“I don´t know where this shyness comes from, maybe a fear of seeming ridiculous”: a study about shyness and the oral production of English students

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Jardel Coutinho dos
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Barcelos, Ana Maria Ferreira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Horizontes de Linguística Aplicada
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/horizontesla/article/view/22627
• topic: shyness;; speaking;; English; timidez;; produção oral;; Língua Inglesa

One of the important aspects in language teaching and learning is learning oral skills (NOELS et al, 2003; SILVA 2005, RUTH 2013;), which is one most sought after skills by foreign language learners (BERGSLEITHNER, 2009). The learning difficulties related to this skill can be attributed to several aspects, including one of the most important, and unfortunately, least researched, learners’ shyness. Studies on this topic are almost scant in Brazilian applied linguistics (except for CANDIDO RIBEIRO, 2008). This study reports results of an initial study that aimed at investigating the shyness of intermediate level students of English at an intermediate level English course and how it relates to their oral production. The theoretical framework was based, especially, on studies about shyness (ZIMBARDO, 1977; AXIA, 2003, CANDIDO-RIBEIRO, 2008) and speaking (UR, 1996). The results suggest that shyness affected students’ oral production for several reasons, the emotion of fear being one of the most important.