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Imagine that a foreigner comes up to you on the street and asks for directions. Or at a restaurant abroad, you are trying to check with the waiter if there are any allergens in the signature sauce. Even a person who has been studying a foreign language for more than a year can fall into a stupor in such situations. And this is not due to the usual shyness – the language barrier can have different reasons. Let’s figure out where “language anxiety” comes from and how to overcome it.
One day, the French linguist Antoine Meillet came to a conference in Germany. There he gave a brilliant report in French and was supposed to return to Paris, but instead he sat up all night at the station. When colleagues met the scientist, he explained that he was afraid to speak to the cashier because he did not speak German well enough.
Linguist Maxim Krongauz cites1 this story as a typical example of xenoglossophobia – the fear of foreign languages. Why is it sometimes easier to spend the night at the station than to communicate with a stranger in broken language or at least gestures?
Everything comes from childhood
Even if we, adults, realizing how important it is to be able to speak other languages, are embarrassed to do it, then what can we say about children! Schoolchildren have this anxiety no less than their parents. A 2009 study in Croatian schools found that more than half of all students aged 7 to 18 were afraid to speak English in class.
And most of all, this fear was manifested in elementary school students – they were afraid that in case of a mistake, the teacher and classmates would laugh at them. Add to this the fear of getting an F and scolding from parents, and you will understand why many children can hardly squeeze out “My name is”. Often the language barrier arises in childhood.
Fortunately, at this age it is not difficult to overcome it. To do this, it is enough to create a benevolent environment. For example, in the lessons in the online school teachers do not criticize children, do not give grades and do not scold for failures, but praise for achievements, even the smallest ones.
Don’t hit your face in the dirt
It is somewhat more difficult for adults to get rid of the fear of a foreign language. We are not allowed to do this by our pride. In itself, the study of a foreign language creates the prerequisites for the emergence of anxiety, notes a researcher in the field of psycholinguistics Alexander Zeev-Giora.
When learning a new language, we are afraid of “losing face” – almost literally, because at first, due to a poor vocabulary, we can express no more than small children. The fear of making a mistake and looking ridiculous is especially strong in those who are accustomed to taking themselves seriously. When our self-image as a smart and adult person is in danger of being shaken, it is easier to remain silent in order to avoid a blow to the ego.
Like from another planet
A number of studies show2that the further the studied language is from the native one, the stronger the language anxiety manifests itself. According to this logic, it will be easier for a native speaker of Russian to bargain in a souvenir shop in Montenegro than to discuss manga with a Japanese comic book seller.
This is due to the common roots of words, the peculiarities of phonetics and grammar, as well as the culture of the country. But scientists agree that most of the reasons for which a language barrier arises should be sought after all outside the language.
If you are not learning Dothraki or the language of the seven-legged aliens from the movie Arrival, then you can always find parallels between your native language and foreign.
Let me speak from my heart!
Back in the 1970s, scientists3 an experiment involving 87 students at the University of Michigan. Participants were given cocktails to drink – from low alcohol to strong. The control group was given juices that only smelled of rum and brandy but contained no alcohol. Having knocked over a glass, each subject had to pass a test – to try to repeat the sounds of the Thai language from an audio cassette.
It turned out that slightly tipsy students coped with the task better than sober ones. Most likely, alcohol in small doses helped the participants to “untie the tongue” – to loosen control and stop being embarrassed by their accent. Here’s the paradox: to sound like a native speaker, you need to worry less about how you look from the outside.
Why do I need English?
In 2007, researchers from the Siberian State Technical University interviewed 97 first-year students and found4that more than 34% of them experience strong excitement when speaking a foreign language, over 54% – medium, and only about 11% speak a foreign language without tension. This is largely due to the fact that tech students do not understand why they need English.
Often the lack of motivation is the main reason for the appearance of a language barrier, the researchers note. Therefore, decide why you are learning the language. Goals should be clear, specific, important to you and achievable. For example, “I want to get to the Intermediate level so I can start working at Company X and make twice as much as I make now.”
Break through the wall of silence
How to overcome the language barrier? Educator Ellen Horwitz of the University of Texas at Austin believes there are three areas to work on: learning to relax in an uncomfortable situation, changing cognitive attitudes (for example, that you should speak flawlessly or not at all), and improving language skills.
Teachers from the Faculty of Linguistics at the Open University of Great Britain give students the following advice:
- Have a positive dialogue with yourself (“I can do it, and if I make a mistake, it’s okay, everyone does them”).
- Take more risks in the learning process. For example, trying to guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word before looking at the translation.
- During public speaking, you can imagine that this is a friendly conversation. Tell yourself that the speech will be short. Breathe deeply, pause, and speak more slowly to help manage your anxiety.
More practice!
The more you communicate in a foreign language, the less stress you experience. Gradually, you will expand your vocabulary and learn how to immediately build phrases in a foreign language, and not translate them in your mind from Russian. If you communicate with foreign friends, ask them to correct you – out of a sense of tact, they will most likely not pay attention to mistakes.
It is even more useful to talk not just with native speakers, but with teachers from different countries. This is how you can practice English with Skyeng Talks, a new service from the Skyeng online English school. It’s simple: connect, and in one or two minutes the platform will pick up an English-speaking interlocutor with whom you can discuss news, plans for the weekend, talk about movies or cats.
On average, one talk lasts 15-30 minutes, but it happens that the interlocutors are carried away by the conversation – more than a hundred people have already talked for two hours (technically it is no longer possible). Do not put off practice until later: even at the initial level, you can keep up a short conversation, and the further you advance in English, the more interesting your dialogues will be.
1. https://paperpaper.ru/campus/pochemu-nas-razdrazhayut-feminitivy-zai/ 2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318035190_Foreign_Language_Anxiety 3. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu /bitstream/handle/2027.42/34041/0000318.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 4. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/o-rezultatah-issledovaniya-yazykovogo-bariera-sredi-studentov-tehnicheskogo-vuza/ viewer