Designing Language Learning for Confidence

It is no secret to anyone that speaking a new language may be associated with anxiety. Many learners become self-conscious of their pronunciation or just too nervous when exposed to a group of native speakers of their target language. Counterintuitively, confidence (or the lack of it) to speak a new language does not seem to be related to one's language level. Just think of novice learners who "don't care" and just focus on communicating while advanced speakers sometimes focus on communicating "with perfection".

Regardless of where one is in this confidence spectrum, a certain amount of confidence will be necessary to communicate in any new language. The question then is: how are language learning courses addressing this? And a second question would be... how much is one's confidence to speak a new language related to their motivation to keep learning it? Considering many (if not most) learners quit learning a new language (and then regret it), it is definitely worth investing time in creating language learning experiences that focus on building brain-friendly, confidence-building learning environments rather than focusing only on the language learning process per se.

As students, our brains are wired to identify and react to rewarding and threatening experiences. When feeling threatened or insecure, language learners (even advanced ones) simply do not believe their teacher if they are told by them that their language skills are great. Hence, it is my opinion that it is the instructors and learning designers' responsibility to craft learning experiences where confidence is promoted at every step. In other words, learners should be getting the feeling of confidence from the proposed exercises rather than from an external positive reinforcement.

When learning a language, speakers feel confident when communication is authentic and effective. Positive reinforcement is welcome but will not raise a learner's self-confidence if communication is not authentic and effective. On engagement, Steve Willer, Associate Professor at Plymouth Institute of Education suggests teachers can help learners engage by making learning "irresistible" to a point there seems to be "no other option". Of course, that sounds ideal, but that is his illustration of the Flow Theory, which says learners are "in the zone" when there is an equilibrium between boredom and challenge.

Some aspects of language learning approaches that focus on boosting learners' confidence and helping them achieve such equilibrium include:

Scaffolding: at every step of an exercise, make sure learners are able to execute activities. Breaking activities down to smaller portions may increase the amount of times a learner feels successful in the same class. Scaffolding will also help them execute harder activities later in the process.

Agency: allowing learners to do what they feel comfortable to do may be a game changer. In language classes, teachers can allow students to choose what topics they would like to talk about and let them self-regulate as to how they can better execute an activity. As an example, a teacher could give them 2-3 options of how to execute the same tasks. Students who feel insecure may choose an easier option but then see they could have chosen a harder one--hence building confidence!

Brain-friendly communication: nobody likes to receive orders. Instructors should be mindful of the learners' feelings when introducing new exercises. That also includes asking for permission before offering suggestions and feedback.