Addressing English-Language Speaking Phobia Among Undergraduates in Sri Lankan Universities.

Abstract

The majority of undergraduates in Sri Lankan universities discover speaking skills to be the greatest challenge for them in terms of second language acquisition for they have not been provided sufficient opportunities to improve their oral production in their secondary schools due to pragmatic difficulties such as time limitation and size of the class. Thus, though they are clearly cognizant of the significance of English at present, they are reluctant to speak the language, enfeebled by the fear of negative evaluation, communication apprehension, anxiety, etc. This specific study intended to explore realistic strategies to remedy this unhealthy situation as the manipulation of linguistic and semantic rules will be rather useless without fulfilling the major purpose of a language, namely, communication. In order to accumulate data for this qualitative study, interviews and questionnaires were administered to undergraduates and lecturers from five universities in Sri Lanka along with participant observation. The study revealed that English speaking phobia can be effectively overcome by encouraging learners to learn through trial and error, implementing interesting task-based activities with increased opportunities for extensive oral production, promoting critical-thinking skills, and building an emotional attachment between learners and teachers by which learners can rely on teachers for their resilience, constant assistance, and guidance throughout the painstaking process. Furthermore, creating a non-defensive English-speaking environment with pre-planned language boosting punishments for those who do not speak English can ensure the consistency of their use of target language.