The Effects of Social Phobia on English Language Learners’ Classroom Participation

Beginning in childhood, social phobia (SP) is a debilitating disorder that results in some children s poor relationships and social isolation. While numerous studies have been reported on SP in educational and clinical psychology, the field of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) seems to have greatly ignored this variable. This negligence has the potential to ruin the results of large scale studies of language acquisition and use that collect data on children’s affective and social variables. The present study was designed to explore the possible relationship between SP in a group of Iranian learners of English and their classroom participation (CP). Furthermore, the study aimed to explore gender differences in SP and to examine the covariance of SP and EFL classroom participation across gender. A convenient sample of 95 children, aged 8-14 (75 females, 20 males) of varying EFL proficiency levels in an English language institute in Iran participated in the study in 2017. Having gained parental and institutional consents, data were collected from the sample using the SPAI- C questionnaire on SP and a CP questionnaire. The results of data analysis showed that girls were more socially phobic, some seriously suffering from the disorder. No statistically significant relationship between SP and CP were found for male learners while there was a weak positive correlation between SP and CP for female learners. Results imply that females classroom participation may be partially related to their social phobia with the causal role of SP requiring further investigation. Suggestions are provided for both language teachers and learners for more classroom involvement.

کلیدواژه ها:

EFL ، learners classroom Participation ، Social Phobia ، Gender