''The Internet sets people free from their hindering bodies and marginalizes social status,'' (Dwight, 2004)
Reading this statement got me to think about the ease that the Internet offer to people generally and to learners too. Anyone can speak his own mind and be judged entirely based on what he said regardless of his looks and his social ranks. This could make learning and especially language learning a more free and easy process. Regular classrooms are known for bullying and packed with judgmental individuals. These result in shy and anxious learners. Thus, many students don't progress to their full potential just because they think too much about what others think of them!!
That was my personal take on this and I decided to read further into shyness which the context of language learning. I came across a study and a research by (Bashosh, 2013). They conducted a research, and they found that there is no clear connection between shyness, anxiety and ESL proficiency. I don't think I personally agree with that, maybe there is no connection with language proficiency itself, but the learning experience must have been affected of some sort.
Picture resource: http://www.itsmybodymylife.com/p/anxietydepression.html
When I typed class anxiety, I found this photo and it felt really familiar. Every-time I ask students to present in English, the language they are learning, I end having no less than five students how will look exactly like this poor boy.
To test this even further, I gave my speaking class a blind-folded discussion. I tap on their head to answer a question: no one knew who's who! To my surprise, it made a significant difference. The students were more active and eager to speak. They said more. Their grammar wasn't significantly better, but their fluency was.
References:
Bashosh, Sam, Mohammad Abbas Nejad, Mina Rastegar, and Amin Marzban. "The Relationship between Shyness, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety, Willingness to Communicate, Gender, and EFL Proficiency." TPLS Theory and Practice in Language Studies (2013).
Dwight, James. "REVIEW ESSAY - On the Internet (Hubert Dreyfus)." Elea E-Learning (2004): 146. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Reading this statement got me to think about the ease that the Internet offer to people generally and to learners too. Anyone can speak his own mind and be judged entirely based on what he said regardless of his looks and his social ranks. This could make learning and especially language learning a more free and easy process. Regular classrooms are known for bullying and packed with judgmental individuals. These result in shy and anxious learners. Thus, many students don't progress to their full potential just because they think too much about what others think of them!!
That was my personal take on this and I decided to read further into shyness which the context of language learning. I came across a study and a research by (Bashosh, 2013). They conducted a research, and they found that there is no clear connection between shyness, anxiety and ESL proficiency. I don't think I personally agree with that, maybe there is no connection with language proficiency itself, but the learning experience must have been affected of some sort.
Picture resource: http://www.itsmybodymylife.com/p/anxietydepression.html
When I typed class anxiety, I found this photo and it felt really familiar. Every-time I ask students to present in English, the language they are learning, I end having no less than five students how will look exactly like this poor boy.
To test this even further, I gave my speaking class a blind-folded discussion. I tap on their head to answer a question: no one knew who's who! To my surprise, it made a significant difference. The students were more active and eager to speak. They said more. Their grammar wasn't significantly better, but their fluency was.
References:
Bashosh, Sam, Mohammad Abbas Nejad, Mina Rastegar, and Amin Marzban. "The Relationship between Shyness, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety, Willingness to Communicate, Gender, and EFL Proficiency." TPLS Theory and Practice in Language Studies (2013).
Dwight, James. "REVIEW ESSAY - On the Internet (Hubert Dreyfus)." Elea E-Learning (2004): 146. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment