Kris Season two, episode 21, Tagreed Alsaraj, Language Anxiety, Part two.
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. On this week, I'm joined once again by Tagreed Alsaraj. Tagreed was the guest two episodes ago when we were talking about language anxiety. And sadly, due to technical problems, a part of our conversation was lost, and we redid it, and this is the final product. And I'm really grateful that Tagreed had had time to come and redo it with such a short notice. I know she's got a lot going on, very busy. So, this is a really cool, and we, I think we did a really good job of recovering what was lost from the universe of technical problems.
One thing I do want to note is that, you know, Skype is getting worse and worse for me. I don't know if anyone else is having the same problem, but this time, the audio quality was pretty low on both sides as if the send, the bandwidth was simply limited in some cases, which is completely ridiculous when you consider I have really super fast internet and it's not, I'm not using Wi-Fi or anything. So, you will hear a slightly worse audio quality than usual, but I hope that you will, that you will find it acceptable. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, feedback, praise, you can send an email to kris@actualfluency.com. That's CHR I S for the time being, and that will redirect to my email. So, thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next week.
All right, everyone. We're back with another episode of the actual fluency podcast. As promised, I brought back Tagreed to redo the original interview where we talked about her story and the book The Anxious Language Learner, a Saudi Woman's Story. Hey, Tagreed, how are you doing today?
Taghreed I'm doing great.
Kris Thank you so much for taking the time to come and redo it after my technical problems last week.
Taghreed Oh, no, that's fine. Um, hopefully, this time is going to be really good.
Kris Fingers crossed. We've got a a few fail safes running this time, so uh uh, 100% sure it's going to work this time. But before we uh get into your book, The Anxious Language Learner, why don't you give people a little backstory on how you came to the point of researching language anxiety and learning foreign languages?
Taghreed Uh, the whole process started after I finished my master's in education, uh, in TESOL, teaching English as a second language, and I started lecturing at the University in Saudi Arabia. And when I was in class, uh, I saw the the students uh, were having difficulties and they were not having fun, uh, learning uh, English. Uh, that was the language I was teaching them at the time. And so, I was wondering, like, what was going on? And and I first originally thought it was just they didn't have enough motivation. It wasn't there, and they didn't want to, they thought that they had to learn the language. So, there was no, you know, motivation to continue learning, so they were just really barely memorizing, dragging themselves to class.
And I I sometimes I thought it was me, my methods that I'm using that was not that appealing to them. I tried to be very creative in finding ways to lure them in, to give give them projects, uh, that was interesting about travel around the world. It was I was trying to be creative as much as possible, but I was still not getting through the whole class.
Uh, and so, uh, and at the time I wanted to, you know, in academia, PhD, like a must. Uh, and so, I always wanted to have uh, my I to do my PhD. So, I started reading about motivation and seeing uh, cuz that was it was clearly in my mind, it was motivation that they're lacking. And uh, as as um, as uh, further into my reading, I found out there's something called anxiety. And I thought, you know, yeah, that could be a possibility because it's all individual differences, so it could be motivation, it could be a little bit of anxiety.
And so, when I really took it seriously, and I uh, I took time off, and I did I went to London, uh, to do my PhD at the University of London, uh, it was only then when I started reading more and more about motivation and then a little bit about anxiety, that I started steering away and I thought, you know what, the problems they had was not motivation. I it sounded like more of anxiety. So, I started I I I started up first researching motivation, then I ended up into anxiety because the more the signs that I was seeing and all the behavioral effects was more into anxiety, not motivation. Uh, and that's how I really started uh, of uh, deviating from motivation and ended up into anxiety. Uh, and you know, it was just an eye-opener. I never thought that anxiety would have such a big effect on students. Uh, and I all this time I thought it was just they weren't motivated enough.
Kris Right. But you could look back and and then see, oh, it kind of makes sense when you when you got to that point.
Taghreed Yeah. It was an eye-opener. And it it was it was really that that first year of research. And the more reading and extensive reading that I had to do, it was all like starting to complete shift of of research uh, proposal. Like I I started a proposal on motivation and trying to figure out, you know, how to lure these students into uh, enjoying the language and all this, and then at the end of that first year, it there was motivation was even barely included, it was all anxiety in it. And it was uh, my supervisor was like, what's going on? And I'm like, but all the signs does doesn't doesn't stick to motivation. It's more of anxiety. And it was interesting to see that the anxiety could affect the students so much uh, into uh, deterring them from learning, uh, and uh, and not coming into class and all these behaviors that is associated with it.
Kris Right. Yeah, it's quite fascinating. I don't think it it gets a lot of airtime either on the various blogs and in the various language learning books. It seems that it's a it's a topic that it's not frequently talked about, unless it's together with maybe shyness. People sometimes talk about, oh, I'm really shy, I have I'm I have trouble going out and practicing the new language.
Taghreed Yeah, and and you know what's the funny part? The shy people are the most anxious people.
Taghreed And so, shyness is one of the uh, one of the criteria for being anxious.
Taghreed So, so then when we say shyness, in reality, is that those those people or those students are actually very anxious. That's why they are shy.
Kris Right. So, it's cause and effect.
Taghreed So, now it all comes together. And so, that's how how I knew that, okay, I was thinking of something else, but shyness, all this all these uh, things, the behavioral things, they're all uh, cause and effect of anxiety.
Kris Right. And in the in our previous talk, uh, which was season two, episode 19, we discussed how we could make it better in the classroom as a and as an individual student, how to reduce that anxiety a little bit if possible. Or maybe you just be aware that it exists, that's a good first step. So, people want to, you know, listen more to the practical sides of of the of the matter, then that part of the conversation was saved and up on there. So,
Taghreed Yeah, because if if you know what what you're going through, you can tackle it.
Taghreed But a lot of people it it goes undetected. They don't know what it is. They just they just say, oh, I'm not a good language learner. And that's and that's the determent right there, and and then they stop learning. Or they're not going to be interested in in in uh, even thinking about learning a new language. But if you already know that, you know what, this are some of the effects of what anxiety has on you, but you know what, don't be deterred by it because there's other ways of going around it, reducing it. So, you know, I always say it's like if you know the cause of the problem, you can tackle it. It's the same as a doctor. When you go, you know, he knows what it is, he can figure out or narrow it down, he can give you the medication for it, and you can get better.
Kris Yeah, and just knowing is also a great way in and of itself to start improving. If you know you have that weakness or or problem. But um,
Taghreed Yeah, and then you just figure out how to uh, go around it or, you know, uh, a lot of uh, a lot of people don't know that they have anxiety, and then they become so so much of an expert into camouflage it. And so, uh, like you'd see students in class, uh, with that they're shy, let's take the example that we said, that they're shy, that they don't raise their hands, they don't want to participate. And it's all because of their anxiety that they don't want to be, you know, they don't want to say something that they could it could be wrong, and people would laugh at them. Uh, or being looked down upon, that they're not good enough in uh, in the class. Or they're comparing themselves with other students. All of these things come up. And so, what they do is like they they come up with a way is like, oh, when the teacher asks a question, they always find a way like, oh, fidget or do something or or have no eye contact with the teacher so they don't have to be called upon. Oh, and and so, we we are very smart smart individuals that we figure out a way to camouflage our flaws. And and this is an everyday life. It's not only in the language learning. But we are smart, we figure out, we know what we have a problem, but we just maybe don't know what it is, but we can always figure out a way of how to go around it or camouflage it and and and not be so obvious about it.
Kris Yeah, exactly. And and I guess it's also a way of protecting the ego a little bit. You don't want to seem weak in front of others.
Taghreed Exactly. And you want to save face. You don't want anybody, you know, uh, uh, you know, it's also also comparison. People compare themselves with others. And it's like competition. And and it shouldn't be that way, but people think, oh, they're better than me in class, like, I'm not that great, but they are better. Uh, or I want to be or I I I beat them, I got a better grade than them. So, the competition in class is also another thing that, uh
