Students` strategies to overcome the fear of speaking in class
Public speaking is a part of everyday situations. With our self presentation we build our credibility and we socilize with people around us. Everybody can be a good speaker. It is not about being born carismatic, it is a process which demands a lot of practice, good preparation and opportunities that bring experience. The fear is one of the strongest emotions, which influences our body functions and our emotional capabilities. The children fears are conseqences of too much or too little concern of their parents, stressful events in the family, etc. Social anxiety is accompanied by anxiety and concern, because of anticipated negative reactions of the social environment. It is stimulated by social situations in which a single person is exposed to other people valuation. School surrounding can become the space where anxious peronalities are exposed to low self esteem. Additionally public speaking can even make this fear stronger. The teachers have a key role in fighting the fear of public speaking of ther students. The goal of my diploma work was to find out how often students speak publicly. The research has proved that, according to teacher and students opinion, the least used forms of public speaking are pantomime and role plays. We were also interested in finding, if professors recognize the students who have public speaking fears when talking in front of the class and what kind of support do they offer to them. We found out that teachers mostly recognize the students who have the problem of speaking, hand shaking and too fast talking. The biggest number of the interwied teachers report that they help students who have that fear of speaking, by devoting more time for them, encourage them and talk to them about the issue. We also wanted to find out how these students express the fear of speaking in front of the class. The research has shown, that the most common sign of fear was connected to hart beating. We also wanted to find out the ration between the fear of speaking and how the situation of talking about someone`s favourite subject influences their public speaking, as well as school level of success, age and gender can influence their power of public speaking. The study showed no correlation between the fear of speaking and school success of students of the 8th and 4th grades. The research has proved that only the students of the 6 th grade demonstrate certain influence of scool succcess to public speaking. How much is someone in favor of topic he presents also influences the level of fear in public speaking. The research has also proved that female students have higher level of fear than male students, whose level of fear is increased with age.