Investigation of Situational and Pedagogical Factors AffectingSpeaking Reluctance among University EFL Students

In second and foreign language acquisition, a number of factors appearto contribute to predisposing one learner to seek and another learner toavoid L2 communication (Brown, 2007). Generally, It is also believedthat speaking as a means of oral participation in university EFLclassrooms is an anxiety-provoking phenomenon and students are notwilling to participate in oral interaction environment. Some factors makestudents be reluctant to use L2 in speaking settings. It may be regardedas the most challenging concern that instructors are recently facing inEFL classrooms. Consequently, the present study was conducted toinvestigate the underlying factors affecting speaking reluctance amonguniversity students and to suggest solutions to this problematic issue.Data of this study were gathered through an informal 12-items Likertscalequestionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The quantitativequalitativeanalysis was applied to present the results. The findingsindicated that several situational factors (instructors’ behavior, courselevel, lack of prior preparation, participation opportunity, low exposureto communicative activities and settings, class atmosphere and topicselection) and pedagogical factors (teaching style, instructor-studentrelationship, course materials, educational system and low Englishproficiency and) were found to cause students’ speaking reluctance inacademic EFL settings

کلیدواژه ها:

Speaking ، reluctance ، pedagogical ، situational