EFL Students' Reluctance to Speak in Public Speaking Classes

Silence may also serve as a reply with the help of which some people think they can convey a message. But not on this case. This is a Public Speaking Class where, whatever the reason we are expected to be vocal. As a Public Speaking Class instructor I have encountered the irritation of some EFL learners of all levels being reluctant to speak during the classes. My goal is to get my students speak as much as possible. However, I can constitute that often times I am left empty handed as some of my students just don’t want to talk at all. This turned out to be a real problem as those learners hardly ever volunteered to respond to questions, and rarely made the first move to start communication with their peers and the teacher. What are the sources of their reluctance to speak? Is it shyness, introversion, social anxiety disorder, reticence construct or foreign language anxiety that makes them behave this way? The purpose of my study is to discover the sources of EFL students’ reluctance during oral performances, to shed light to the roots of those sources and propose some strategies and techniques that can help students overcome the issue of acting reluctant in the classroom.