Teachers’ experiences and opinions of students’ second language anxiety in oral production tasks

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Teachers’ experiences and opinions of students’

second language anxiety in oral production tasks

A qualitative study of upper secondary school teachers’ cognition

Lärares erfarenheter och åsikter gällande elevers talängslan i ett andraspråk inför

muntliga uppgifter

En kvalitativ studie om gymnasielärares kognition

Adis Tucek

Karlstad University

LXAA02

Examensarbete för ämneslärare- engelska för ämneslärare

15 credits

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Title: Teachers’ experiences and opinions of students’ second language anxiety in oral production tasks

Titel på svenska: Lärares erfarenheter och åsikter gällande elevers talängslan i ett andraspråk inför muntliga uppgifter

Author: Adis Tucek Pages: 28

Abstract

The prevalence of the English language has enhanced the importance of both understanding and being able to communicate in English in different manners, such as orally. As this has become an important skill to master in school, it was of interest to research upper secondary school teachers’ beliefs and experiences concerning what constitutes pedagogically effective oral production assignments in the classroom, how the participating teachers work to reduce students’ anxiousness towards oral production in English, and how they plan and work towards a classroom climate that enhances students’ motivation towards oral production. It also becomes of interest to compare previous research and concepts to see whether

misconceptions and mismatches exist and potentially suggest implications for professional development. To understand teachers’ experiences and beliefs, a qualitative semi-structured study was conducted with five English teachers. The results showed a variety of strategies that the teachers found effective, but one similarity for three out of five teachers was

strategies where students work in groups. Regarding how the teachers work to reduce anxiety towards oral production, the results showed that four out of five teachers mentioned that small group tasks reduce anxiety. As to how the teachers plan and work towards a motivating classroom climate, four out of five teachers used strategies that took students’ interest, personal engagement, and/or students’ enjoyment into consideration when aiming for a motivating classroom climate. To research teacher cognition is important since teachers’ beliefs might affect what they do in the classroom and therefore affect students learning experience.

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Sammanfattning:

I och med utökandet i användandet av det engelska språket i världen så har betydelsen av att kunna kommunicera på engelska ökat. Eftersom att tala engelska har blivit en viktig

egenskap att lära sig i skolan var det därmed av intresse att undersöka gymnasielärares erfarenheter och åsikter gällande vad de ansåg var effektiva pedagogiska strategier för muntliga uppgifter, hur lärarna arbetar för att minska elevers ångest inför att tala engelska i klassrummet, och hur de planerar och arbetar för att skapa ett motiverande klassrumsklimat för att tala engelska. Det är även av intresse att jämföra vetenskapliga resultat med lärares åsikter om dessa ämnen för att se ifall det existerar missuppfattningar och potentiellt föreslå åtgärder för professionell utveckling. För att undersöka gymnasielärares erfarenheter och åsikter utfördes en kvalitativ studie i form av semi-strukturerade intervjuer med fem

engelskalärare i gymnasiet. Resultaten visade en variation av pedagogiska effektiva strategier men att tre av fem deltagare hade liknande strategier där elever arbetade i mindre grupper. När det kom till hur lärarna arbetade för att minska elevers ångest inför att tala visade resultaten även här att fyra av fem lärare trodde att arbeten i mindre grupper minskade ångest. Slutligen uttryckte fyra utav fem lärare att klassrumsaktiviteter som involverade eleverna i planeringen och utövandet samt aktiviteter som beaktar elevers intressen var bra strategier för ett motiverande klassrumsklimat inför att tala engelska. Att undersöka lärares åsikter och kognition är ett relevant forskningsämne idag då åsikter kan spegla vad man gör i praktiken och därmed ha en påverkan på elevers erfarenhet av lärande.

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1. Introduction and aims

The English language has become a global language that is used in science, politics, economics, and everyday life. With the prevalence of the language, the importance of both understanding and being able to communicate in English has grown as well. Skolverket (2011) writes that Swedish schools should aim to develop students’ English in general and enhance their will to use English in different situations. It is also stated in the aim of the subject that students should develop their oral production to be able to instruct, retell, summarize, explain, comment, and discuss but also to develop their strategies to contribute in different discussions. However, the development of students’ oral production has become more difficult and a more discussed topic. Hedge (2000) and Yule (2016) both discuss affective factors that can harm the process of learning a second language and cause demotivation. According to them, students can feel anxious about speaking a foreign

language in front of their classmates and therefore a lack of motivation to participate in oral presentations and other forms of oral tasks. Therefore, the classroom environment is important. Annerstedt (2007) writes that a positive classroom environment is closely connected to motivation and positive self-consciousness with students.

What English teachers think of English learning plays a role in their future teaching as it is shown that teachers rely on a network of beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge when planning classes and teaching (Woods, 1996). This means that teachers’ beliefs influence and affect students’ learning environment, language development, and motivation. The object of inquiry concerning teachers’ beliefs and opinions is known as teacher cognition (Borg, 2015).

Accordingly, the interest in researching teacher cognition has increased and has shown growing evidence that teachers are highly influenced by their beliefs and experiences. Borg (2015) states that language teachers’ cognition concerning the target language has an important role in how teachers approach and conduct their teaching. Hence the interest of teacher cognition regarding oral production and how teachers work in the classroom to reduce students’ anxiety towards speaking English.

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teachers’ opinions and experiences of this subject. Furthermore, it is also of relevance to research to what extent teachers’ strategies are backed up by existing research.

Research questions:

1. What are upper secondary school teachers’ perceptions on what constitutes pedagogically effective oral production assignments in the classroom?

2. How do the participating teachers work to reduce students’ anxiousness about oral production in English?

3. How do teachers work towards a classroom climate that enhances students’ motivation towards oral production in English?

4. How do the participating teachers’ answers correspond with previous research concerning the first three research questions?

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2. Background

In this section, different topics and terminology related to English oral production in Swedish schools will be discussed. The first topic to be discussed is relevant terminology (see Section 2.1) followed by general theory (see Section 2.2), theoretical framework (see Section 2.3), and previous research (see section 2.4).

2.1 Terminology

2.1.1 Anxiety

The term anxiety can be defined both as a mental and physical state, and therefore becomes difficult to define. However, this study takes the direction of anxiety being a mental state, as oral production challenges an individual’s cognitive skills and not physical. Scovel (1991, p. 18) states that ‘‘anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described by psychologists as a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object. Scovel’s definition is somewhat in line with what the Cambridge dictionary states. According to the Cambridge dictionary, anxiety is a term used when a human has an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness or worry about something that is happening or might happen in the future. However, in educational research, anxiety is usually classified as trait, state, or situation-specific anxiety. Trait anxiety refers to a stable personality trait where a person is likely to feel anxious in a variety of situations. State anxiety, on the other hand, is a temporary condition that is experienced at a particular moment. Finally, situation-specific anxiety refers to experienced anxiety in a specific situation such as speaking a second language (Spielberger, Anton & Bedell, 1976). It is worth mentioning that the latter is the most relevant type of anxiety in this study.

To narrow it down even further, this study focuses on foreign or second language anxiety, and more specifically anxiety towards speaking English as a second or foreign language among upper secondary school students in Sweden. Therefore, it becomes important to mention that the terms anxiety or second language anxiety in this study refer to situation-specific anxiety.

2.1.2 Motivation

According to the Cambridge dictionary, motivation is a term used when a human is enthusiastic about doing something while demotivation is a lack of interest in and

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Self-determination theory (SDT) can help explain the concept of motivation where the theory considers internal and external motivation as two different types of motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Josefsson and Lindwall (2010) define the term internal motivation as an individual’s natural will to accept challenging and new situations to develop as a human being. External motivation, on the other hand, is explained to be when an individual participates in activities in order to get external rewards such as to pass a test or get good grades that are not connected to their pleasure or satisfaction (Deci & Ryan, 2008). To give a more precise example, internal motivation can be a student completing oral production tasks with joy related to the specific activity whereas external motivation can be a student

completing such tasks only to reach a grade.

However, it becomes important to mention that this study does not aim to research different types of motivation but rather teachers’ general experience and opinions of students’

motivation towards oral production tasks as well as strategies that they use to enhance students’ motivation. Therefore, in this thesis, the term motivation is used as an umbrella term referring to students’ general will towards oral production, whether it is internal or external.

2.1.2 Classroom environment and classroom climate

Two terms that often are used interchangeably are classroom environment and classroom climate and therefore, it is of importance to explain the distinction between the two and to clarify which one is used in this thesis.

The distinction is not too complicated where classroom-environment refers to the physical setting of a classroom. Spinner and Fraser (2005) explain the term to be the physical layout of a classroom, including aspects such as class size and suitable materials. Classroom climate, on the other hand, is a multidimensional, dynamic, and complex space rather than a static space. Igiri et al. (2014) briefly explain it as a combination of teachers’ motivation of

students, classroom management skills, and teacher-student and student-student classroom interaction.

As to this thesis, it is the term classroom-climate that is of relevance where the term refers to the emotional aspect in the classroom, teacher-student and student-student interaction, and atmosphere. However, not all are aware of the distinction between the two definitions, and therefore, classroom-climate and -environment may be used interchangeably in the

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2.2 Theory

2.2.1 The Swedish school curriculum and Swedish school council

According to Skolverket (2011a), the subject of English in Swedish schools should aim to develop students’ English in general and enhance their will to use English in different situations and with different purposes. Therefore, a positive classroom environment and motivation towards using the English language become important in students’ language development. If students, on the other hand, feel unmotivated or anxious about speaking and using English, it can become problematic for their grades since Swedish students’ oral

production is examined and has a big part in their final grade in English (Skolverket, 2011a). Furthermore, Skolverket (2011a) writes that students should, through the English education in upper secondary school, be given opportunities to develop surety in oral production and to express themselves with variety and complexity. The students should practice oral

production both with peers and individually. With this being said, it is evident that how teachers plan, structure, and conduct their teaching to provide students opportunities to learn to speak English is highly relevant.

2.2.2 Teacher cognition

This study focuses on upper secondary school (gymnasium) teachers’ experiences and beliefs, which are also referred to as teacher cognition. Therefore, the term teacher cognition will be used.

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2.2.3 Anxiety and motivation

2.2.3.1 Anxiety and its effects in the classroom

Before discussing what factors cause anxiety towards second language production, it is of interest to present how anxiety can affect students. Something that may prompt English students’ anxiety can be situations where they are afraid of being evaluated or to fail which becomes the fundamental part of feeling anxiety in the classroom. According to Skiöld (1992), a student experiencing anxiety can be noticed in that the student is nervous, tense, sweaty, blushing, and sometimes shaking.

Furthermore, a student can become so nervous and feel such anxiety that the student’s speech becomes inconsistent, with many unnatural pauses with blackouts and pauses because the student forgets what to say. When students potentially experience the latter, anxiety can come to have a large effect on their grading. According to Skolverket (2011), students should be able to speak with some measure of fluency to receive a passing grade in English. However, if students experience blackouts due to anxiety, this is a problem for English teaching that needs to be discussed, especially if teachers’ strategies of oral production tasks can mitigate students’ potential second language anxiety.

2.2.3.2 Second language anxiety

The fact that some students are more successful at learning a second or foreign language has led to several investigations and plenty of research on the topic (Kráľová, 2016). Olivares-Cuhat (2010) writes that most of the research studies agree that the following factors play a significant role in language learning:

1. Cognitive factors (e.g., learning strategies, teaching strategies, language aptitude) 2. Affective factors (e.g., attitudes, motivation, anxiety)

It is evident that personality traits such as self-esteem and anxiety affect students’ second language learning process, including oral production.

A general definition of second language anxiety is the discomfort a person claims to feel when communicating and discomfort that may lead to a reluctance to speaking (Guntzviller, Yale, & Jensen, 2016). According to Kráľová (2016), it is not uncommon that language learners experience anxiety when they are in a situation that is perceived as threatening and/or beyond their ability to deal with the task. In such situations, anxiety becomes a natural consequence. Bilá (2013) states that most language learners experience strong speaking anxiety and indicate their inadequate speaking proficiency as a strong barrier in

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Second language anxiety can be divided into three different categories as follows:

1. Communication apprehension, which refers to the anxiety experienced in either real or anticipated communication with others.

2. Test anxiety, referring to the anxiety experienced either before, during, or after test situations.

3. Fear of negative evaluation; this category has already been discussed briefly and refers to distress over negative evaluation by others such as peers or teachers (Watson & Friend, 1969).

One can conclude that students might potentially experience anxiety in almost every aspect of speaking a second language, and therefore it becomes important to research how teachers work to reduce second language anxiety.

2.2.4 Motivation

Pinter (2017) states that learning the first language comes naturally in everyday life. Second language acquisition and learning do not. Therefore, motivation becomes an important term when dealing with second language learning. As mentioned in section 2.1.2,

self-determination theory can help explain the concept of motivation. SDT explains individuals’ behaviour through different types of motivational processes (Deci & Ryan, 2000). As

mentioned earlier, two important concepts within SDT are internal and external motivation. Internal motivation can be connected to oral production tasks when students find value, motivation, and joy in the activities. External motivation can, on the other hand, be

connected to students completing oral production tasks only to pass a test or get good grades. In addition, Hsiu (2007) defines external motivation as an event where the focus is on

accomplishing a goal that has been set up and not the work required to get to the goal. From an internally motivated student’s perspective, the joy of a special activity could be about enjoying learning English because it is fun and interesting. For an externally motivated student, the reward could be a specific grade, money, acknowledgment, and so on. When it comes to motivation for learning or acquiring a second language (L2), Dörnyei (2009) developed the L2 Motivational Self System. The central feature in this system is the Ideal L2 Self, which is a representation of oneself in future situations. For example, a learner might view her/himself as being more proficient in the L2 in the future. The second

component in Dörnyei’s model is the Ought-to L2 Self, which refers to a person’s motivation towards L2 learning to meet social expectations and to avoid negative consequences

(Dörnyei, 2009). Examples of such a situation could be a student not wanting to fail on a speaking test or not wanting to be seen to have less competence than a classmate.

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Wery and Thomson (2013, p.105) point to the importance of developing students’ internal motivation as it is better in the long run as internally motivated students are more likely to retain learned concepts and feel confident when tackling unfamiliar learning tasks.

2.2.5 Classroom climate

Hedge (2000), Josefsson, and Lindwall (2010), Mayer (2014), and Yule (2016) discuss the affective factors that can harm the process of learning a second language and cause

demotivation such as problematic classroom climate and self-consciousness. Accordingly, a too controlled climate or environment where teachers control everything can cause

demotivation. Also, students in their adolescence, which may mean increased self-consciousness, can feel awkwardness, anxiety, and demotivation in speaking another language. Mayer (2014), Josefsson and Lindwall (2010) discuss how the classroom climate can harm learning and state that students are likely to learn more and have more motivation towards learning if they are personally engaged in the activities. This means that strategies that include students’ interests could decrease anxiety and increase motivation.

In contrast, students can become demotivated if the activities are irrelevant or if there is too much information to comprehend. Josefsson and Lindwall (2010) argue additionally that internal motivation can diminish if the learning environment is perceived as too controlled and obstructive. In contrast, Annerstedt (2007) discusses that a positive learning

environment helps students feel comfortable, ready to learn, and willing to try their best during class. Therefore, the environment in the classroom becomes important for students’ development. Annerstedt (2007) writes that a positive environment is closely connected with motivation and positive self-consciousness and points to the way students’ self-consciousness can become both negatively and positively affected by their teachers. Accordingly, students’ self-consciousness becomes positively affected if the teacher shows interest in their emotions, hobbies, and lets the students have a say on what should be done in the classroom. Hedge (2000) and Yule (2016) further discuss how self-consciousness can harm a student’s learning where Yule (2016) argues that self-consciousness can create a strong element of

unwillingness and embarrassment in producing the sounds of another language. Hedge (2000) argues that students can find second language learning demanding as they might think their language proficiency is at a low level which can generate embarrassment.

Problematic self-consciousness is a typical problem for adolescent students and can result in demotivation.

2.3 Theoretical framework

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zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD is defined as ‘‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem‐solving under adult guidance, or in

collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). Therefore, it is of interest to research how teachers work and what strategies are used to help students reach the ZPD. In this study, the sociocultural perspective is associated with how the teachers plan, argue, and discuss factors that potentially might affect students’ motivation and anxiety towards oral production in English as an L2. Further, a sociocultural perspective can be used to potentially understand how teachers work and to explicate why some strategies may be more beneficial than others.

2.4 Previous research

The topic of second or foreign language anxiety has become a widely researched subject where there is ample research to present and discuss. However, this section will focus on previous research dealing with A) affective factors and strategies when it comes to oral production tasks and B) teacher cognition on second language anxiety. This will be relevant for the analysis of the results in terms of 1) comparison to see whether the results of this study are supported by existing research or not and 2), to generate a discussion about potential mismatches between the results and previous research (see Section 5).

2.4.1 Affective factors and strategies

Macintyre and Gardner (1991) researched, in more detail, anxiety in the classroom and revealed that the greatest anxiety seems to relate to negative experiences in previous speaking activities. Moreover, when reading previous research on aspects that might affect students’ oral production in English, several factors can be detected. For example, both Rahmani Doquarin (2014) and Lundberg (2013) state that self-esteem may be a factor that can affect how much anxiety students feel and how much English they choose to speak. According to Hedge (2000), the latter implies that teachers have both the power and responsibility to counter the development of anxiety by enhancing self-confidence,

comfortability, and decreasing anxiety through structuring positive speaking experiences. Accordingly, this can be done by providing reassuring feedback, promoting self-perception, and developing proficiency.

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1. Give time to consider group dynamics and how to build up cohesiveness within the class.

2. Make sure there is a sufficient variety of input (eg., listening, reading), of pace and intensity, interaction, and activities that allow students to work in their preferred style and strategies. In other words, allow students to have some responsibility for their own learning.

3. Show awareness of differences in motivation, emotional responses, and strategies as all students are different with different prerequisites to learn.

4. Acknowledge that language learning is a serious endeavour requiring perseverance and involving anxiety (Hedge, 2000, p.24).

A checklist such as the one presented could be constructed by any teacher and adapted to their students. As Skolverket (2011) states, no class is the same as the other, meaning that the teacher should structure lessons adapted for the relevant class. Moreover, Kerminda and Tsipklakides (2009) researched factors that might affect students’ motivation and usage of speaking English and stated that anxiety may play a big part. Furthermore, they researched factors that can mitigate students’ anxiety and pointed to the importance that teachers should focus on creating a positive classroom climate, how they divide students into groups during oral production tasks, and how they give feedback to students. Ahlquist (2012) also discussed the latter topic and stated that the role of comfortability plays a big part in students’ oral production, where students were more motivated when speaking about topics that they found interesting. Other research also points to the importance of creating a positive classroom climate. One example of such is a study by Arnold and Fonseca (2007), who state that a good emotional climate and environment can be crucial for students’ learning process and that such a climate is up to both teachers and students to create. However, the teacher is responsible for creating a learning environment in which students appreciate the value of learning a language and understanding the benefits of doing so (Arnold & Fonseca, 2007). Furthermore, Strömquist (1992) discussed and presented a strategy that would enhance students’ comfortability in oral production. Accordingly, comfortability, habits, and

progression were key factors in oral production tasks. Strömquist (1992) further presented

the systematic speaking practice which is a strategy based on progressions where students

start with easier tasks and then progressing towards more direct exposure. Such a strategy is advocated to mitigate students’ anxiety as the students would become more comfortable in speaking if they developed their speaking comprehension through the systematic speaking

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2.4.2 Teacher cognition on second language anxiety

The question of how many students are believed to experience second language anxiety was researched by Engelbertsson and Hjelm (2007). Their research showed that teachers believed that there are students in every class that experience anxiety, which was seen when some students chose not to speak in situations where they should speak, and when some students told the teachers about them feeling anxious.

When it comes to strategies used when conducting oral production tasks, previous research shows that students have opportunities to speak both in larger groups (e.g., presentations in front of class and smaller groups) and individually (Engelbertsson & Hjelm, 2007; Kalifa, 2018). Both studies indicate that the participating teachers believed that when students speak in smaller groups, the feelings of exposure and anxiety do not become as obvious as in front of the entire class. The teachers in Engelbertsson and Hjelm’s (2007) study stated that they try to reduce the seriousness of oral presentations as much as possible so that the students feel less anxious. Two strategies that teachers in Kalifa’s (2018) study advocated were to work with rules with the audience so that they would be aware of what was acceptable to do as a spectator. The second strategy was to speak and understand the students if they feel anxious, and to figure out what is causing such a feeling to try to make it better (Kalifa, 2018, pp. 29-33).

Palmér (2008) researched teachers’ opinions on oral production in the classroom and showed that teachers believed that different leadership styles may affect students’

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3. Methods

This section will describe the methods adopted in this study. Specifically, Section 3.1 focuses on the selection of participants, Section 3.2 on the data collection tool, 3.3 on ethical

considerations, and finally, Section 3.4 focuses on reliability and validity.

3.1 Participants

When researching teacher cognition about a specific topic, it becomes important how the participants are selected. Hassmén and Hassmén (2008) write, when it comes to qualitative studies, that handpicked selections may be the best method to use. This is because

handpicked selections are the most efficient as the researcher is interested to find as much informative and detailed results as possible. Therefore, the researcher must select

respondents who will be able to contribute to the results needed for the study (Hassmén & Hassmén, 2008). The participating teachers were from different schools but from the same region. The reason for not picking participants from the same school is because, from my experience, teachers at one school often work similarly, with similar strategies and similar tasks. Therefore, teachers from different schools were chosen so that the answers would not be too similar to one another.

One of the foci of this study is to collect upper secondary school teachers’ beliefs about students’ anxiousness towards oral production in English and how teachers work to reduce potential anxiety. Therefore, it is evident that the research requires teachers of English as participants. The participating teachers were first contacted through personal contacts gathered from my previous practical placements. During these initial conversations, no details of the study were explained. Then, an information email was sent out to the teachers who expressed interest in potentially participating in the study (see Appendix 2). More detailed, the email contained information such as the purpose of the study, methods, and ethical considerations.

Information about the participating teachers is presented in table 1; the teachers’ names are pseudonyms.

Table 1. Participating teachers in the study.

Teachers: Time working as

an upper secondary school teacher:

Classes: Subject

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Mujo 9 years _{Social-science}

program, Science studies

English/ Physics

Kajsa 3 years _{Business-science}

program

English/ Mathematics

Aisha 21 years _{Social-science}

program, economic program

English/ Spanish

Philip 14 years _Healthcare

program

English/ Swedish

Maskindi 8 years _{Social-science}

program

English

3.2 Collection tool: Semi-structured interviews

The data collection tool used in this study consists of semi-structured interviews. According to Ordell (2007a, p.194), a qualitative study in the form of semi-structured interviews has its interest in gathering perceptions, experiences, and other phenomena. Therefore, this method works in line with the study’s aims of researching perceptions and experiences (Hassmén & Hassmén, 2008).

According to Kihlström (2007), a qualitative interview is similar to an ordinary conversation but has a decided topic to discuss. The interviewer is supposed to decide which direction the conversation is heading and to stick with the topic. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews are interviews where the researcher is prepared with questions and subjects that are relevant for the interview, but also ready to be flexible with the sequence of the questions and is amenable to letting the respondents share their ideas in a more free and detailed way (Denscombe, 2009). Furthermore, semi-structured interviews allow the researcher to

understand teachers’ cognition in depth because they allow teachers to express their thoughts in a different and more detailed way than, for example, questionnaires.

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Further, all interviews took place via zoom, which is a digital meeting room that allows people to hold meetings and talk to each other without meeting in real life. This method was chosen due to the covid-19 pandemic, during which people might feel uncomfortable meeting new people, but also to take our responsibility to minimise the potential spreading of the virus. At the beginning of each interview, the participant was informed about ethical

considerations (see Section 3.3 and Appendix 1) and all participants agreed to continue their participation and to be audio recorded. The interviews then lasted between 25-45 minutes and were later transcribed by me.

3.3 Ethical considerations

For this study, teachers’ perspectives and experiences are relevant, therefore the qualitative methodology of semi-structured interviews has been chosen. The collected data comes from human participants which means that several ethical aspects should be considered and mediated to the participants. Ethical considerations refer to how participants and information can be treated, and how this is done is well explained by Vetenskapsrådet. According to Vetenskapsrådet (2017), the following ethical requirements should be considered while carrying out qualitative research: the information requirement, consent requirement, confidentiality, and utilization requirement.

The information requirement refers to the fact that the information and details of the study are public information (Vetenskapsrådet, 2017). This requirement was fulfilled by

participants being informed about the details of the study which include the aim of the study, method, ethical considerations, and utilization of data. This information was mediated through two strategies: email and phone conversation. Through email, participants were briefly informed about the aim, research questions, methodology, and ethical considerations of the study, and that the conversation would be audio recorded (see appendix 2). Further, the participants were informed about the study in more detail before the interviews through conversation on zoom.

When it comes to the consent requirement, the participants were informed, both through email and verbal discourse, that their participation is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time during the study (see appendix 2). During this consent process, it is important that the participants express consent towards being audio recorded and that they are informed that the collected data will be processed and listened to by the researcher only.

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participants. This is done by referring to all participants by fictional names and that the location of the collected data is not exposed.

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4. Results and analysis

The results and analysis are divided into three different topics that were discussed in the interviews. The three topics to be presented are second language anxiety (see section 4.1), oral production tasks and activities (see Section 4.2), and finally, classroom climate and motivation (see Section 4.3).

4.1 Second language anxiety

The respondents were asked to express their beliefs on a) what second language anxiety is and if they believe their students experience it, and b) how they work to reduce any potential anxiety.

Firstly, the participants were asked to define second language anxiety, and their definitions can be seen in table 2.

Table 2: Participating teachers’ definition of second language anxiety.

Teachers Definition

Aisha When students shake and are afraid of talking in

front of someone or several people.

Philip Fear of speaking a second language due to fear

of being ridiculed or receiving a bad grade.

Kajsa Fear of being ridiculed.

Maskindi Fear of making a mistake or making a fool of

oneself. Not want to be worse than their peers.

Mujo To experience difficulties about standing in front

of an audience or group and being afraid of saying something wrong or to just fail in general.

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almost all students, and finally, Aisha also said that the majority experience some sort of anxiety, but only in oral presentations in front of an audience. In more detail, Philip, Kajsa, Mujo, and Maskindi believed that their students felt much less or did not feel any anxiety when doing oral production activities in smaller groups or pairs. Philip more specifically stated:

Only in presentations in front of the whole class, but not when they speak in groups because then they mostly speak with friends they feel comfortable with. During such activities, I can almost always hear laughter in the classroom as well.

Philip, Kajsa, Mujo, and Maskindi’s belief that students feel less or no anxiety when speaking in smaller groups is in line with previous research presented in section 2.4.2 which states that when students speak in smaller groups, the feelings of exposure and anxiety do not become as obvious as in front of the entire class (Engelbertsson & Hjelm, 2007; Kalifa, 2018). The fact that these teachers’ opinions are in line with what previous research has shown can have an important role in students’ language development, because if teachers are aware of what research suggests or share similar perceptions as the research, they may potentially conduct a research-informed pedagogy. Being aware of what research says can help teachers to be aware of modern-day classroom difficulties and potentially also help them solve such difficulties (Hedge, 2000).

Furthermore, and moving on to b), how the participating teachers plan and work to reduce any potential anxiety, they all had different strategies that are best presented in a table (see Table 3):

Table 3: Strategies to reduce second language anxiety.

Teachers Strategy

Aisha I use a strategy in oral presentations where the

audience must summarise what the other group talked about. In this way, they do not focus too much on how someone speaks, but rather on their task. So those who speak do not feel as much pressure.

Philip As they are anxious when talking in front of the

whole class, we do small group activities with people they are comfortable with so that they do not feel anxious

Kajsa Well, to reduce anxiety in oral presentations it

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only activities they talk in smaller groups, usually the classmate sitting next to them.

Maskindi Reduce anxiety by progression. For example,

we don’t do class presentations unless I feel they are ready for it. First, they talk in smaller groups, and then when they get comfortable, I plan progression towards larger groups.

Mujo One thing I always work with is adjustment, I

always look to adjust and adapt the tasks for my students so that they who feel more anxiety can talk and be in groups with peers they feel comfortable with and so on. Also, I let the students be involved when planning tasks sometimes where they get to decide what topic to talk about and how much time they need.

By analysing all teachers’ answers, one can conclude that four out of five teachers talk about strategies where students work in smaller groups to reduce second language anxiety.

Moreover, by looking at the answers in Table 3, it can be seen that Maskindi expressed the use of progression in the classroom. Maskindi expressed in more detail:

I usually use progression strategies, they always begin with talking in smaller groups and then progress to dividing them into larger groups where they for example argue and discuss a chosen topic. So, I would say progression. Finally, the progression reaches so that they talk in front of the entire class.

Maskindi’s strategy using progression is backed up by previous research presented in section 2.4.2 where Strömquist (1992) discussed a strategy that would enhance students’

comfortability in oral production, called the systematic speaking practice. The systematic speaking practice is a strategy based on progressions where students start with easier tasks and then progress towards more exposure (see Section 2.4.2). Furthermore, it can be concluded that three out of five teachers expressed the need for their students to feel

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language development. Hedge (2000, p. 22) writes that in many school systems today, a great deal of students’ future use of English is uncertain and that the primary aim, therefore, is to build communicative potential, including oral skills and comprehension. For teachers to help their students reach a good communicative level, teachers must be aware of what the

research field says about different strategies. If they know what has been proven effective, teachers can determine what strategies may potentially work efficiently in their classroom.

4.2 Oral production tasks and activities

When it comes to oral production tasks and activities, the participants were asked about their experiences and opinions regarding a) what they count as oral production tasks, b) how often they conduct such tasks or activities, and c), how they work with oral production tasks and activities.

As to a), what the participants count as oral production in the classroom, all teachers agreed that all actions that include students talking in English count as oral production. Philip, Kajsa, Aisha, Maskindi, and Mujo all explained that oral production in the classroom

includes every exercise or task where students speak English and gave examples of such: oral presentations, colloquial conversations between teacher-student and student-student, and small talk in groups.

Furthermore, the participants were asked b), how often they conduct oral production tasks. In some of the answers, the participating teachers mention how often they assess their students. However, what is of relevance is only how often they do oral production tasks or activities which correspond to their definitions of oral production (i.e., oral presentations, colloquial conversations between teacher-student and student-student, and small talk in groups). All participants had different answers which are presented in table 4.

Table 4: How often, per semester (approximately 3 months), the participants conduct oral production

tasks.

Teachers Occasions per semester

Aisha ‘‘We use a lot of Swedish in the classroom,

because when we present an assignment, they need to fully understand the instructions, so we work with oral production in English once a week but assess them almost once a month’’ (20-23 times per semester)

Philip ‘‘I try to speak as much English as possible in

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approximately 4 max 5 out of 8 lessons a month’’ (Approximately 12-16 times per semester)

Kajsa ‘‘We also use a lot of translanguaging in the

classroom, but we do strict English only speaking exercises once every other week’’ (Approximately 12 times per semester)

Maskindi ‘‘Basically, all the time, when they enter my

classroom, I only want to hear the English language from the students. Then they learn best. If they talk English all the time they will get

used to speaking English as a second language’’

(Approximately 40 times per semester).

Mujo ‘‘They do such activities almost every lesson,

but I assess them in such tasks twice a month perhaps’’ (Approximately 40 times per semester)

The question regarding how often teachers conduct oral production tasks is relevant because, in Swedish schools, there is no strict guidance or recommendation about how often students should speak English. Skolverket (2011) writes that students should get the opportunity to develop an all-round communicative skill, including oral production skills. However, there is no rule nor strict recommendation about how often students should do such tasks and activities. The ambiguous expression from Skolverket may potentially be a reason why teachers’ answers can vary, as teachers are free to interpret the syllabus and

recommendations individually.

In more detail, Maskindi and Mujo stated that they do speaking activities almost every lesson. Maskindi expressed it as follows:

I want to conduct more oral production tasks than I had during my school time, as I believe that students learn best if we talk English as much as possible. If we do it a lot, then students cannot have excuses to not come to a specific class when we do oral presentations, since we do it all the time. So, we do English speaking activities almost every lesson but conduct more organised tasks once a week.

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needed, as their recommendations may potentially affect teacher cognition about oral production tasks and activities. The ambiguity in the current recommendations can affect teachers to have different opinions on oral production activities and tasks which might create the implication that Swedish students may potentially experience a completely different education.

When it comes to how and what strategies the participating teachers find pedagogically effective for oral production tasks and activities, all teachers worked differently except for two who had similar strategies. Kajsa and Aisha used similar strategies where they as teachers choose a topic their students work with for approximately 3-4 weeks. During these weeks, students are supposed to work and talk to each other in English and when finished, do an oral presentation. Moreover, Kajsa specifically expressed:

While working with the topic to present, I advocate that students should speak English within the groups, and when I approach them they speak English. But we all know they use a lot of Swedish when I don’t listen. Therefore, during the three weeks the students work in groups, or even when we do other assignments, we always have one lesson every other week where we, as I said earlier, have a strict ‘‘English only’’ time.

Accordingly, Kajsa believes that students do not only speak English during times when it is advocated to do so. Therefore, Kajsa implements activities once every other week where students are required to only speak English for a limited time.

Aisha’s strategies differ from Kajsa’s in that Aisha does not have ‘‘English only’’ time, and trusts students to speak English while working with the topic to present. During the conversation with Aisha, Aisha stated something about her strategy that is well worth presenting and analysing:

It has mostly worked well, there have been times where one or two students have questioned why they cannot choose a topic by themselves. But I feel they will not get anything done, and not be serious. Because I feel as if I am in control when I choose what they talk about. If they decide all by themselves, they might not get anything done. Therefore, I like to control the topics.

After analysing the latter statement, it can be concluded that Aisha believes that students get the most work done when the teacher is in control of the topic they work with and that students ‘‘might not get anything done’’ if they control the topic themselves. This is

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As to the remaining three participants (Philip, Mujo, and Maskindi), they all used different strategies. Philip used a strategy where the students do shorter speaking activities

approximately once a week where students get paired up or work in smaller groups and talk about their weekend. Mujo prefers to conduct smaller speaking activities in groups that are spontaneous and natural where the conversations are not forced, which could be that

students talk freely about whatever they want during a limited time. Finally, Maskindi uses a strategy where students are divided into smaller groups and talk about a specific subject that the whole class agrees on. Even though all their strategies differ in some way (e.g., what students speak about), there is also one similarity which is that they all let their students work in smaller groups and that the teacher does not control the topic of discussion. Hedge (2000, pp.12-13) presents a study that compares speaking activities in small groups and a whole-class work fronted and controlled by the teacher. The study’s results showed that each student was exposed to more input in the group work, completions and corrections were more common in group work, and that there was no difference in the level of accuracy in the student’s output in both situations.

One can analyse and interpret these results in comparison with previous concepts and studies as wished but as stated earlier, one cannot draw a valid conclusion on what works best based only on this research. As Skolverket (2011) states, all students are different and, therefore, lessons should be planned and structured based on what works best for the class in question.

4.3 Classroom climate and motivation

When it comes to classroom climate and motivation, the participants were asked a) their opinion on their classroom climate in general and during speaking activities, and b) what strategies they work with that enhance students’ motivation to speak English in their classroom.

As to the participating teachers’ perception about their classroom climate in general, three out of five teachers (Mujo, Philip, and Aisha) believed their classroom climate was mixed (meaning a mixture of emotions such as nervousness, anxiousness, respectfulness, and looseness). For example, Aisha believed her classroom climate varied:

I believe our classroom climate is a bit mixed. For example, the students who just started upper secondary school, their classroom climate is very nervous and they are very afraid of getting ridiculed. But the year twos and threes, their classroom climate I would describe as ‘‘relaxed’’. I believe they have a more relaxed climate as they have become used to talk to each other sometimes.

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climate to be respectful when doing speaking activities in small groups whereas it is

described as ‘‘nervous’’ in oral presentations. Lastly, Kajsa described her classroom climate as ‘‘stiff’’, but mostly due to students being new to their classes. It is important for teachers to be aware of their classroom climate, since if they are not, it can create practical implications in the classroom.

Moving on to b) what strategies they work with that enhance students’ motivation to speak English in their classroom, the participants’ answers are presented in table 5.

Table 5: Participating teachers’ strategies to enhance students’ motivation towards oral production.

Teachers Occasions per semester

Aisha They are more motivated and less anxious when

they get to speak about comical subjects that they find funny. So, I always try to pick topics I believe they will find somewhat entertaining. I also experience them doing better and being more motivated when I emphasize that I will be grading their presentations, so that’s how I work to motivate them in oral production activities.

Philip Strategies where we have, together, structured

and planned what they will work with, e.g. topic of the subject, length of speech, how many lessons, etc. I think my students like to be included, they then feel respected I think.

Kajsa My strategy is to work with controlled tasks with

rules made up by me, so that students know exactly what to do. I think tasks where students are completely free to choose the topic and what to talk about create a too comical climate where they end up not taking the assignment seriously.

Maskindi When they can choose a subject to talk about by

themselves, I have experienced them being more motivated and show more interest. So that is what I do. Whereas if I as a teacher control what they should talk about, they do not feel as motivated.

Mujo They get more motivated when doing speaking

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they think such activities have a purpose and are useful.

After a closer review of the participants’ answers presented in table 5, it is evident that four out of five teachers used strategies which considered students’ interest and what students might experience as ’’fun’’ during oral production tasks. In more detail, Philip expressed that he includes students in the planning process. Mayer (2014) argues that students are likely to learn more if they are personally engaged and involved in assignments (see Section 2.2.5). Aisha used a strategy to enhance students’ motivation towards speaking activities where she emphasises the importance of students being able to speak English to receive good grades. Aisha’s answer can be connected to Deci and Ryan’s (2000) motivation theory, SDT, and external motivation where individuals are motivated to get rewards such as grades (see 2.2.4).

Whereas four teachers used strategies that are based on their students’ interests, enjoyment, and motivation, Kajsa was of a different opinion. Kajsa describes the use of a strategy where she as the teacher is in control of the tasks which contains rules decided by the teacher. Kajsa’s use of strategy is not in line with concepts (2.2.5) that state that such a classroom climate/environment and assignments may potentially hinder students’ language

development and cause demotivation (Hedge, 2000; Josefsson & Lindwall, 2010; Mayer, 2014; Yule, 2016). This creates a mismatch between Kajsa’s stated beliefs and what other authors have stated which may potentially affect students learning experience (see section 5 for further discussion).

Kajsa also expressed that students might not take assignments seriously if they are free to choose a topic for discussion as it might create a ’’too comical environment’’. A ’’too comical environment’’ could create practical implications if teachers believe their job should focus on conducting assignments that are fun all the time and not focus on learning, which could disturb students’ learning development. However, Skolverket (2011) also adds that education should stimulate students’ curiosity about the English language and culture, though it is not mentioned how that is best accomplished. It could be done through assignments students find interesting and fun or through assignments that only focus on developing their English proficiency.

5. Discussion

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in their classroom. The strategy was that the teacher chooses a topic their students will work with for approximately 3-4 weeks. Furthermore, Aisha believed a strategy was more effective when the teacher controlled the topic to work on, otherwise the students ‘‘might not get anything done’’. This is not in line with the concepts presented in section 2.2.5. For example, Ahlquist (2012) stated the opposite and wrote that students are likely to learn more and be more motivated when working with topics they for certain find interesting. However, one cannot by this study conclude how effective Aisha’s and Kajsa’s strategies are in their classrooms, as all classes need different strategies. Their strategies are not in line with what other researchers advocate works best in general, but such recommended strategies are not proven to work the best for all students. To be able to make a statement on what specific strategy works best in specific classrooms, one would have to conduct further research with a different aim. This result, however, shows that misconceptions between teacher cognition and previously researched concepts can exist. Such misconceptions may potentially carry practical implications on students’ learning experience, and it is therefore important for teachers to be aware of what international concepts advocate. The three other participating teachers all had different strategies and opinions, but one thing in common was that they have their students work in smaller groups where the teacher does not decide the topic for discussion. Hedge (2000) advocates such strategies and writes that they are more effective than whole-class fronted teacher-controlled strategies.

As to the second research question of how the participating teachers work to reduce students’ anxiousness towards oral production in English, four out of five teachers mentioned students working in smaller groups to reduce anxiety. This result is in line with Engelbertsson and Hjelm’s (2007) study where the participants believed that when students speak in smaller groups, the feelings of exposure and anxiety do not become as obvious. The fact that the results in this study and previous research indicate similar beliefs is interesting and may indicate that teachers all over Sweden experience similar pedagogical challenges and that their reasoning is along the same lines. It would therefore be interesting to see how much truth lies behind these beliefs, and if students’ speaking anxiety is reduced during small-group activities. Nevertheless, the topic of how teachers work to reduce students’ anxiety is a highly important research topic as teachers have both the power and responsibility to counter the development of anxiety by building a positive learning experience (Hedge, 2000, p.21). As teacher cognition on student anxiety may potentially affect students’ anxiety, teachers who are not aware of recommended strategies for reduction of anxiety could potentially become more proficient in this topic by attending professional workshops.

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that four out of five teachers used strategies which involved students’ interest, personal engagement, and/or students’ enjoyment. Further, they also believed students were more motivated towards such strategies. This result is in line with the concepts presented in section 2.2.5. However, there was one teacher (Kajsa) who used a strategy where she was in control of the tasks and set rules for students and how they should work. Such a strategy is not in line with concepts presented in section 2.2.5 which argue that assignments and environments where teachers are in full control and that include too many rules can hinder students’ language development and make them less motivated to learn. Such mismatches may potentially carry practical implications by creating an atmosphere where students do not want to learn as they believe the assignments are boring and unmotivating. Such problems can be solved if teachers are aware of the situation and know how to deal with it. Teachers could become more proficient in this topic by attending professional development workshops or being exposed to materials that could help them create a classroom climate/environment with motivated students. Nevertheless, the mismatch was small which could mean that the teachers are well aware of how to conduct assignments that work best for students in general and as the research field suggests. However, as Skolverket (2011b) states, there might not be a specific type of assignment that works best for students as all students and classes are different and need individually adapted assignments.

As to the fourth research question, how the participating teachers’ answers correspond with previous research concerning the three first research questions, the results varied. The results showed that there was a small misconception (one out of five) between the participating teachers’ cognition concerning strategies that may potentially reduce students’ anxiety and what previous research suggests. Previous research suggests that students’ anxiety reduces when working in smaller groups, which four out of five teachers expressed as well. One teacher, however, did not raise any statement on such activities. This does not mean that this one teacher is against or is not aware of what the research field suggests, but more that the participant did not raise any opinions on such strategies. When it comes to teachers’

cognition about effective oral production there were some misconceptions where two out of five teachers did not share similar opinions as to what the research field advocates. Two teachers worked by and believed a strategy where teachers control the subjects for discussion works best and not when students are personally engaged in constructing tasks. This creates a small misconception when comparing with the research field presented in 2.2.5. Finally, there was also a small misconception (one out of five) regarding strategies that create a motivating classroom climate where one teacher, once again, believed that

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research suggests which states that such assignments may hinder students’ learning development.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study. An evident limitation concerns the low number of participants, which does not allow for generalisations. Moreover, the participating teachers all work in the same region, so the presented results may not represent Swedish upper secondary school teachers in general. Also, this study conducted semi-structured interviews about teacher cognition, which means that the results are based on self-report data. This means that there is no way to determine whether the participating teachers share their real opinion or not, and it does not provide any information concerning what actually goes on in the classroom. In other words, it is not possible to determine whether the beliefs of the teachers are actually reflected in their classrooms. Therefore, it would be interesting for future research to combine the analysis of answers in the interviews with classroom observations in order to get a more detailed look at what goes on in a

classroom. Also, it would be interesting for future research to focus on student cognition instead of teacher cognition to see what students believe in terms of the topics addressed in this study, and to see how much student and teacher cognition agree with each other.

6. Conclusion

This study aimed to research teachers’ beliefs and experiences concerning: what constitutes pedagogically effective oral production assignments in the classroom, how the participating teachers work to reduce students’ anxiousness towards oral production in English, and how they plan and work towards a classroom climate that enhances students’ motivation towards oral production. It was also of interest to compare previous research and concepts to see whether misconceptions and mismatches exist which could potentially result in practical implications for teachers. The latter is one reason why researching teacher cognition is important. I believe that misconceptions need to be fixed in the schools, especially if they could affect students’ learning development negatively. This could be solved by for example designing professional development workshops or materials which would help teachers become more proficient and better informed about what research says. This would only be beneficial for teachers as they could use the advocated strategies in the classroom and

conduct a research-informed pedagogy combined with their own experience-based expertise. To summarise the findings, the results showed a variety of strategies that the teachers found effective, but one similarity for three out of five teachers was strategies where students work in groups. As to how the participating teachers work to reduce anxiety towards oral

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classroom climate, four out of five teachers used strategies that took students’ interest, personal engagement, and/or students’ enjoyment into consideration when aiming for a motivating classroom climate.

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Teachers’ experiences and opinions of students’ second language anxiety in oral production tasks