/grade. Some questions are shown in Table 1. Table 1

Sample interview questions about FLA in general and in relation to oral presentations

Question 1 Have you ever identified a student that is struggling with anxiety towards

speaking?

Question 2 A common method of testing oral skills is via oral presentations. What are

your thoughts around how anxiety affects students’ performance when they’re doing oral presentations?

Question 3 Do you notice any physical, psychological or behavioural changes that might

affect your students’ performance and grade?

Question 4 How do you do to prepare students that might feel anxious towards presenting

in front of the class?4

The second interview category focused on the strategies, approaches and exercises that the participants used. The purpose was to see what type of exercises teachers believe are valuable to use when doing presentations and helping students overcome their anxiety. By gathering

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12 this information, I aimed to receive at least a few examples of how teachers prepare their students for the oral presentation, which I could then link to previous research on the topic. Some questions are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Sample interview questions about teaching strategies and approaches

Question 1 Do you use any specific teaching strategies when you work with preparing the

students for the presentations? A practice exercise or approach that you find effective.

Question 2 Are these strategies based on experience or research?

Question 3 Do you see a difference in student development from when you have

implemented these strategies/approaches? In short, how do they affect your students?

Question 4 Do you have any examples of a student whose grade has improved after

you’ve worked with them?

In sum, the questions used in the interview guide gathered information that was important in order to answer my research questions. The questions provided answers to how the teachers identified FLA and how they worked with their students before, during and after a

presentation to reduce their anxiety. Those answers make up the result of this study.

4. Results

The purpose of this section is to present the results from my interviews. Section 4.1 addresses the first research question about the effect that FLA has on L2 students in Swedish upper secondary school. More specifically, this section presents the participants view on FLA, how it affects oral presentations and how they notice that a student may have problems dealing with their anxiety. Section 4.2 provides insight into the other research question. This section includes exercises or ideas that the teachers find useful during each stage of the presentation. It is divided into four subsections, addressing how teachers work with students before, during and after their presentations, and it also includes the teachers’ perspective on why they may skip doing the presentations in relation to FLA.

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4.1 How foreign language anxiety affects students in the English classroom

Anxiety in the English classroom is a common occurrence according to all the teachers. Even if it varies between different tasks and varies in level, from mild symptoms to a medical condition, all three teachers agreed that it is something that impacts students’ abilities to speak English in some way. All three teachers also talked about the effects of it on oral

presentations. While the teachers had a lot of ideas on how they would reduce anxiety a lot of them avoided using their solutions in relation to Horwitz et al’s (1986) foreign language anxiety. They said that they were unsure whether it was presentation anxiety in general, or if it was related to English specifically. The interviewed teachers would then address factors that were related to FLA but avoid making the connection.

First, T1 explains that a lot of his students feel very anxious towards speaking exercises in general, so doing an oral presentation is a big deal to them. T1 explained that when the

student needs to talk in English, he or she can feel like they are not being understood correctly and that they feel like they may be looked at in a bad way. T1 said that it can get to a point where the experience of doing an oral presentation is so unpleasant for his students that it negatively impacts their learning. T1 noticed these signs during various communicative exercises when students were talking to each other in front of all their classmates. According to T1, the audience is a big factor in all of this, and the bigger the crowd, the more noticeable is the anxiety.

T2 explained that he could see clear signs of anxiety when a student gives a presentation. It could be tripping over words when they were talking or physically shaking while standing in front of the class. T2 also said that some students tended to speak in a low voice even though they show signs of very good English skills in other areas. The symptoms that T2 noticed came from both strong and weaker students and impacted their presentation to different degrees. T2 also shared a few rare cases where students would even leave the classroom. He explained the situation as follows:

Some students are quite stubborn, and I like it. But once they get there, they are like “ok I’m here” and they will stumble and stutter over the word for like 25 minutes. You definitely see physical signs too like nervousness. Only a couple times have I had students stop halfway and just leave the classroom.

So, in this case, the students’ anxiety lead to a very negative experience and resulted in a bad performance. T2 explained that the anxiety would usually be less in smaller groups but be

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14 more apparent in larger presentations where there was a bigger audience. Moreover, there seems to be a difference between the different grades. T2 believed the year 9 students, in general, showed fewer signs of anxiety but that younger students would have a bigger problem with anxiety, as the year 9 students had developed further in their English skills. T3 shared similar thoughts to T2 about the anxiety that students may show during

presentations. T3 had a lot of experience teaching the younger secondary school students and confirmed that she had a few cases of very anxious students every year. T3 explained that even though high-proficiency students would show signs of anxiety when presenting it was the weaker students who tended to have the hardest time. As, the high-proficiency students would usually go through with the presentation either way, despite their anxiety. T3 noticed signs of withdrawal from discussions or students being afraid of other people’s perceptions of them based on their language ability. The weaker students would show signs of low self-esteem and see themselves as weaker English speakers compared to their peers. In

presentations, there could be verbal signs of anxiety such as nervous laughter or nonverbal cues such as flipping their papers or looking uneasy.

4.2 Reducing anxiety to improve student performance

The teachers in the interviews had a lot of thoughts about how they can work around the problem of student FLA when doing oral presentations. Their solutions usually included a lot of important factors to consider before, during and after the presentation to prepare their students so that they can perform without their anxiety being too big of a negative factor. However, the teachers also mentioned ways in which they worked around the presentations in some cases. The following sections will address how the teachers explicitly work with all three stages of oral presentations (before, during after) by discussing how they approach each part and the exercises or strategies that they use. It will also cover how the teachers at times reduced or removed the presentation for some students.

4.2.1 Preparing the students for the presentation

Preparing students before the oral presentation was crucial to all three teachers. They all agreed that oral presentations need to come later during the term to allow them to prepare the students to be ready. The participants shared ways that they found helpful when working preparing for oral presentations.

T1 emphasized exercises where the students practise communication in a more fun and relaxed way, using exercises such as drama or team bonding. T1 said that he was especially

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15 fond of using drama to improve s students’ communicative skills, which would help them if they would do oral presentations. He explained that dramas contribute to a lot of different positive aspects within language teaching and that a lot of skills that are being trained during dramas are useful when doing a presentation. He explained the effect of drama as follows:

I’m thinking about teaching the fundamentals of stage presence, vocalization or your physicality on stage, which could probably help some kids with public speaking and other exercises where they have to improvise and think on their feet, which can be really good for building confidence. I like ideas like that. That helps you get practice thinking on your feet. Public speaking is something that needs practice just like any other skill. To do it a lot.

T1’s approach was to use these exercises as a mean of improving his students’ spoken

abilities, which comes in handy during oral presentations. While he did not explicitly use it to prepare for the presentations, as he was not a fan of oral presentations, he spoke of the value of doing drama exercises to make sure that his students would be prepared if they present. T1 shared that he believed these exercises would be useful, as it helps the student to practise speaking without the pressure of a big audience. To him, the most important part was to put the students in an environment that is not stressful, but fun and engaging so that they can look forward to his lessons. He said that in order to create a good environment for teaching spoken English, the exercises should feel like they are modern and relevant to today’s society, as that creates ideal situations for learning English in a fun way.

T2 and T3 shared relatively similar thoughts to how they would prepare for a presentation. Both agreed on the advantages of doing a presentation on their students’ development and therefore the importance of doing at least a few each year in different forms. T2 talked about incorporating communicative exercises as often as possible. Instead of going for a controlled environment such as dramas, he explained how it was important to give students speaking opportunities as often as possible. For example, talking about certain topics, discussing a book or something that has happened in general. The focus was more on getting comfortable and feeling confident in the students’ abilities and removing any doubts that the students might have. He explained that he thought that a lot of L2-learners in Sweden feel like they do not sound good enough and that their communication is worse than other English speakers due to poor accent. Speaking a lot and reassuring them that they sound correct, speak well and that there is nothing wrong with speaking the way they do was something very important for T2. If one gets comfortable with their voice, they remove a big factor that L2-learners would get

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16 hung-up on, leading to increased comfort. Getting more comfortable would according to him allow his students to not be afraid of making mistakes, which allows him to focus on teaching language-related skills instead. He usually did this by letting his students work in smaller groups, where he could listen in on their communication and get a better picture of areas that the students need to work on so that he could then help them accordingly. T2 explained that it was important that this carried on throughout the term and not just prior to the presentation. T3 also talked about the importance of doing presentations after the students have had time to get comfortable and gained enough confidence. When I asked if she did any preparation work before the presentation, she replied with: “We do a lot of group work especially within the first two months of teaching if I haven’t taught them prior to that”. T3 added that she focused on games to get students to talk in the classroom and to improve on factors that may

contribute to FLA. She said that she played games with her students each week to work on the students’ confidence and to help them improve their vocabulary and feel more comfortable with their classmates. If the audience is not scary, then the aspect of a large crowd listening to a presentation becomes less frightening. The games could, for example, be word games. She explained that one could make a grid with nine letters and give the students two minutes to solve as many words as possible that contained nine letters. This would both be fun and still train their vocabulary. She also mentioned speed games where students do certain tasks in a short amount of time where they do not have time to think too much about things before. These games were very popular and allowed the students to talk in a fun non-pressure environment, even though the games could be stressful due to limited time. This creates an environment where the students’ performance did not matter despite it being a time-pressured situation. As oral presentations are considered a high-pressure environment T3 found it effective to let the students develop in a more safe and fun way. The students can then use what they have practised in their presentation later. According to her, these exercises can be considered experiencing stress in relation to language learning in a fun and safe way, rather than a stressful one.

All three teachers stated that a lot of preparation work for presentations was done in the earlier years of their students. They said teachers teaching in “mellanstadiet” usually do a lot of hard training and has a tougher time making sure that the students are ready for

presentations. T4, who works with students in that year group, stated that she had to do very small tasks at the beginning of classes to help build up the student’s confidence and comfort. By year 5-6 they would have improved a lot and T4 would have created a foundation for the

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17 secondary school teachers to work with. In sum, teachers like T3 make sure that the year 7-9 teachers’ job is a bit easier so that those teachers do not have to focus on teaching the

fundamentals of presentations.

4.2.2 Helping students feel less anxious during presentations

All participants talked about the environment in which the presentations are carried out and how it needs to be set up properly for the students to feel comfortable. Making sure the environment is quiet and that everyone is paying attention is a crucial step that each teacher must go through before their students go up to deliver their presentation. However, it is equally important that the teacher act respectful and show a good example for their students. All teachers stated that in order for their students to feel less pressure, they need to act the same as they want their students to act. In sum, it is the teachers’ responsibility to make sure that they create the best possible environment for their students to do their presentations. T1 said that it is important to make sure that the students know how to behave and show respect towards their classmates. He explained that they are still kids and the teacher need to make sure that they know that they are required to show the other students respect so that the student can perform at their best level.

T2 added some aspects that teachers may think about. He thought that it was important to also make sure that the anxious students feel like it is not a horrible experience and that they have the support of him and his classmates. When I asked what he specifically did as a teacher, he explained it as follows:

Eye contact and reassuring, nod, those things are good, and you know the students that want that because they are looking at you. They are not looking at their friends, they are looking at you like “are you listening to me? “, “am I doing ok?”, so you just need to smile and nod and make them feel like they are doing ok. I think that works quite well.

So, the teacher’s behaviour in the classroom is important to make sure that the students can focus on giving their best performance without worrying about the teacher judging them. By reassuring the students that they are doing fine, the teacher can eliminate external factors that the student may worry about, such as their grades or what others might think of them. T2 also put great emphasis on using visuals, such as PowerPoint, to get the attention away from the presenter. This would create the feeling that fewer people are staring at them and function as a reassurance of where they are in their presentation.

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18 T3 approached the presentation moment in a similar way. She said that she likes to keep her students well informed so that they know what to expect and explain to them what she will be doing during their presentation and how she expects everyone to behave. It was important to make sure that all students are listening and not showing signs of boredom, to ensure a good presentation climate. This includes things such as showing interest in the topic that is being presented and applauding for each presentation. She also expressed that it is vital that the teacher follows this too and does not say one thing and do another, as it would negatively impact the overall presentations and behaviours in the classroom.

4.2.3 Working on anxiety after the presentation

When we discussed how the teachers would follow up on the presentation the answers all pointed towards feedback. But when it came to how they work with anxious students after the presentation the answers differed a great deal. T1 mentioned how it was important to give only one piece of feedback to focus on, depending on what area is most important. T2

explained that the development talk, which is a meeting with the student, the student’s parents and a teacher held each term, is important for him. Those meetings would help the student address the problems themselves and set up a plan for how they are supposed to work on those problems during the lessons to come. The feedback that T3 writes down after an oral presentation is usually positive but contains some constructive feedback too for the students to work on.

T2 and T3 gave a few examples of how they would work on specific areas to reduce future anxiety. T2’s main idea was to work on the area that the student felt was the main source of their anxiety. Using the development talk, he would figure out what the students wanted to practice on and make sure that they got a lot of opportunities to work on those areas. He mentioned an example where a student was nervous towards speaking as they felt like they would say something that was incorrect. This student would want to speak up in class but would not feel comfortable doing it. Based on that feedback, T2 made sure to talk with the student during various exercises. The purpose of these talks was to make sure that the student knew the answer to the question before he asked it to the whole class. Mainly, to make sure that the student could answer it in front of their classmates. Being certain that the students knew the answer meant that he knew that he did not put the student in a situation that they could not handle. This resulted in the student feeling more confident, as they were able to say the right answer in front of their classmates. According to T2, this was an effective way to

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19 build up confidence for this student. In sum, T2’s approach would, therefore, work to prevent a moment that could cause anxiety by first checking that the student knew the answer.

T3’s feedback is mainly made up of pointers for the students to work on. She explained that she could then comment on the students’ progress during lessons. For example, if a student had problems keeping eye contact or showed signs of not engaging with their audience, she would say point that out in her feedback and then make sure to comment on it if she saw a student showing progress during another exercise.

4.2.4 Removing oral presentations completely

During the interviews, all three teachers presented cases where they allowed students to not do the oral presentation in the way it is commonly done. This result was very unexpected as a lot of research points to the importance of doing oral presentations, meaning that some or all the interviewee’s students miss the chance to improve their presentation skills or get fewer opportunities to become better presenters. This varied between the teachers. T1 had been avoiding oral presentations as a whole and used alternative methods of testing oral

communication. T2 and T3 had either reduced the audience to a smaller group or had taken small steps to prepare their anxious students to be able to present.

T1 expressed that he disliked oral presentations as a form of examination. He was aware of the values that oral presentations have and the life skills that students practise by doing

presentations but did not want to use it in his classes. He explained that presentations add a lot of unneeded pressure and take away from what is important, which is learning to speak the language. He would rather have his students present in forms of podcasts or videos than speaking in front of the class. T2 explained that he wanted all the students to present but that some of them are not able to manage it. In those situations, it was important not to do

presentations until his students were at least able to manage it in smaller groups. His solution was to start by getting his students to speak in class or read something out loud, with the goal to make them at least comfortable enough to do it in a less stressful setting. T3 explained that she let her students present to her alone if they felt that it would be easier for them, removing the crowd entirely.

5. Discussion

In this section, I will discuss the results of the interviews in light of my two research questions. In section 5.1, I will be comparing the teachers’ answers regarding how FLA affects their students with the research presented earlier in the study. I will also address how

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20 removing oral presentations (or simplifying them) was a solution proposed by the teachers to avoid dealing with FLA and the problems that come with it. In section 5.2 I’ll focus on the before, during and after stages of oral presentations and compare the methods that the teachers used with the methods/approaches used in research.

5.1 Foreign language anxiety in Swedish secondary school

In my first research question, I hypothesised that FLA would negatively impact a students’ performance during oral presentations in secondary school. My result indicates that FLA does not only impact the performance but can in some cases lead to a different learning experience. I expected the performance to be affected but I did not expect some of the teacher’s solutions. I hypothesised that the teachers would use certain methods to help their students get to a point where they would be ready to present. However, I did not expect some teachers to reduce the crowd as much as they did or remove presentations entirely to avoid the effects of FLA. In sum, my result aligned with previous research about FLAs general effects on students’ performance but showed alternate solutions that did not include oral presentations as it is generally done.

All participants talked about anxiety in their English classes and agreed that it was an issue, some more than others. The teachers all had ways of identifying anxiety and the signs they pointed out aligned with the definition of FLA where both the stage fright aspect and communication anxiety are present (Horwitz et al, 1986, p.127). They also expressed that their students displayed physical signs when presenting, such as stuttering, going blank and avoidance behaviour. Due to the negative effects of FLA, all three teachers used various solutions to help their students. Either by changing the presentation environment or removing presentations.

The most common situation where FLA showed was when a student went from presenting in front of a smaller audience to a larger one. Both T1 and T2 expressed an increased level of comfort for their students when doing smaller exercises, compared to larger ones. The increased anxiety tied to presentations evidenced in the interviews align with the statement presented by Kráľová and Sorádová (2015) about how students usually feel stressed in

situations where they are being judged based on their abilities. T2’s example of students going in front of their classmates to present for 25 minutes and stuttering through the presentation, or someone leaving in the middle of the presentation confirms some effects mentioned in research. Specifically, Gregersen’s (2008) statement that a students’ unrealistic view of their language abilities leads to a poor performance when they are presenting. Having a smaller

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21 group of friends would reduce the pressure by giving the students the opportunity to present in front of people who they are comfortable with. Signs of Sherman’s (1974) speech anxiety also appeared in T2 and T3 responses in relation to FLA. T2 talked about the students tripping over words and shaking, which can be related to nonfluencies and quivering and T3 talked about fidgeting in the form of students flipping their papers around. T3 also explicitly mentioned nonverbal communications as an important area to look at when identifying anxious students. This was mentioned by Gregersen (2008) as well in relation to FLA. Based on all these factors, we can with some certainty say that factors related to FLA were present in each of the teachers’ classrooms and that they were aware of those indications as problematic for their students’ development.

During the interviews, a few replies comparing weaker and stronger students surfaced that can be tied to avoidance behaviour and achievement behaviour. T3 said that the stronger students managed to do the presentation despite their anxiety whereas the weaker students tended to withdraw or not want to do the exercise. All three teachers talked about their students in terms of those who are comfortable speaking or not. The teachers addressed the importance of letting the students that do not feel comfortable have alternative ways of presenting. This further indicates the importance of being aware of behaviours that students may show so that those behaviours can be dealt with. Those who are not able to push through the anxiety would try to avoid doing the presentation at all, ultimately falling in the avoidance behaviour

category (Goh, 2018). These students would then need the teachers’ help to reach the goals in the subject and to have a way to show off their language abilities. To ensure that the student is assessed based on their language skills and that their grade is not affected by FLA, the teacher is required to be aware of these factors. Especially so that the teacher does not assess the student incorrectly. In sum, being able to identify the signs of FLA is vital to ensure that the students get the help that they need to improve their language and presentation skills.

5.2 Reducing anxiety by removing or changing the nature of oral presentations

When I asked the participants my questions regarding my second research question, I noticed a different way that the teachers would approach oral presentations in relation to FLA. They would to some degree change the nature of oral presentations or remove it entirely, meaning that these students would work on their spoken skills in other ways. However, all participants pointed out that the exercises that they would do instead were all useful in relation to oral presentation. The main reason behind this approach was that the teachers could make sure the students did not have to deal with a high-pressure situation, which the teachers believed could

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22 lead to a negative learning experience. The other methods of training spoken English would still help the students reduce anxiety as the students would feel more comfortable, which would let them show their knowledge in a more controlled environment. However, this approach could be problematic for these students later in their education or life should one of these students be exposed to a situation where they need to talk in front of a bigger crowd in English, as they would be unprepared to deal with their anxiety. This statement agrees with Živković’s (2014) research about the value of presentation skills in a global society as avoiding the problems may create a problem later in the student’s education and work life. However, presenting in small groups could be a good preparation for the student’s

development towards doing oral presentations. This approach is slightly different from a systematic desensitization approach, as the teacher does not expose their students to a very stressful situation (Horwitz et al. 1986, p.131). However, it does prepare the students to do the presentation by reducing the audience size, which can be systematically increased. If the teachers intended to use the smaller groups as a method of desensitization was, however, not explored during the interviews.

While a smaller group might work as a temporary solution, it would remove a lot of the benefits a presentation has if the students were to keep presenting in smaller groups long term. As secondary school is still a long road away from the end of a lot of the students’ academic studies, it would be a shame to miss the benefits that oral presentations bring to their overall language abilities, as presented in research (Živković, 2014). Some of the participants pointed out that the students practise presentations during other subjects and that those presentations may be enough to practice for the students to learn how to present properly. However, doing a presentation in a foreign language is very different from doing it in a student’s native

language, meaning that it would not be a reliable solution from an FLA point of view. For example, some university programs require their students to present their work via an oral presentation of some sort, as a form of examination. Missing out on that practice earlier in secondary school might result in failure to complete a course or not showing the knowledge that the student has, meaning that the problem was delayed instead of dealt with in secondary school. However, as doing oral presentations is not required in the curriculum, it is something that the teachers can skip without failing to fulfil any specific requirement by Skolverket. T1 said that his main goal was to measure someone’s English speaking abilities, not how they perform under pressure. T2 also said that the curriculum does not explicitly require his students to do the presentation in front of a big crowd and that this flexibility allows him to

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23 adapt his teaching methods to suit every student. I would, however, argue that oral

presentations are a very useful exercise to train confidence and ability to handle pressure, so removing the pressure may lead to a lack of belief in the student’s language abilities later during their life. As it is a requirement in the curriculum that the students should be able to confidently use English in various situations, the teachers would miss a great opportunity to train that goal (Skolverket, 2011 p.34). In sum, research points towards the benefits of oral presentations and if it is removed for a longer period of time, it may cause more harm than good for the student’s language development.

5.3 Teachers’ approaches to dealing with students’ FLA before, during and after the oral presentation

My second research question aim was to gather information regarding how secondary school teachers worked with their anxious students before, during and after a presentation. I

hypothesised that they would use approaches related to communicative language teaching and that they would have clear exercises that they would use before and after the presentation. My result showed that their exercises did lean towards more communicative based teaching and that they practised a lot of factors related to Hedge’s (2011) holistic approach. However, they gave various examples too along with guidelines to how they act during the presentation, which I did not hypothesis before my study. All the teachers had solutions to working with the students to prepare them before the presentation, how to teach them how to act during a presentation and a goal on how they would follow up on the students’ progress. Based on the teachers’ responses, the preparation stage was the most important part as it provided the foundation for a presentation without an overwhelming amount of anxiety. As previously mentioned, the teachers all had ways they liked to prepare their students.

All three teachers talked about skills that they wanted their students to practise, which can be compared to Hedge’s (2011) holistic approach. Factors such as rhythm, stress, pitch, volume, pace and voice setting indicating attitude or mood was present to some degree in the teachers’ exercises. T1’s approach to preparation indicates that this approach would give the student tools to practise public speaking using drama exercises and in that way build confidence in a more fun and controlled environment. When using this approach, the students would start off in smaller groups, where there is a smaller audience. This would be done by working on the small factors causing the anxiety and practising on the parts that need improvement before it becomes possible to do an oral presentation. This could also be viewed from the perspective of Burns (1998) direct/controlled approach. The smaller group exercises can be understood

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24 from Goh’ (2008) controlled environment, where the teacher could help develop the speaker’s accuracy through practice. T1 talked about being able to provide materials for the students to practise on and doing dramas would be a great way for him to see how the students work with that material. Once the student can improvise or talk more freely using their own words, they would be able to move on to more challenging exercises. However, it would still be based on the teacher’s guidelines and what he hoped to achieve.

T2’s approach to preparation was to make sure to practise spoken English as often as possible. T2 would do exercises related to the indirect/transfer approach, as he got his students to practise talking as much as possible about to everyday things (Goh,2018, p.206-207). T2 believe that talking about a topic that is interesting for his students, based on their interest, would create a more relaxed and non-stressful environment. This would, in turn, reduce anxiety within the exercise according to him. Hedge (2011) talks about the importance of listening in on student conversations to figure out where the teacher can assist (p.271). T2 would help the students get better in areas the students felt they needed to work on, and this would then according to him improve confidence and reduce anxiety towards bigger tasks. He would also work on improving the presentation skills by teaching the values of working with PowerPoints. This is according to King (2002) a crucial step towards delivering a good

presentation. Being prepared and well acquainted with how to do presentations was something that T2 valued a lot, which is also confirmed by research on the topic. In sum, T2’s approach focuses on smaller communicative tasks where the students have a chance to improve their language skills to gain confidence.

T3’s approach would focus on teaching skills that improve her students’ English skills, such as vocabulary or pronunciation, which would lead to them being more confident in their language abilities in general. This would then lead to a better presentation as the students have more language tools to use. The skills T3 works on are related to areas affected by anxiety such as the student’s speech or vocabulary.

The holistic approach to teaching spoken English would in all three cases be used to various degrees by the teachers to reduce the cause of a student’s anxiety. Specifically, to improve the language skills that affect their anxiety, so that makes it harder for them to do an oral

presentation. All three teachers spoke about building confidence and how important it is to create an environment that reduces stress in order to build up a sense of security in the

students’ language prior to doing a presentation. As previously mentioned, a confident student is more likely to be able to handle their anxiety, which leads to a better presentation (Horwitz

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25 et al, 1986). So, the emphasis on confidence seemed to be a major factor that the teachers worked on in reducing anxiety. Out of King’s (2002) three factors - speech anxiety, group boredom and limited presentation skills – only the first and third factor was in focus when it came to the preparation.

The common denominator for the teachers during the presentations was making sure that the conditions for carrying successful presentations were optimal. As previously mentioned, King (2002) talks about group boredom as one reason behind a failed presentation. All three

teachers made sure that their students were behaving the right way during the presentations and that the proper respect was given by the group. The data from the interviews all pointed towards oral presentations being stressful, so reducing all outside factors were very important. As explained by Krashen (1981), students usually feel stressed about being examined and tested, which in turn could lead to anxiety. So, the teacher needed to help with that by

behaving in a comforting way and making sure that the class act in a way that was helpful for the one doing the presentation. One important aspect of this is to make sure that the students can focus on their presentation and not other factors. As anxiety can make the students forget the material, they have prepared it is crucial that no one else impacts them in a way that could affect them and result in poor performance (Gregersen, 2008).

Providing feedback to their students was the most common answer among all three teachers regarding how they followed up on the presentations. Sadhwani and Sheetz (2018) talked about oral presentations as a tool for teachers to give feedback to their students. With the purpose of them improving on certain presentation skills that the teachers want to test, which seems to be the case here as well. However, the teachers did not only use it only to give feedback related to the presentation, but also to give feedback in areas which they thought it could help their student reduce anxiety for the next presentation. They had similar solutions to their preparation exercises such as, working in a way that helps the students improve based on the teachers’ feedback. This feedback would be related to a specific language skill that they could train, which in turn would reduce anxiety. In other words, if they felt like the anxiety could be reduced by working with vocabulary training, then they would do that as part of their exercises before the presentation. To summarize, all three teachers had various methods and approaches to how they would work with their anxious students. Once they had noticed symptoms that indicated that they might be dealing with FLA, then they would use various approaches to help their students overcome their anxiety. Even if their students may not be able to do presentations as they are generally done, then the teachers would find other ways to

Dealing with foreign language anxiety A study of how English teachers in Sweden help students overcome anxiety in oral presentations in secondary school