[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 3 | January 19, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]

Anna says, “For me, as a language teacher, getting students to speak up in class and motivating them to participate in discussions is a challenging task. But, as a language learner I know that speaking a foreign language can be a vulnerable, scary and stressful experience. Whether in a class setting or in real-life situations with native speakers, under the pressure of “having to say something”, a lot of language learners start feeling self-conscious and insecure.

As someone who has spent her entire life as an expatriate in multilingual environments, I still feel this way in certain situations, and I believe that there are certain underlying issues that need to be addressed, in order to encourage language learners to speak up, and to engage them in conversations. (more…)