English is considered as one of the biggest global language as it is commonly used by different people as means of communication. In the Philippines, English is the second most used language in our country. We use it almost every day as is it used in academic and professional field. Though of course we have our own language, still learning English is deemed important and essential in today’s world.
Learning English may be easy for others but in reality most Filipino students found it difficult and scary. According to a study by Jugo (2020), speaking activity, error correction, and communicating with English speakers are sources of high anxiety of the Filipino learners. Meanwhile, writing activity, negative self-perception, and non-comprehension are causes of moderate anxiety. Most of these factors have been found to have a significant relationship to language anxiety.
As educators, it is our role to understand why these factors are present and on how we can prevent them. Anxiety on speaking activities may emerge because of fear of negative judgement or teasing from classmates. In order to prevent this, it is important for teachers to create a friendly environment inside the classroom where every student knows the importance of respect in learning. Also, when it comes to speaking activities, teachers can lessen anxiety by letting students practice beforehand. They can give comments and suggestion generally or even personally so that the student may have the chance to improve before the actual activity.
As regards to anxiety in writing activities and error correction, teachers must create a healthy student-teacher relationship with the learner. Through this, the student may wholeheartedly accept mistakes and errors that are corrected in a respectful manner. Giving criticisms is okay, but it must always be paired with the pointing out of things to be improved and corrected. Teachers may also speak to the class as a whole instead of pointing every mistake of each student. This will lessen the fear they encounter when it comes to correction.
Other factors such communicating with English speaker, negative self-perception and non-comprehension can be reduced sharing experiences to students. Sharing experiences may be done by showing them examples on how to be confident and ready. Teachers can also tell stories of their journey on how they learn English themselves. This can ignite a fire in the students to also do the same effort of the person they look up to.
Speaking English is not an indicator of intelligence however, learning it will surely help student improve theirs. Especially in today’s world where globalization is a common aspect of life, surely having the ability to know another language will help not only the student but also academic excellence and economy of the country.
References:
Rhodora R. Jugo, “Language Anxiety in Focus: The Case of Filipino Undergraduate Teacher Education Learners”, Education Research International, vol. 2020, Article ID 7049837, 8 pages, 2020.
