Familiarity and Self-Perceived Competence to Communicate in a Second Language

Communicating in English as a second language spoken inside classroom, among friends and schoolmates, relies on comfort and proficiency. Viewed from an autoethnographic lens, this paper aims to explore and analyze pressing issues besetting a student from communicating fluidly in English as a second language in a classroom context. The methodology of the study consists of the autoethnographer’s self-reflections of classroom learning, analyzed using the interpretive paradigm of the self as located within the culture. The paper reveals that speaking in English as a second language largely depends on self-motivation, economic status, social background, and technological capacity. Moreover, self-perceived competence to communicate manifests in a person’s readiness and openness to communicate a foreign language that impact one’s individual and cultural identity.