ByMark Daubney,
Portugal
Mark
Daubney is an EFL lecturer and teacher trainer at Leiria Polytechnic,
Portugal.
"...é
deplorável constatar que a maioria dos professores continua a proporcionar aos
alunos aulas que, quanto a mim, se revelam chatas e desmotivantes, em que a
leitura e interpretação de textos são rainhas."
(...it's
deplorable that the great majority of teachers continue to treat students to
lessons, which in my view, are boring and demotivating, lessons in which reading
comprehensions rule.)
"...considero
que, dentro da sala de aula, o desempenho de algumas pessoas não é tão
brilhante, pois elas sentem-se um pouco inibidas por estarem em frente do
professor. Pensam sempre que estão a ser avaliadas."
(...I
think that the effort of some people in the classroom is not that great because
they feel somewhat inhibited being in front of the teacher because they always
think that they are being evaluated…)
"...acho
que como alunos, como pessoas, também gostamos de dar uma resposta correcta e
quando a professora nos diz que não está correcta se calhar sentimo-nos um pouco
mal não é? Afinal eu falei, fiz isso errado portanto mais valia estar calado.
Acho que por vezes pensamos assim."
(...I
think that as students, as people, we like to respond correctly and when the
teacher says to us that our answer is not correct, maybe we feel a little bad,
don't we? Well, I spoke and said something wrong, it would have been better to
have said nothing. I believe we think like this sometimes.)
"...acho
que os professores que não conseguem valorizar a participação em si procuram
mais a resposta correcta e se calhar não optam pela melhor forma de correcção e
se calhar contribuem muitas vezes para que os alunos se arrependam de ter
participado e evitem participar novamente…não é a correção em frente à turma é
a forma como é a correção."
(...I
think the teachers who are unable to value participation in itself look for the
correct answer and maybe don't choose the best form of correction, which
probably very often contributes to students regretting having participated and
to them avoiding participating again ...it's not the correction in front of the
class but the way the correction is done.)
(Comments
made by third year students studying to be lower-secondary school teachers of
English in Portugal.)
This
is a reflection based on my research and experience as a teacher-researcher and
on my experience as a second language learner. Language anxiety is a theme that
has been researched extensively in North America and many European countries.
However, for some reason it has not, until my own recent research (Daubney,
2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, Daubney and Araújo e Sá, submitted for publication),
been a topic that has attracted much interest here in Portugal.
Language
anxiety can be defined as the fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is
expected to perform in the second or foreign language (Gardner & MacIntyre
1993) or the worry and negative emotional reaction when learning or using a
second language (MacIntyre 1999). Generally speaking, language anxiety has been
viewed as a particularly negative psychological factor in the language learning
process by many of the researchers and academics who have considered its impact
on learners. In some cases, language anxiety has actually been cited as
"possibly the affective factor that most pervasively obstructs the learning
process" (Arnold and Brown, 1999:8), a negative energy that affects the brain,
more specifically, our short-term memory, and hence our ability to hold words
and ideas long enough on this creative table so to speak in order to mould them
into suitably communicative sentences or utterances. In some cases we may
freeze, unable to find the words. One of its effects is to lessen our ability to
produce and, therefore, create linguistically. Perhaps the most well-known
metaphor used to represent learners' negative emotional reactions to language
learning is Stephen Krashen's 'affective filter', an imaginary emotional barrier
which is erected when learners feel threatened by, disinclined to engage with or
emotionally unreceptive to the language input available to them. On the other
hand, if learners are relaxed and motivated, then this wall-like barrier will be
lowered and the language input surrounding them will more likely be attended to
and acquired.
Some
researchers have questioned the notion that anxiety is always a negative
influence. Indeed, some have pointed to the potential benefits of anxiety
(Mathews, 1996; Spielmann and Radnofsky, 2001). For example, to take an
experience that most of us here today may have had: writing under pressure.
Sometimes it seems we are capable of writing more effectively and, indeed
creatively, when we have to complete a dreadline and have little time in
which to complete it. Sometimes the more time we have on our hands, the more
ineffective, dull and uninspiring our writing seems to be; more often than not
we may leave things until another day, allowing tension and anxiety to be
cranked up to the necessary levels in order to spur us into action. As for
speaking, and here I am essentially referring to public speaking, anxiety may
actually push us on to greater effort and fluency, a motivational buzz that acts
like a cerebral pump, pushing the creative juices around our brains and freeing
up our creative instincts, as opposed to bringing our thought processes and
ability to produce to a creative standstill. I am sure many have experienced the
sensation of being nervous and tense before speaking, and when actually speaking
this nervousness being reflected in stuttering, false starts and inaccurate
pronunciation only to find these feelings and 'mistakes' giving way to more
confidence and greater fluency, and in some cases a real reluctance to leave the
floor!
This
is why these two strains of anxiety, one a negative force the other a positive
one, have respectively been referred to as 'debilitating' and 'facilitating'
anxiety in the literature. The positive anxiety pushes you forward, motivates,
helps, energises and facilitates whilst the negative anxiety weakens our
resolve, creates doubts, encourages us to run away and debilitates.
So
how does anxiety relate to creativity? Well, before we try to approach this
question, perhaps it is worthwhile in considering what we actually think
creativity is. Fehr and Russell opine when talking about emotions that "Everyone
knows what an emotion is, until asked to give a definition" (cited in Oatley and
Jenkins, 1996:96). Perhaps we are on the same ground when attempting to define
creativity. I would like to ask you to think of five words which you associate
with creativity. After giving this some thought I would imagine that you may
have some, but not all, of the following words - or forms of these - on your
lists: difference, new, novelty, imaginative, originality, freshness,
inspiration, ingenuity, inventiveness, innovative and uniqueness. Now, these
notions of creativity transferred to the language classroom may be perceived
completely differently by different teachers. A reading comprehension
implemented and overseen by certain teachers in their own particular teaching
styles may well be seen as dull and boring by others. Conversely, other
teachers' attempts to whip up students' interest by asking them to write down
what they feel about a certain piece of music, for example, might be judged by
others as trendy but boring. Creativity really is a case of one man's meat is
another man's poison. Yet, leaving aside this question of taste in creativity, I
think we can point to certain activities that are likely to be more inherently
creative. Indeed, as Dörnyei has pointed out "creativity is inhibited by certain
common classroom conditions and tasks (e.g., test-like activities) whereas
activities that are presented in a 'permissive and game-like fashion' appear to
release creativity" (2005: 242-243).
Communicative
approaches, then, allowing for a greater focus on student-centred, interactive
and open-ended activities are going to cater for greater student freedom and
allow them to contribute to tasks and activities in their own particular way and
express their own unique interests. All well and good so far. But what exactly
do we consider to be creative activities? Role-plays, for example, do allow for
spontaneous language input and communication but more often than not are
'spontaneously' put together, that is, they are unplanned and give students
little support. Indeed, role-plays may well function best when students have a
firm idea of what is expected of them, when they have had time to think about
the vocabulary needed and possible ways of expressing their ideas. Therefore,
creativity does not have to be utterly spontaneous, although it may well be.
Conversations with groups of my own students in higher education are often
largely spontaneous and, I like to think, frequently creative, so creativity
does not de facto need to be planned or dependent on inventive materials,
although creativity itself may arise out of such creative materials and well
thought-out lesson plans. Word play, word games, inventing and playing quizzes,
acting, (re)telling stories, singing and drawing may all lend themselves to
creativity in the language classroom.
Creativity,
then, is a slippery bar of soap, easy to cite as an important influence in the
classroom but more difficult to pinpoint in terms of what it actually consists
of and probably, for the majority of us, even more difficult to conjure up in
the classroom. What we do in the classroom depends on the pupils or students and
their relationship with each other as well as the teacher. Indeed, the fact that
I have used the words 'pupils' and 'students' indicates that age is also an
important factor in the equation of whether or not we can be creative in the
classroom. Primary school pupils (I use the word 'pupil' for those in education
up to 18 years of age, 'students' for those studying in higher education) are,
generally speaking, less inhibited, willing to join in activities and very
enthusiastic. Very often, secondary school pupils, especially teenagers, take
more convincing of the relevance of activities if they are to partake in these,
while students often want to see a direct connection to their futures and/or
their courses before they are willing to complete certain tasks.
Indeed,
it is perhaps no coincidence that as pupils move through the different cycles of
education they may well see a decrease in creative activities in their language
education. As the importance of marks and accurate performance are increasingly
stressed and the types of exercises encountered in tests are repeated and
carried out in the classroom, it is also likely that pupils and students become
more aware of their own performance in a foreign language and are therefore more
likely to experience anxiety as a result of this added pressure. If creativity
is more likely to thrive in communicative, open-ended and student-centred
activities, it is certainly open to question whether pupils and students will
find themselves either being creative or in a creative environment when they are
doing repetitive exercises that want the 'right' answers to closed questions -
be it in written or spoken form. Indeed, teachers may gradually come to focus on
form as opposed to content, devaluing the 'act of having tried' as one of my
students memorably put it. In fact, it can be argued that success in language
education does not, in fact, lie in creativity but in conformity and the ability
to reproduce 'correct' answers in a grammatically acceptable way. I am not
suggesting that all language classes are devoid of creativity. Of course, it is
possible and desirable that creativity and accuracy are both encouraged and
promoted. Task-based learning is particularly valuable in this sense. But an
over-insistence on accuracy can chip away at enthusiasm for participation and
spontaneous language use. For this reason teachers should not only think
carefully about the classic when, how and how often to correct but why correct,
who corrects and who is corrected.
Debilitating
language anxiety has the potential of exerting a considerable influence on
classroom dynamics. We can talk about how this anxiety can affect pupils and
students on at least three levels, which are clearly interconnected. Firstly,
anxiety may result from fear of negative academic evaluation. Mistakes,
therefore, are feared. Better to keep within the limits of what you know as
opposed to experimenting and creating. The more mistakes you make, the lower
your mark will be. Secondly, anxiety may result from the fear of making mistakes
in front of others, that is to say teacher and colleagues. What do people think
of me? I look and sound stupid! are possible reactions. Given language learning
is a social activity, creating with your peers in this state of mind is likely
to be more difficult. Your mind is elsewhere. Thirdly, learning a foreign
language means you are not expressing yourself as you want to, as you know you
can in your mother tongue. Pupils and students therefore often fear looking
stupid because of their inability to express themselves. Learning a language
means engaging with and reflecting on our very identities and perceptions of who
we are. Teenagers in particular are both susceptible and sensitive to perceived
threats to their changing identities.
Given
these potential sources of anxiety, it is no surprise that creativity in
language classes has to be achieved through hard work. In order to reduce the
debilitating type of anxiety and hit the right levels of facilitating anxiety a
positive working environment is helpful. Jerome Bruner has talked about one of
the principle goals of teachers being that of creating the 'optimum state of
learning', that is, not a classroom environment characterised by apathy or
debilitating anxiety but one which is exemplified by curiosity, a sense of
adventure and students who are eager to learn. A friendly relationship between
the learners themselves as well as between learners and the teacher is a good
base from which to move forward. If teachers are to encourage creativity, then
students should feel happy about taking risks. Learning is about taking risks,
making mistakes, thinking about difference and contrast and (re)constructing our
own learning paths. It is not about teachers serving up slices of knowledge to
be devoured and encouraging a 'feed me' syndrome. In language learning
risk-taking is necessary so we can get to grips with the language. Teachers
should also be encouraged to take risks. The pressures of completing the
programme and getting good results often work against the creative instinct. As
a teacher trainer in Portugal, I have often witnessed the class teacher initiate
conversations that have pleasingly snowballed and diverged from the original
topic - real conversation if you like - only for the teacher to get the learners
'back on track', that is, back to the programme and the ever-present student
book. The seeds of creativity can often be found in simple class warm-ups, where
often student enthusiasm is at a high but which is often repressed and bottled
up by a focus on form and a somewhat slavish adherence to the PPP model.
At
the beginning of this paper, I mentioned my own experience as a second language
leaner as a shaping influence on what I have to say here. I have learnt
Portuguese both in and out of the classroom but, personally speaking, the
greatest anxiety I have felt was while I was in the classroom studying the
various disciplines on the Master's in Language Didactics at the University of
Aveiro. It is pretty difficult to contribute let alone be creative when you are
struggling to keep up with what is being said. I had always managed outside of
the classroom and was in greater control of the situations I found myself in - I
could change the topic of conversation, I could ask people, who I generally
didn't know, to repeat what they had said, and I could have even made my excuses
and walked away if I had wanted to. In the classroom, more eyes are upon us,
ears are more attentive to what we say and we generally have far less time to
make our contributions. Physical escape is not an option, although avoiding
participation and nodding your head and smiling whilst not fully understanding
is! Furthermore, these other learners are our peers and we see them regularly.
At times, the anxiety I felt before, while and after speaking left me thinking
unduly about what my peers and teachers thought of me. As a result, I sometimes
avoided speaking although I really did want to contribute. Yet the
anxiety I experienced - and at times it was uncomfortable - was a spur, an added
incentive to understand and be understood. But gaining confidence takes time and
learning languages is a lifelong process. I mention this experience as I think
it is important for teachers to reflect on their own practices. Sometimes we are
too close to our own classrooms to discern more clearly what is really happening
in them. We should reflect on how we feel when participating in conferences,
when taking part in in-service training sessions and other events. Even better,
a return to the foreign language classroom as students comes fully recommended
as an antidote to explaining away our own failings on students' lack of interest
and motivation.
In
the literature on language anxiety there is an overwhelming tendency to see
anxiety as something that should be reduced at all costs, if not eliminated from
the language classroom. Yet, this is a dubious notion. Surely we want to have
classrooms where the students are anxious to learn, students who have a desire
to participate. An anxiety-free classroom, for all its apparent appeal, may not,
in fact, be conducive to learning, nor for that matter to a creative
environment. Anxiety, then, as I have indicated elsewhere (Daubney, 2005), is
part and parcel of the language classroom. Some learners - teachers even! - will
feel more anxious than others. What is important is that teachers are aware that
anxiety may complement creativity in the classroom and spur students on to
perform better; on the other hand, it make take a more negative form, leading
learners to avoid contact with the language, an anxiety that may discourage
creative input and encourage feelings of inadequacy. Such perspectives of
anxiety are best not viewed as direct opposites but rather as possible
occurrences along an emotional continuum.
Whether
language anxiety is a more negative or positive force in the classroom will
largely be determined by the interaction between teachers, their objectives,
methodology and the learners. However, an ability to forge a healthy working
environment for language classes out of these factors will certainly give
creativity a better chance of flourishing.
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third year English language specialists at the Catholic University in
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