Nervousness and Anxiety: They get the best of you

"If you can´t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you are giving up your potential"- Warren Buffet. Public speaking or anxiety are type of shyness characterized by fear of communicating with people ( Gaibani, 2016). Language students have nervousness or anxiety when speaking in public because of different motives as students´ personality. Language students can control their nervousness and anxiety by recording themselves, by cooperating with peers, and by practicing in front of a mirror.

Language students control their nervousness and anxiety by recording themselves because this technique helps students knowing their ability when speaking and, with some feedback, they know their weaknesses to improve it. They will record an audio that lasts between 3 to 15 minutes (Shamzi, Altaha & Gilanlioglu, 2019). This exercise encourage students because they increase their confidence by listening their voice. Learners receive feedback about their strengths and weaknesses in their performance considering grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and fluency. (Shamzi, Altaha & Gilanlioglu, 2019). Besides making a self-evaluation, students have an outside point of view by a teacher o classmates that make them notice their strenghts and their weaknesses when speaking . By doing this activity, students increase their speaking ability because they practice constantly and the pronunciation, intonation, and self-confidence will not be a blockade when giving a speech.

Cooperating with peers give students the opportunity of increasing their self-confidence. Students role-play as students, teachers, audience that encourage their ability when speaking in public. People overcome nervousness and anxiety by practicing in peers and then moving on to larger audiences. (Farhan, 2017). Interacting with other classmates make students feel more comfortable to use the English language in different contexts. Students practice different techniques by their own or with some help but is important to not be afraid of do it because it is something that change their weaknesses in a positive way.

Practicing in front of a mirror give speakers self-confidence because they will learn their speech while improving the speaking ability. Before presenting, prepare yourself about the topic, and prepare yourself practicing the speech in front of a mirror (Sethi & Baloch, 2017). Practicing in front of a mirror make students feel more comfortable with their own because they evaluate their speech, the movements, and the gesticulation. Nevertheless, the aspect they increase the most is the self-confidence because nervousness and anxiety are not present because of the audience, they appear because students' personality and practicing with the mirror motivates them. Practicing the three techniques encourage students to forget about nervousness and anxiety because each step increases the self-confidence and they forget all the negatives aspects that are blocking their development.

Language students avoid nervousness and anxiety when speaking in public by following some techniques to increase their self-confidence. Controlling nervousness and anxiety to speak must be improved because students cannot tolerate that those problems domain their life and act as a blockade in the academic performance. Avoiding mental issues students increase their self-confidence and they have a lot of positive consequences in the academic life.

References

Gaibani, A. (2016). Age as an Affective Factor in Influencing Public Speaking Anxiety of English Language Learners at Omar Al-Mukhtar University. Advance in Language and Literature Studies. 7(2). p. 179-182. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1127085

Raja, F. (2017). Anxiety Level in Students of Public Speaking: Causes and Remedies. Journal of Education and Educational Development. 4(1). p. 94-110. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1161521.pdf

Sethi, M., Baloch,Q. (2017). How to Develop Self Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking. Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences. 6(2). p. 129-144. Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/50736191/HOW_TO_DEVELOP_SELF-CONFIDENCE.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B filename%3DHow_to_Develop_Self_Confidence_and_Influ.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20190903%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190903T034120Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=77b2fcdf69d9ed6a24e76e89deb52ab0634a9faba096f001ba69082c1d078849

Shamsi, A., Altaha, S., Gilanlioglou, I. (2019). The Role of M-Learning in Decreasing Speaking Anxiety for EFL Learners. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation. 2(1). p. 276-282). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED593436

Topic sentence #1

Language students can control their nervousness and anxiety by recording themselves because this technique will help students knowing their ability when speaking and, with some feedback, they will know their weaknesses to improve it.

Topic sentence #2