EFL students’ reluctance to speak in the classroom — a lesson not learned?

A recapitulation of speaker reluctance before and during the pandemic It would be far from true to say the global Covid-19 pandemic is over. Looking at secondary education, however, a number of English teachers must feel that they went full circle: From the ‘usual’ teaching in a classroom to online-lessons, distance learning, some hybrid models and back to the classroom. Looking back at the time before the outbreak of Coronavirus, teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) included various difficulties, students’ reluctance to speak being one of the omnipresent ones. As a ubiquitous problem, teachers invest great amounts of energy into convincing their students to vocally take part in class — rightly so, given the importance of speaking for the students’ development of speaking competence. To build and foster speaking competence, also phrased as communicative ability, verbal student interaction is required in every phase of learning the language. This again relies on positive attitudes towards speaking activities that allow for practice of oral production and reproduction (Szpotowicz 2012, Savaşçı 2013). Despite all efforts, too little student participation appeared to be a recurring problem already before the pandemic (Savaşçı 2013). But when the virus outbreak became a global pandemic and schools switched to online lessons, different studies showed the same pattern: Participation decreased in general and feelings of restraint regarding oral participation grew (Meşe & Sevilen 2021, Bray et al. 2021, Unger et al. 2020). Being in a learning situation themselves, teachers had to sort out various difficulties of the online organization of learning, leaving less attention, energy, time and means to work on speaking reluctance — both previously existing or newly developed. It is safe to say that the switch to online education must have been perceived as a setback for the majority of teachers and students in terms of positive learning outcomes. With a more experienced government and society, test schemes, vaccinations and other safety measures, classrooms are now becoming the place of education and physical interaction again. Despite the uncertain outlook on future pandemic developments, the move back into schools has constituted an improvement for many. Compared to the recent difficulties of online sessions, being physically present in a classroom is a positive development. Unfortunately, this can take away attention from the still prevailing problem of speaker reluctance in EFL classes. Research findings about increased unwillingness to orally participate during the pandemic, as well as the social aftermath of isolation, uncertainty and economical hardships, hint at similar or even increased reluctance of speakers when compared with pre-Covid times (Meşe & Sevilen 2021, Bray et al. 2021, Unger et al. 2020). Not actively tackling this problem would be a lesson not learned. But if teachers acknowledge speaker reluctance in EFL classes, then a speaker-friendly environment must be established. This article aims at beginning a list and discussion of methods to create such an environment. Due to the scale of this publication, the list is limited, but open for every person experienced in teaching to extend. First, however, reasons for speaker reluctance need to be identified.