The effects of risk- taking and anxiety on the foreign language oral fluency

Abstract

Psychologists, educators, and sociologists have long been emphasizing the importance of learners’ emotional side to the academic growth. In that context, the present study aims at focusing on learners’ attention to the significance of what happens inside them, singling out anxiety, and risk-taking as strategies for enhancing their speaking fluency level and exploring possible relationships between the two variables. It is hypothesized that if teachers can encourage students to take risk in speaking and not to be anxious, then their oral fluency level would improve consistently. Thus, the less learners are anxious and the more they are risktakers, the more they will become fluent in the EFL speaking. The methods used in this research are both quantitative and qualitative ones. Accordingly, three groups (90 students) of English at Constantine University are selected, and after conducting an interview with the researcher, are divided into anxious and non-anxious, this is being the result of their answers to the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and as being risk- takers and non-risk takers after exploring their answers to the risk- taking questionnaire. Learners̕ obtained marks from the scales are correlated with their marks of a story narration task, and their exam measuring oral fluency by calculating the coefficient of correlation. Besides, a questionnaire is delivered to Algerian teachers of Oral Expression of English at University of Constantine, Department of English. The inquiry highlights that there is a positive relation between learners’ risk- taking and their oral fluency level, but a high negative relation between anxiety and their speaking fluency. Analysis and interpretation of data suggest some implications for language pedagogy, for EFL teachers to pay more attention to their learners’ affective side, and for students to raise their awareness to be risk- takers and to become less anxious to speak English fluently.