Causes of Undergraduate Students' Reticence in Malaysian ESL Classrooms

Foo Siew Fen; Louisa Sanga Anak Billy; Soo Ruey Shing; Na-Thinamalar Magiswary Nadarajan

Foo Siew Fen Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, University of Selangor
Louisa Sanga Anak Billy Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, University of Selangor
Soo Ruey Shing Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, University of Selangor
Na-Thinamalar Magiswary Nadarajan Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, University of Selangor

Keywords: Reticence, undergraduate students, personality traits, self-confidence, anxiety

Abstract

Student reticence has become one of the main concerns in the English language classroom. It is frequently labeled as a problematic, frustrating, and disturbing classroom phenomenon by many instructors. The purpose of this study was to explore the degree to which undergraduate students experienced reticence and the factors that caused them to refrain from participating in classroom oral participation. To this end, a total of 122 Malaysian undergraduate students from a university participated as respondents in a self-assessment conducted using the Reticence-Scale 12 (RS-12) and a survey. The results of the self-assessment revealed that the majority of the students experienced high reticence in the classrooms. Additionally, the students' reticent behaviour was caused by virtual of their personality traits, lack of self-confidence, anxiety, poor language skills, and teacher factors. This study highlights the need for more research in this area in different learning contexts.