Nonnative EFL Teachers’ Speaking Anxiety: Post-Communist Country Context

Zdena Kralova,Anna Tirpakova

doi:10.1177/2158244019846698

Abstract

The current study aims to fill the gap in the current literature by focusing on the wide scale of nonnative English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions and opinions in the specific context of a post-Communist country. It focuses on the link between five demographic variables (age, the length of English language study, English teaching experience, stay in English-speaking countries, and the intensity of communication with English native speakers) of Slovak EFL teachers and their English speaking anxiety (ESA) and English speaking quality (ESQ). The teachers’ self-perceived causes, consequences, factors, and needs concerning their ESA were also detected. Data were collected by both qualitative methods (questionnaire and interview) and quantitative methods (scale and test). The correlation analyses revealed a negative relationship between most variables and teachers’ anxiety and a positive relationship between their age and anxiety. Both qualitative and quantitative results reflect the specifics of teaching EFL in a post-Communist country.

Highlights

As the majority of English language teachers (Canagarajah, 2005) and the majority of students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) TESOL programs (Medgyes, 1999) worldwide are nonnative speakers of English, the research on nonnative English teachers has enjoyed wide attention in the last few decades
While the early studies focused on a comparison of native versus nonnative teachers, later on, the research turned to the specifics of nonnative teachers (Bailey, 2001; Llurda, 2005)
Most studies on foreign language anxiety concluded that speaking is the most stressful skill in a foreign language, and nonnative teachers usually rate their communication abilities resulting from their self-perceived inadequate language proficiency most negatively (e.g., Horwitz, 1996; Kim & Kim, 2004; Medgyes, 1999; Mousavi, 2007; Moussu, 2006; Rajagopalan, 2005; Reves & Medgyes, 1994; Takahashi, 2009)

Summary

Introduction

As the majority of English language teachers (Canagarajah, 2005) and the majority of students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) TESOL programs (Medgyes, 1999) worldwide are nonnative speakers of English, the research on nonnative English teachers has enjoyed wide attention in the last few decades. Students usually sense their teachers’ discomfort in speaking a foreign language, and such apprehension of a teacher’s ego being endangered in front of them can be rather a strong cause of speaking anxiety. This often leads to speaking avoidance behavior (Pajares, 1996), which can be rather harmful in foreign language teaching

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