There’s an ancient Hebrew saying that goes something like this: “A shy person will not learn.” While this may not be true in all cases, shyness certainly has an effect on learning English. From my experience as an EFL teacher, I’ve found that I’ve often have to serve as a language coach, not just a language teacher.
How do you know a student is really shy? This is the student who hardly talks in the class–even when you directly ask him or her questions. Surprisingly, many of these students do have a mastery of the English language; they just won’t speak. At some point you need to find out if the student is usually shy at home in his own country or just here in the EFL class. The best way is to simply take the student aside after class and kindly ask him. If the student says she’s shy at home, well, then, there’s not much you can do than to encourage the student to push herself to participate as much as possible. If it turns out that the student is afraid of speaking up in your EFL class, there are some things that could work:
Get the student to speak more often with another student (in pair work) rather than in front of the whole class. Students almost always suffer less performance anxiety when speaking one-to-one. Try to get the student to speak through role-playing. Most students enjoy role playing. Shy students often forget themselves during a role play and really get into the situation. If the student mumbles or speaks too quietly, don’t move closer to hear the student; do just the opposite. Walk to the other side of the room and ask the student to speak up until you hear him. You may have to do this over and over, but, at least, you will be able to finally understand what the student is saying–and so will the other students in the class. Be prepared to take advantage of a good discussion topic. You never know what will get a shy student speaking. I had a couple of male students from Iceland who spoke very good English but would not speak up in class. Finally, somehow, the subject of serial killers came up and you couldn’t shut these two guys up. I guess every student has his subject.