Chapter 5: What Stops You Speaking?

Assalamualaikum wr. wb.

The human brain can operate well whilst experiencing high levels of anxiety, even stress. In fact, a little stress is good for performance. Rugby commentators say that someone is “up for it” and really mean that the player is at the optimal level of nervous stimulation to perform at their very best.

But it is a delicate path that we all follow when the adrenalin starts to pump. That feeling of nervous anxiety and excitement running through our body is often the difference between doing something well and not doing it properly at all.

However, under-stimulation is not the only way you and I can fail to perform. Over-stimulation, or over anxiety about what we are about to try and do can get so powerful that beyond a certain point our performance drops like a stone and we fail miserably. We miss the crucial injury time penalty, we lose our temper and get sent off, or when we are put in the spotlight we don’t speak clearly or forget what to say completely.

Some scientists even created a law, the Yerkes-Dodson law13, which explains the relationship between arousal and performance. Over-arousal for a task, such as speaking a foreign language without the right mental preparation and support, can lead to a complete drop-off in performance and the memory will struggle.

This anxiety or stress when trying to speak a second language has another name, lathophobic aphasia, which is defined as the failure to speak a new language for fear of making a mistake. Sound familiar anyone?

So, what can be done about it? How do you improve your ability to speak when you have been afraid to do so, often despite years of English tuition and a good ability to read and write the language? The current boom in online language exchange and practice shows that learners are desperate to improve their speaking skills, look at a forum14 I found, which is just one example of how Chinese English learners acknowledge the problems they have.

 

I would argue that this is a typical situation in the lives of millions of English learners and that they are not getting what they really need from conventional English language lessons and materials. I’m biased of course, but anxiety and stress, in fields of activity outside of language learning, are commonly and actively ‘managed’ by mental and physical processes put in place to help the person to overcome the fear that stops them performing properly. I am telling you that English learners can also be helped, but that the English teaching world has not gone there yet.

Thank you for reading my writing in my blog. I hope that my blog will be a great benefit and blessed for all of you reader, aamiin.

Wassalamualaikum wr. wb.