Motivating Introvert Students to Enhance Their Speaking Skills in EFL Classroom.

Abstract

Speaking in any language seems to be a difficult skill that requires considerable efforts and practice from the teachers' part to raise their students' speaking level through the application of certain techniques. It is considered as one of the most problematic obstacle introvert students face among the four skills, because of their quiet nature. This research focuses mainly on reducing the misunderstanding of introversion among teachers at the department of English at Ibn Khaldoun University of Tiaret, and shedding light on the strategy teachers should opt to motivate them to enhance their speaking skills in EFL classroom. The target subjects are third year LMD students at the department of English at the University of Tiaret. To achieve this objective, it is hypothesized that individual work, avoidance of forcing introverts to speak and choosing interesting topics to discuss can be effective techniques in motivating them to participate in class. In this respect we relied on both quantitative and qualitative tools. The quantitative method is introduced a questionnaire and the qualitative method is introduced as a semi-structured interview with two oral expression teachers from the same university to investigate the impact of class environment and teachers' instruction on the introverts' amount of participation also to articulate teachers' perspectives about them and their learning experience. The responses that we came with through these instruments confirmed that introverts’ function better in activities that require individual work or small groups, they need time to react and form answers and teachers can help them by providing interesting topics, they are also considered as shy. At the end, we provided some recommendations which included some strategies that may help teachers differentiate instruction to be responsive to introvert students and some speaking activities that may serve in motivating them to develop their oral skills.