Written by: Sarah Henderson-Sharon, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Second language anxiety is most commonly associated with the way we speak in a foreign language. This makes sense; speaking in a second language can be threatening to our sense of identity (who are we in a language which is not our own?) and many of us are anxious about our pronunciation flaws or saying the wrong thing and embarrassing ourselves. At least, these were the things I used to worry about when I lived in China!
I was intrigued, therefore, when I worked with a client who came to me because they were so anxious about their writing that they couldn’t write! This client was working as an English teacher in their home country and had excellent English overall; they were also a talented creative writer in their first language and had self-published several short stories. What, then, was going on with their English writing?
What is Writing Anxiety?
Writing Anxiety happens when someone is overly-anxious about their writing or overly-perfectionist in their expectations of themselves. Our early or previous learning experiences play a big part in determining how anxious we feel about writing in a foreign language later in life ‒ if you had a teacher at school who always put lots of angry, red crosses on your work, you may have formed negative associations with writing and may be reluctant to write much later in life.
In the case of my client, they’d had a negative experience with the CAE exam as their teacher had been extremely critical and judgemental about their writing. Even though this experience had happened while the client was an adult, it had been painful enough for them to form a belief that they couldn’t write well in English.
How Writing Anxiety affected my client
When we met, my client was contemplating taking CPE. They were strong enough for this exam, yet were highly avoidant around writing. I would set homework… the client ignored it. I gave short, simple tasks to accomplish… the client didn’t do them. In our lessons, the client would sometimes cry with shame and frustration, knowing that they needed to do the work but feeling far too fearful to try.
After several painful sessions working on CPE writing, I realised a different approach was needed so I decided to capitalise on my client’s obvious talent for creative writing. We gave up writing essays and had fun creating characters and situations. We co-wrote short stories, writing paragraphs simultaneously so that there could be no avoidance. Most importantly, I was very careful to praise more than I criticised and encouraged my client to notice the many good things in their writing.
Slowly, my client began to appreciate their strengths and began to enjoy writing in English again, writing interesting stories that allowed them to show off their flair and talent. More importantly, they were able to transcend their previous terror of writing in English. I love this story as it shows how it is possible to overcome our language anxieties with the right support and guidance.
If you feel anxious about writing, here are three suggestions for enjoyable and rewarding ways you can work on your writing with no pressure or expectations:
free writing ‒ great for dealing with writer's block and perfectionism Free writing is when you write with no particular aim in mind. In a way it's like day-dreaming only with a pen and paper (or computer screen!). It is important that you write with no censorship or judgement; just allow yourself to write anything that comes to mind. I would suggest setting a timer; even three minutes a day will be enough to make a difference to your writing if done regularly.
re-drafting ‒ great for perfectionists It is very common that our first draft of a text needs to be edited. I edit everything I write at least once, but for some reason language learners think they are 'terrible' if they make so much as one mistake the first time they write something. When redrafting, you might like to list how many problems there are in your first draft, then work on them systematically, choosing the most important mistakes first. Online tools such as Grammarly may be of some help here, but you might like to know that Grammarly finds mistakes in my writing too; I ignore its advice...
write something that matters ‒ great for putting our problems into perspective Sometimes we can get so caught up in our own problems that we forget that in the wider world there are people who are in a far worse position than us. This is not to deny that we have problems to deal with, but sometimes we lose perspective and think that our lives, and ourselves, are worse than they really are. For all of my adult life, I have written letters to people on death row in America. I am not going to begin a political discussion into the rights and wrongs of the death penalty, but I know for sure that over the years, the letters and emails I have written have brought real comfort to people who have very little to hope for. There are many ways you can put writing to good in the world:
write to someone in prison
write to a socially isolated person
write campaign letters for charities
write socially-conscious posts for social media
You might be thinking that your writing isn't 'good enough' to do these things. Let me tell you, the death row inmate I currently write to cannot write much more than five or six lines, his spelling is terrible and he cannot use punctuation at all. To be clear, he is a native English speaker. For him, writing is a lifeline to the outside world, and I guess this is more important for him than writing with good grammar or ‘advanced’ vocabulary.
Summary
Writing can cause anxiety in many people, especially in their second language. People may form the belief that their writing isn't good enough and this belief then stops them from taking constructive action to solve the problem. By gently encouraging yourself to write in a non-threatening way, you can rebuild your confidence and develop this important but much neglected skill.
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Sarah Henderson-Sharon, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sarah Henderson-Sharon is an expert in helping non-native English speakers overcome Second Language Anxiety: the fear, shame, and anxiety they experience when speaking English. A teacher with 17 years of experience, Sarah became aware of the damaging impact of Second Language Anxiety four years ago. Since then, Sarah has dedicated herself to helping her clients understand and move beyond their fears so that they can use English with confidence. She is the founder of Think Positive English where she offers 1-2-1 programs and a community speaking club empowering members to improve their spoken English.
