#Microblog Monday 217: Language Anxiety
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The twins’ school recently had an open house, and I swung by when I could slip out for an hour. I ended up in their French class, which is one of their favourite classes. Their teacher is fantastic, and it’s a pleasure to watch her teach because she clearly loves the language and passing it along to the kids.
I took French for many, many, many years. Being in that classroom brought out my French panic. My body was on high alert that the teacher could call on me. And I would be asked to speak in front of her students. And… emergency emergency emergency.
I don’t feel this way about any other subject. I couldn’t always do the math problem, but I wasn’t worried about getting called on in class. The same with every subject; I was okay being called on in every other class. But there was something about language classes. I was so worried that I’d be asked to speak aloud. And while I’m okay reading things in another language, I feel this panic come out every time I need to actually speak to another human being in that language.
Which language did you study in school? Do you also have language panic?
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17 comments
I studied French from Grades 7 through 11, and in first year university. (Most Canadians who study a second language would probably study French, since the federal government and a couple of the provinces are officially bilingual = better future employment prospects.) I never did gain any degree of fluency in it. I don’t recall feeling any particular anxiety about using it, but I do remember feeling frustrated when the word(s) I wanted didn’t pop into my head fast enough. My one business trip to Montreal, I was looking forward to using my French, at least a little — but I found the moment I hesitated or paused, the waiter or whoever I was talking to would immediately switch to English. Which I suppose was wise from a “serving the tourists” standpoint, but disappointing for those of us who wanted a chance to dust off our high school French. 😉
I feel this way about speaking too. I’m currently relearning Spanish so I can communicate with my neighbors (most don’t speak English) and I struggle with speaking because of the fear of saying things incorrectly and sounding stupid. Thankfully I don’t have much of a choice and am forced to practice, but it is nerve-wreaking and exhausting.
On a tangent, did you know about the French House at UW Madison? I only recently learned and think it’s one of the coolest things I completely missed out on.
French and yes. But this is partly because I have a family member who does not have this anxiety and frequently “speaks” other languages with painfully bad accents and it makes me anxious.
I didn’t take language classes until college, and then I took four semesters of Spanish. I actually really enjoyed it and found that I picked it up relatively quickly, so no panic.
I will say, though, that I tried a couple of times to learn French through self-study and failed miserably. Just.could.not.get.it.
I took French in college, but I think my experience in having language anxiety was more related to moving to the US when I was a teenager and speaking a new language as my primary language in school. I was so so scared of speaking in front of the class for a very long time. It extended into college and my adult life. Where as in college when I took French, everybody started at about the same level, and I found myself speaking with confidence without any panic.
I should probably have taken the “practical” Spanish, but in my high school it was what the “losers” took. And, having been forced to take half a semester (I transferred in late and never really caught on to speaking or understanding although I did fine on the written work) I could see why. The teacher spent most of the class trying to keep the miscreants from trying to light the trash can on fire and little time teaching. The next year I enrolled in German and I found my language. I had my AP English teacher who had never taught German before and he immersed us in German- we learned from music and his stories about traveling around Germany and a million other tools- it was one of the most awesome learning experiences I ever had. When I went to German 2 the following year I was so incredibly bored. Yes, I learned a tiny bit more grammar, but really not much. And that first year I even got to tutor. In fact, I learned so much that when I played golf in a tournament that summer with someone who spoke French as her first language and German her second we communicated all day in German which was so cool. We had to struggle a few times but we made it through the day using our German and were pretty proud of ourselves. In college I took both French and German. I wanted to love French but, not having a background in it when everyone else did and having a teacher whose first language was Vietnamese? I never did understand the accent (Admittedly I’m terrible with accents to start with but that didn’t help my French or understanding her) So, again I can read some but can’t speak or understand a bit. My German is rusty but I can still pick up some even after this long and I love to get to try. LOL But I was never afraid with my German, I loved it and loved getting to use it. Now, math on the other hand terrified me….
I took two years of French, but they weren’t back to back so it didn’t stick very well. I also took a term of German, but again, not enough to have actually learned anything. I wish that I took it more seriously and learned a second language. Hindsight…
I took Spanish a little in elementary and middle school, and 2 years in high school. I never learned to speak very much, a sentence or two here or there, a few phrases. So much of it was taught as grammar and writing the words correctly and not conversational, the way it is mostly taught now so it is actually useful.
I grew up hearing Italian but never learning to speak it but I can understand it being spoken and while I can interject a few words here and there, I mostly reply in English. This is because when my family immigrated over, my great-great grandfather said “We are coming to America, we will speak their language” so a lot of it was lost through the generations.
That stinks that it causes you so much panic!
I took Spanish in school. While speaking it doesn’t make me panic, I do get a little nervous sometimes and feel embarrassed, because I feel like I took it so long that I should be more fluent.
I’ve studied Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic, and you bet I have anxiety about having to speak it on the spot and in front of people.
I studied Spanish for a few years (high school, college, graduate school) and French on my own. No panic, but pretty much lost all the fluency I gained through lack of practice (or discipline). Eek.
I took three years of German in school, and then took Spanish online when I went back to school for teaching. I remember FAR more German; taking a language online proved to be terrible for me as a learner. I feel like I’m with others… Math made me far more nervous, and even though I coteach math and have been supporting Algebra for years, I still panic that I’ll make a mistake with a student and give the wrong answer or strategy and look totally inept. I hope the language anxiety subsided!
I took German through high school and even went on a trip to Germany with my German teacher where we got to see the remains of the Berlin Wall and use our German. The class that caused me panic was P.E. I’m not good at team sports, don’t really like to run and that was a recipe for disaster in P.E.
I took four years of French over three years at high school, and I loved speaking it, but had a teacher who concentrated on the written language rather than the spoken, due to his own feelings of inadequacy. I have loved going to France and discovering that I can hold brief conversations, and feeling that surprise when I can understand something, or a word comes to me that I haven’t said or studied for decades! I definitely only have schoolgirl French though.
Right now, I’m about to start brushing up on my self-taught Spanish, for a trip next year. I’m hoping to become more fluent, so that I can be brave enough to speak it on my travels.
I adore speaking other languages, though I wish I was much braver than I am. I took Japanese at university, but have never been to Japan, and spent a year being paid studying Mandarin but have never been to China. (Other than a few hours transferring in Shanghai airport, when I managed to speak a couple of sentences to someone, and was so excited.) Learning Thai in Thailand has meant that I’m pretty much never self-conscious speaking Thai, and also that I have a firm grasp on how far I am from fluency!
I’m exactly the opposite! Geometry blech!! I love languages. I love that there seems like there is seemingly such a barrier between you and someone else and then you just say a few words and that all disappears. My degree is in Foreign Languages. At some point in my life I’ve studies Spanish, French, Latin & Hebrew. I’d love to study more.
Spanish, but most of my classes were conducted in English so I didn’t really learn how to listen or talk until I spent a month on a summer program in Valencia in college. Classes conducted in English are not that frightening.
Re: making mistakes teaching math– I do that all the time (BA in math, PhD in math-related field)… it’s not a big deal because they make excellent learning experiences for the students, especially when they feel comfortable enough to tell you they don’t understand or that they’ve found the mistake. (When they’re not caught it is more of a problem.)
I took French, but could never accurately speak it – I took the AP test for college credit and apparently didn’t even pass. I only got exempted for taking 4 years in high school. My teachers were terrible, I think. Well, one was slow, the other terrible.
Strangely, on my few trips to Italy, I never felt any anxiety about massacring the few phrases I knew. Maybe it’s because you hear the stories of how irritable French people get when they hear French spoken poorly, but I was never comfortable speaking it. I used to happily sing La Marseillaise, though! 😀