The Speaking Silence : A qualitative study of how Swedish teachers meet and handle the challenges of speaking anxiety among their students in English language education.

Sammanfattning: Being able to communicate, interact and speak your mind in our time is considered one of the most essential proficiencies, especially in English which is accepted as a lingua franca. The most frequently used word in the Swedish course syllabuses for English is communication. Although there is an instant occuring communication in a classroom, some students stay silent since they fear to speak, they fear to fail and their way of preventing that from happening is to stay silent. In order to assess students language proficiencies, students must in some way demonstrate and show their knowledge to the teacher, a procedure that in some cases can be very demanding and difficult for students who suffer from speaking anxiety. The present study aimed to investigate how Swedish teachers meet and handle speaking anxiety among Swedish upper secondary students in English language education. The study was conducted through a qualitative method and semi structured interviews among four Swedish teachers. The gathered data was analyzed by thematic content analysis and resulted in three main categories, anxiety, the role of the teacher and teaching strategies. The study showed that the numbers of students suffering from speaking anxiety in Swedish upper secondary schools were in two out of four cases much higher than previous research. The study also showed that speaking anxiety has an impact on both students’ educational progress and in teaching aspects where teachers in some cases have to re-plan their planning and teaching material in order to help all students to reach the teaching goals.