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Face your anxiety and fear

(Piačková, 2002 - modified by

Müller de Morais, 2018)
To specify tasks by means of small steps is a very useful
method, but we can postpone their fulfilling because we feel too
anxious. These anxious feelings often prevent us to do
something we really want. Afterwards we have to cope with
other emotions, like anger and sadness.

You have to learn how to cope with your anxiety and worries.
The following steps could help you:

1.

step: Use small steps to specify your task by means of
smaller tasks.

step: Make your own dialogue and act it.

step: Relax and imagine a successful description of your
first task.

step: Try it with this first task.

step: Reward yourself for this first success.

Example:  A student is anxious when she has to speak in a
foreign language in front of a bigger group of people. She is
afraid to present her work. She is afraid that she will not be able
to remember the correct words and she will make many
impediments in her speech. She imagines that her classmates
will laugh at her and her teacher will give her a bad mark. She
has had these feelings since she worked abroad during the
summer holidays and local workers were amused with her
accent. She decided to face her anxiety.

1. Step: This student decided not to avoid this situation. She
wants the present her work. She would like to make it interesting
for her classmates. She would also like to get a positive
evaluation from her teacher and hear that she has improved a
lot in this foreign language… By means of small steps she
determined her following tasks:



To prepare her presentation and to consult it with a native
speaker.



To practise her presentation at home in front of a mirror.



To ask a classmate for a feedback after presenting him her
work before the official date of her presentation at school.



To ask two or three classmates to support her during her
presentation (e.g. with the eye contact, nodding or other
gestures of agreement, etc.)



To try to present her work by means of presentation skills
she has learnt during her studies (e.g. to move closer to her
classmates, to pay her attention to all of them, to ask
verifying questions, etc)

2. Step: This student was thinking what she would say to herself
at the moment of coming to the front of the classroom: “I am
calm. Nobody will laugh at me. I am going closer to my
classmates…”
3. step: She imagined her place of relaxation. Then she imagined
the scene of her calm walking towards her classmates. She also
imagined that her classmates were clapping at the end of her
presentation and her teacher gave her a positive feedback, too.
The teacher said that she had improved her speaking skills in
this foreign language.
4. Step: She imagined this situation several times. She practised
what she would say to herself. Finally she acquired a feeling that
she could try it. She decided that the best time for facing her
anxiety would be during the lesson when she had to present her
work. She used all methods from the first step.
5. Step: The student was successful and she prepared a
presentation that she had consulted with a native speaker. She
was satisfied and she rewarded herself with a cup of hot
chocolate and a cake. Then she continued with her other tasks.

5 Conclusion

The aim of this article was to elucidate the phenomenon of
anxiety and fear of speaking in a foreign language and selected
possibilities of their management by cognitive and behavioral
method of cognitive –behavioral approach. Understanding of
anxiety of speaking is nowaday a result of researches and

clinical experience, that are for current pedagogical and
pscychological theory and practice necessary and needed part.
Our author´s ambition was to provide possibilities of the
management of anxiety by application of cognitive and
behavioral methods, that we consider as an adequate method in
the area of its reduction. Their use in the situation of
verbalisation in a foreign language is effective in the area of
achievement support. We expect that in a frame of
conceptualisation of problems in speaking in a foreign language
will be influenced by new information from research and
practice and it will continue as an investigation trend of this
problem with the aim to minimalize negative influence on
achievement.

This study is part of the research project of The Scientific
Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and
Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of
Sciences: - no. 1/0062/17 – Anxiety in Speaking of English
language in English Teachers in Slovakia.

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