Dr. Taghreed Al-Saraj: Language Anxiety
Kris Broholm and guest Dr. Taghreed Al-Saraj discuss strategies for teachers and students to reduce language anxiety. They explore classroom teaching improvements that foster language learning development. The conversation also critiques traditional rote learning methods.
August 7, 2015 · 27 min
EP 69: Dr. Taghreed Al-Saraj: Language Anxiety
0:00 / 26:55
Guest
Dr. Taghreed Al-Saraj
What You'll Hear
- 1 Episode Intro: Tech Issues & Topics
- 2 Teacher Impact on Student Anxiety
- 3 Reduce Anxiety: Fun, Mistakes, Teamwork
- 4 Why Rote Learning Fails Language
- 5 Learn Culture, Use Language Practically
- 6 Educate Teachers, Overcome Language Anxiety
- 7 Language Fosters World Peace & Tolerance
- 8 Discover 'The Anxious Language Learner'
Questions Covered in the Show
How can language teachers reduce student anxiety in the classroom?- 4m
Why is rote learning ineffective for acquiring new languages?- 12m
What role does culture play in language acquisition?- 16m
What is an effective approach to learning new vocabulary?- 18m
What is the ultimate goal of research into language anxiety?- 20m
Related Episodes
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Season two, episode 19, Dr. Tagreed Al-Saraj, language anxiety.
This is the actual fluency podcast, helping you become a better language learner by providing motivating, weekly inspiration, as well as top tips and tricks from expert guests. And now, your host, Kris Broholm.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Actual Fluency podcast. This is your host, Kris Broholm, with a K now.
Today's episode is unfortunately not going to be as good as I had hoped. The today's guest is Dr. Tagreed Al-Saraj, and she's a post-doctoral researcher in language anxiety as the main topic. So that's super interesting, and also for me personally, because it's something I suffer from and I know a lot of people do. What happened was we recorded the interview and during the interview we got disconnected from Skype, and when we reconnected, my recording software failed to re-record the next segment. Or more specifically, it only recorded my voice, which is, uh, I mean, I can post a podcast of me asking questions, but it's not really going to do much good, and it's not going to be, uh, a good episode.
But half of the interview was salvaged and it was working. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm going to play that segment for you today. That means the episode is going to be slightly shorter, but it's a very interesting topic. Today we talk about how teachers and students can decrease language anxiety, and how especially teachers can make improvements to classroom teaching, or, well, I guess it also applies to one-on-one teaching, to reduce the anxiety in each student, and thus bringing on more language learning development. And we also talk in general about language learning methods and how classroom, uh, the old school way of teaching thing wrote learning, probably not the best way.
But, um, the other half we talked about the last half, we talked about her story and how she, uh, was brought up in in, uh, Saudi Arabia, Arabia, Arabia, and moved to the United States when she was young. And she still she lives in the US to this day. And in the book, there are a lot of cultural contrasts between Saudi Arabia and the West in general. And as a Westerner, I found it really interesting and exciting to read some of these things, because you can have some opinions about the Middle East, and a lot of the times this it's really the media trying to create some kind of picture of a of the Middle East. And as a an as an ignorant Westerner, it was really interesting to read some of these things in the book. Like how how much education have has improved, how much you know, women's rights have improved. And, you know, as as my guest today says, you know, Saudi Arabia is a very young country. So the fact that they don't quite have all the as much progress as a country like the US, so it makes a lot of sense, but it can be hard to, if you're just an ignorant Westerner like me, to understand why women can't drive, why they have, you know, forced marriages and stuff like that. And that's also dealt with in the book and it makes a lot of sense, I think.
Uh, but unfortunately that segment was lost due to a technical error. And for once, it wasn't my own stupidity that led to the the technical error unfortunately. But it's a it's a real shame and I know Dr. Al-Saraj is quite busy. So, um, I'm going to try and get her to come back on and tell her story again. And, uh, if she has the time. And if you have any questions for, uh, Dr. Al-Saraj, then please, uh, do ask them in the comments field on Facebook, or send me an email, uh, you probably know the channels. And, uh, I'll try and ask it to her, uh, in the upcoming recording if I can, uh, make that happen.
And of course, the whole reason that I invited her to the podcast was to talk about her book as well, The Anxious Language Learner, A Saudi Woman's Story. And basically that was the first part of the interview that was sadly lost. The part that wasn't lost is, like I said, talking about anxious students, uh, how to deal with language anxiety as a teacher or as a student. And we get into talking about general language learning methods. So, without further ado, I'm going to I'm going to jump you straight into the, uh, interview. It's going to be a little bit shorter today than usual. But, like I said, I'm I'm sorry for for the, uh, technical difficulties here. Um, it is it is sometimes a bit of a challenge to run a a podcast, but doing my best here and I hope you enjoy this little segment this week, and I hope that you will tune back in when I hopefully get the second part of the interview, uh, re-recorded one of these days.
So, hope you have a great great great great Friday, or whatever day it is when you're listening to this. Here in Budapest, it's, uh, 35 degrees and clear skies, so we're all melting. But wherever you are in the world, I hope you're having a great day and you're learning lots of languages. So, until the next week, uh, this is Kris Broholm and enjoy the interview.
How can teachers improve the classroom?
Teachers are reported as the number one factor in my research as anxiety provoking. And, uh, and it's not only like you said in Denmark, it's it's, uh, it's all over. But, uh, in the Arab world, maybe it's even more.
What happened was is that when teachers are teaching, they think, you know, you know, I'm teaching them this material. But it's not only the material that, um, the teacher is teaching, uh, especially in languages even more. Uh, maybe in math, you're teaching them how to solve this problem, and they could do it logically later on. But when you're talking in languages, the personality of the teacher comes into effect. How the teacher is, uh, teaching that material? Is she compassionate with and relating to you, uh, or is she very stiff and and tough? Because all these personality things come into effect.
So, the teacher is not only teaching the material, but also the the personality of that teacher comes into effect. So, a lot of students says, I hate the language class because of the teacher. I don't want to go into the class because of the teacher. And so, it's not saying that the teacher is not good or bad. I'm not saying at all that. I'm just saying that teachers have to be aware that personality, uh, of the teacher plays a big role in how they teach the material.
Right.
And so, if the if the teacher can make the students less anxious by her engaging in the classroom, meaning that, um, she explains to the students, uh, that, you know what, we're gonna make mistakes in this classroom, and this classroom was, you know, is is a must to do that, and let's all laugh together, rather than laugh at each other, and make that classroom as a family-oriented way so that students are not competing against each other, and not trying to, you know, uh, get more attention from the teacher.
So, if the teacher pays one student more attention than the others, they other students are good going to be discouraged because they go, oh, she's the favorite here. No matter what we say or what we try is not gonna make a difference. So, we'd neither even put up our hands or to uh, to participate in the class, which was ridiculous. But, you know, sometimes when somebody talks as a teacher, uh, you answer and you talk back, and you have that conversation, while the others they're not that fluent maybe in the language. But they see that, okay, she's talking to them, she's pay more attention, she's the favored, or he's the favorite of the teacher. And and those things I thought was like ridiculous to even think about. But, you know what? Yes, it is. It's very important for these other students. So, the teacher might do things and she doesn't even, or he doesn't even know what they're doing is wrong or right. And it doesn't it it's not necessarily wrong.
Right.
It's just what happens. But these students are very, very, um, uh, sensitive because the anxiety makes them that way. So, you, you know, your you know, your brain plays tricks on you and say like, oh, anything that happened, uh, this happened because of that. It's just there's always a reason for it. Okay. So, there's a blame is always on somebody else but not you. And not I'm not saying that the blame should be on you, but it's like, oh, the teacher didn't explain, the teacher didn't, you know, she didn't she didn't make me love this class, or she didn't do this, or she was very tough. Of course, if you have a tough teacher, then that's another deterrent from continuing with the language. Yes, I can agree on that.
But I mean, so the teachers have a big say, or a big role on reducing the anxiety. One of the first things that I always mention is that when you go into the language class, I I think the teacher should and a must, a must reduce the student's anxiety is to confront it firsthand and say, you know what, we are going to make lots of mistakes, but it's okay. You know, uh, I also make mistakes, you guys make mistakes. Uh, we never learned this language at the beginning or, you know, we are going back in time as if we are children and we're trying to learn this language. So, please do not get embarrassed or whatever.
So, the minute you have that open conversation with the students, and you're telling them, please, don't get discouraged when you make a mistakes. Keep on trying. They see the teacher as a motivator for them, that she's or he's accepting the mistakes. That means it's okay to make them. But if they just want to impress the teacher and make everything right and say everything, you know, correct, they're not gonna try unless they're perfect, which nobody is perfect.
Right.
And then you'll see a lot of silence in the classroom. And I had that. I had one other class, uh, I have one of uh, and it was one semester. I had a very silent class, and it was so frustrating. I couldn't get the students to speak because they all wanted to be perfect. And nobody is perfect. So, I started making jokes about my my learning and and and when I was little, and and then I started cracking jokes and they started little by little, uh, you know, engaging within the with me. And then they started talking. And and that was the only time that I could get them, you know, to speak.
And so, that is there's lots of challenges that the language teacher faces. But let's make the language class fun. First of all, it has to be fun.
Right.
Or nobody's going to be, you know, everybody's going to be competing against each other or trying to impress the teacher or others in the classroom. But if you make it fun, then it becomes as a a team effort, not a an individual. And that's what we're trying to make, a team effort, like, let's all, you know, work together to help each other to learn this language. So, we have a common goal. The common goal is let's learn this language.
Right. And in in the book, uh, speaking about the method, you also spend a few, uh, uh, sentences talking about the rote learning, which is obviously a problem that is shared universally. I think I can say that without too much research, um, across the world and every single person I talk to on this podcast, they all say, okay, maybe 99 out of 100 say that language learning in school is terrible. And rote learning just doesn't make any sense. And we why are we still doing it?
Yeah, see, I I I also I had a chance to go to, um, to Tokyo in Japan, uh, in a program where the ministry of, um, education there, uh, when I was, um, when I was in London. Uh, and we had a chance to go into the the schools and to see how they were teaching, uh, for me, I was interested in how they were teaching the language. But, uh, we were like 15 of us on this program. And I was like, going to Japan, okay, then they must have really high-tech stuff, and, you know, I'm anticipating all this anticipation is like Japan, high-tech, everything. Okay, I'm gonna see every kid has an iPad or whatever on his hand and doing whatever.
And when I go into the schools, I went to elementary, middle school, I think, no, high school, yes. And I went there and I was completely in in shock how they were teaching the the languages. And I thought, you know, Japan of all, I I mean, I thought I had more a lot of expectations. But they were teaching it in a rote method. And I was like, what? We're still doing that?
Even in Japan?
Yeah. Even in Japan, you know, of all places. But you know, uh, but you know, I I mean, that was my expectation. Uh, but I mean, it it's the rote method, it can only give you so far. You be good grades on paper. But when you're starting to talk to people, there is no right and wrong, and, you know, get it right or or no, let's move this verb here and let's move the noun here. It's it's it's nothing. It's nothing like that. And it's all about trial and error, trial and error. And so, that doesn't work.
The I I'm I'm not keen and I'm not a, you know, there there could be good things for rote method, but I'm telling you, language learning and rote method for me and a lot of people that I've seen does not work. There's benefits for rote method, but I I don't I'm not an advocate for that. Uh, because I I I hate to be, you know, regurgitating all this, you know, information. And and life is not like that. And I think I'm a very practical person and I want to teach something that is for practical use, and for not to learn, you know, things, uh, in a systematic way. It it never happens. Life is not like that.
Right. I think the best example or analogy for me was definitely when somebody compared it to math and said, you know, the way we teach children languages today is exactly like we teach math, and that's ridiculous, because those two disciplines are so different.
Exactly.
Exactly. It's exactly. That was a that's a good one. That's that's a really good one. It's like you in math you want to remember a lot of things, a lot of formulas, a lot of rules. But in language learning, it's about learning sentences through a natural progression. It's not just, you know, even vocabulary learning is, you know, kind of useless in a way. I mean, if you know a good sentence structure, you can speak almost naturally with just a few hundred words. Whereas you can learn thousands of words and not say a thing if you only use them.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And and that's another thing that I used to be, um, uh, when I used to see when, um, when I was, uh, even doing, uh, doing my undergraduate or masters, when I was taking, um, uh, classes, I would see, um, a lot of, uh, Chinese, uh, an Asian students get really high marks on papers. Really high marks. And I was like, wow, fantastic. But they couldn't speak. They could not speak. They knew all the rules, uh, the formulas like you said, but they could not speak two words because they were used to performing on paper.
But in real life, language is not like that. Language is about learning the culture, learning the words, learning the vocabulary, how to structure it. There's a lot of things that goes in it and it's not like a formula just memorize and just produce. It's not that.
Right.
Especially the culture comes in into place. Like I, when I was doing I I grew up in and and I did my undergraduate and masters in the US. But when I did my PhD, I went to, uh, the UK. And when I was there, even they speak English both. But with that, I still had to adjust for the culture shock.
I was there with that, you know, when I when I was ordering at a any fast food, and I was like, uh, this is to to go. And they would say like, what do you mean by to go? And I'm like, you know, I'm taking it to go. And you they could say, oh, so you mean takeaway. And I'm like, yeah, right, takeaway. Yeah. But so to go and takeaway, and then rubbish and a bin, or or a garbage and a So, all these little words, that even that, and there's both speak English. But it's different English. You know, so, you know, you can understand what I'm saying, but if I say go get in the queue in American system was like, what queue? What what what's the queue for? What what what does the queue mean? They think the letter Q.
Yeah.
And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, in line, get in line. And and and so even with that, you know, and and can you imagine? Okay, I know all the rules. I'm I'm English. I was born. This is my actual, uh, native language. I still have to adjust for that. How can you adjust for that if you're just doing the rote method?
Exactly. And if it's
So yeah, I
It is. It's very very, um, very important to to deviate from this rote method. Maybe it could be for for other reasons, uh, specific reasons. People, uh, like and and oh, another thing is that if you are used to the rote method and you shift away from it, it can be very anxiety provoking. That's another thing is that with the Asian, uh, experience, I've seen that a lot of students from Asia are so used to the rote method. If you do any group work or teamwork, uh, uh, using the language, they get so anxious because it's a very different system than what they're used to. So, that's when the culture comes in. So, anxiety, you know, plays a part, uh, but also culture plays a bigger part as well.
Yeah, exactly. And it's a comfort zone thing, isn't it? Where you
Exactly. Yes.
You just you can hide behind your test results, but when you're asked to speak, it's you're on the spotlight's on you, you have to perform
Yes.
right away. But yeah, I think you should just mix it up really. I mean, there's no taking it away, but
Yeah.
Yeah, you need you need to know the vocabularies. Like, I I tell I tell my students, you know, put an aim, put a target to learn a couple of vocabularies per day. And then that needs the memorization. You need to memorize those words and what do they mean? But then spice it up with using those words in, you know, everyday sentences that come up.
Try to aim in everyday use, uh, if you learn five words, try to speak to people around you, using and put those five words that you've just learned into sentences in conversation with a friend or, uh, a neighbor or anybody that, you know, uh, on the street that you want to ask a question. Make an effort to use those words that you've just memorized and you know what they mean. Try to make it up and spice it up with those with those sentences. Those sentences are maybe 99% are going to be wrong. Uh, you know, unless you memorize those sentences. But in everyday conversation, it comes up. You're not going to use those ones that you've memorized and use them because it's just going to be fake. It's just not going to be right. You're going to have to change it. Uh, and so with that, that comes in the combination maybe of rote method and everyday life and and and that's the spicing up and how interesting language can become.
Exactly. And, um, my, I think, uh, my final question is we're coming out to about the the end of the interview here. But you're doing the research on the anxious the anxious language learner. I guess you can call your headline of your research, but where do you where do you hope that your postdoctoral research will take you? And how do you hope to change the world with with the research? Let's be ambitious.
Oh, change the world. Wow. World peace.
That would be the first thing.
Uh, change the world. I mean, I I I can. I I can't change the world. I wish I could, but I mean, I could all the only thing is that I can educate people or educate teachers, educate students, it's not their fault, uh, as to the students, because a lot of students think it's their fault. They they're they have something wrong with them that they can't do this.
Right.
That's that's one of the things that I really hate hearing when somebody tells me that what like, oh, I just can't do it because, you know, I I'm not good at languages. Like everybody's good at languages, but it's just how you, you know, uh, how you approach the language, as well as teachers, like, uh, I have when I when I'm with teachers and some I've I've really actually heard them like, oh, I have terrible students. And I'm like, what? You can't say that.
Yeah.
But but it's it's uh, the So, you know, if I educate teachers and say, look, these are not terrible students. They are just anxious students. If we can just pay more attention to them and apply different methods to them, that would help them.
So, I I give lectures all over the world. I I, you know, I'm I've just come from Turkey. Uh, I've done two lectures there, uh, in the university there in Istanbul, and I've I I lecture, uh, in the UK, and I go to Japan, and a couple of other countries. But my main concern is always to target the teachers, to target the students is like, you're not alone for the students, this happens to anybody, anywhere, and with any language. The teachers is like, there's no actual bad students or good students. They're all good. But it's how you're teaching them. Let's just adjust the way you teach them. You could be the best teacher on earth. But the way you're sending the information is what making those students anxious.
So, if I can educate the language learner and the language teacher, I'm really happy. I that that's my ultimate goal. And, uh, my new book, which is coming out next year, that's going to be very academic. It's going to be targeted towards the teachers. So, that's with the with Groter, um, the publisher. So, they are going to be very, you know, very educational facts and research and, uh, you know, statistics on there. But, uh, that's, you know, that's that's for the teachers, I I think, and for a general researcher to know. But this this book is more of everybody. So, that's why I wanted to start with one that is targeting everybody, and then we go into the research itself.
So, I'm I'm really happy. The the response when I give those lectures and I educate the people the teachers or the students, uh, I get lots of positive responses from them, and they go, oh, wow, this is an eye-opener. I never thought there was such a thing or called language anxiety. It was always like, you know, I'm not that good. No, no, no, nobody's not not good. But it's just, you know, just pay attention to these things, be aware of that anxiety, face it. Okay, yes, I have it. Okay, let's figure it out and how to overcome it. And then at the with that with that having been said, I'm very happy with the results I'm getting.
Right. It's fan fantastic. And spreading awareness is is the first step. And one of the you also put that as one of the ways for the teachers to improve immediately is to simply tell the students, okay, listen up. Someone you're going to feel anxious about this. It's probably not the best way to say it, but you know, just attack the problem at the front and and make it make the students aware that this is what happens, and you shouldn't really feel bad about it. And yeah, I I agree that if we can, you know, spread the message as far as we can, then I'm sure we'll improve language learning worldwide and indeed change the world. So, uh,
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
It's and and you know what, when it that it your your saying because it could change the world. And it is. And I think it will change the world because we will be able to speak more languages. So, the more people we can communicate, the more tolerance we have in this world, the more understanding of the different cultures, because you just can't pick up a language without picking up the culture. Right? So, they go hand in hand.
So, the more exposure I have to different cultures, that will produce tolerance. I will understand why these people are doing it this way because I'm aware of that language. And I can speak to them and communicate with them. So, the more languages we have, the more tolerance we'll have in this world. And then we'll have world peace.
I agree completely. And let's hope for that. But, uh, in the meantime, thank you so much for for coming on to the show and sharing your story with us. It was a great pleasure for me personally. So,
Oh, thank you for having me. I I really enjoyed it. I hope everybody else benefits from it.
Yeah, I hope so too. And, uh, if anyone's interested, they can, uh, pick up The Anxious Language Learner, uh, in a bookshop near you maybe or Amazon or what's the best place to
Yes. Amazon. Yeah, it's on Amazon. Uh, and it's on, uh, Nook as well and I think, uh, and iBook as well. Yeah.
Fantastic. That's that has like 99% of the world covered, I'm sure. So,
Yeah.
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, and, uh, great luck with the, best of luck with the research, and, uh, I hope to, uh, hear more from you, uh, in the future.
Oh, thank you for having me.
Welcome.
Thank you for listening to the Actual Fluency podcast.