All learners in the process of acquiring a second language have an invisible filter inside of them that has the potential to result in anxiety, stress, and lack of self-confidence. This invisible filter is theoretically called the affective filter, and it has an important role in the learning (or not) of another language.
Some people have a naturally low affective filter and are relatively confident about learning a second language. However, not everyone is so lucky. Many other people have experienced anxiety and inability to effectively comprehend or communicate well in another language. They sweat, stammer, and butcher the language. They can’t seem to control what comes out of their mouth. Sometimes they can’t even utter a peep.
The affective filter can make or break proficiency in a second language.
It was because of a high affective filter that I took a long detour on my personal route to proficiency in Spanish. In high school I was able to pick up Spanish relatively quickly. As a senior in high school, my Spanish was much more developed than other native English-speaking students and I was the lone native English speaker in the Advanced Placement Spanish literature class. Most of the students in the class were recent arrivals from Mexico and didn’t speak English.
One day as we were reading Don Quixote, the Spanish teacher began to review irregular past tense verbs that were being used in the story. He wrote two sentences on the board with the Spanish verb traer and we had to choose the correct irregular conjugation.
I raised my hand and identified the correct irregular conjugation, traje. Suddenly, one of my classmates began to giggle across the room and she said. “No, traí”. Which of course was incorrect, but I suddenly became confused. The teacher quickly verified that I had answered correctly. I was absolutely mortified and sat there in shame for the rest of the class period, even though I had answered correctly. All I could hear was the giggling.
I never spoke Spanish in front of a native Spanish speaker for almost four years. Every time that someone would talk to me in Spanish, I responded in English.
In college I refused to speak Spanish in my classes and my competence in Spanish was always underestimated and misidentified. In my third year of Spanish at the university level, one professor did not even believe that I was writing my own essays and made me write an essay in front of her. As I walked out the door, she said, “If you could only speak as well as you write-then I would say you are proficient”.
I responded, “I probably could speak as proficiently as I write. It’s sad that it will never happen”.
I’m not exactly sure what happened and when I began to feel comfortable enough to speak Spanish again. I’m sure it had something to do with the many parents of the children that I taught who seemed impressed with and appreciative of my attempts to communicate with them. It also had a bit to do with the many native Spanish-speakers who barely even noticed the errors that I frequently made.
Over the years I have naturally learned how to lower my affective filter and have become more confident with my proficiency in Spanish. But every once in a while something happens, like a room full of one hundred Spanish-speaking parents who are upset about something, and my affective filter begins to rise. In those moments I’m typically shocked at the disaster that begins to come out of my mouth. I can turn from an advanced Spanish speaker to a blubbering fool in the blink of an eye. Well, maybe not a blubbering fool, but at least someone who sounds like they just started learning Spanish.
That darn high affective filter. It will always be a thorn in my side, won’t it?
Has your affective filter ever been raised, resulting in an inability to communicate or understand a second language? Has anyone ever done something to lower your affective filter and make you feel more capable in a second language? If so, what?
More About the Affective Filter:
What is the Affective Filter?
The Curious Case of the Affective Filter
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Ah, so that’s why if someone asks if I speak Spanish I will always say no. I am too self conscious and too focused on if I am remembering the verb tenses correctly. The only time I will speak Spanish is if I absolutely have to because the other person doesn’t speak English or if I am talking to my baby because that’s the only way he is going to learn. I know, I have to work on that.
Just let loose and try speaking! Pretty soon you will start to lower your own affective filter!!
I really enjoyed this article and it opened my eyes and brain up a bit and has helped me reframe my thinking about speaking a foreign language. I have always noticed the more I over think things and try to be perfect, and am overly self aware, anxiety levels rise and communicating is more difficult. But, on those great days when confidence is high and the fear of committing errors is lessened, inhibitions are lowered and everything just flows that much more smoothly. I was inspired by your article, it really put things in perspective and I used it as a jumping off point for a blog I wrote today at: Diario di una Studentessa Matta http://wp.me/pLLBK-1bc
Grazie!
Oh how I wish I knew italian! I’m going to try to use my spanish to understand and if all else fails get a rough translation from google translate. Glad to hear that it was helpful, and that other people have also felt the same!
-Melanie
Wow, so painful to read that one girl, one giggle, set off such a chain of insecurity. And she might have sat there feeling bad after she was wrong, but who knows? It’s like all your insecurities about being the lone gringa in the class were confirmed in one moment, and almost destroyed years of competence and excellence…
I hear many stories of ‘that one moment.’ A lovely lady (white) with deep brown eyes once told me a teacher had commented on her eyes. Ever after she was self conscious about the color of her eyes. Here was an adult standing in front of me, with her own daughter next to her, still self conscious about her (honestly beautiful) eyes because of what she ASSUMED her teacher meant – “Your eyes are so brown!” — years before.
Nuestras corazones estan tan suaves cuando estan abiertas, no?
Happy your body has decided it’s more important to communicate than be embarrassment-free, JM
Oh, goodness,yes! It’s happened to me and I was an English Language Learner as a child. I was brought up in a community where bilingual education meant bussing to another side of town. My parents did not want us to be bussed so that we could receive an education in Spanish for fear of sending your children to another neighborhood where, in some instances, they were not well received. This was in the early 70′s so there was lots of fear from both sides of the language debate. However, my parents did insist, much to my advantage, that Spanish and only Spanish be spoken in the home. My oral Spanish is proficient but when I have to speak to native Spanish parents who are inquiring, say, as to an issue that they are concerned about, there goes my affective filter. I just hate it! hate it! What happens to me at times is that after I walk away from the conversation or presentation, I feel hot and tense and begin asking myself, “Why did you say it like that? Why couldn’t you rememer that word and instead rambled on and watered it down? Why did I have to search in my mind for the words? or sound so choppy when I am fluent?” I attribute that to my early schooling experience in an environment where Spanish was not considered a resource but an obstacle and that has had it’s toll on my affective filer EVEN THOUGH my parents were always proud that they raised us bilingual. It just comes to show you that teachers and the education of our children, oftentimes have an even greater influence on our affective filter than our parents which is why I believe strongly in the power of teachers!
Me gusto mucho tu articulo. As an English language learner I’ve had the same experiences and I always try to keep in mind that learning a foreign language takes a lot practice, but more importantly takes the desire and positive attitude. these two elemenet have helped me keep my affective filter lowered.
Oscar R. Garcia
I have seen this take people down! I did happen to me with other things like math for instance. I still can not do a simple problem in front of others, I’m 30! I think the biggest help is being married to my guy, he laughs at everything especially his mistakes. He loves to retell especially when the any of us, family of four, make a funny Chinese mistake. Like saying my wife should go die, instead of saying this is my wife. Thankfully we have unwittingly passed this on to the boys. They laugh at there mistakes and they learn from them and thankfully are not crushed by them. The sad thing is this, usually when people are laughing it is not because they think you are and idiot it is just really strikes them funny! I think that is OK! Try to think of it this way, you just made someone smile today, and you know what sometimes that is a hard thing to do.
What a great post! This really does say it all!
I have been teaching French for 20 years and every now and then when I am in a group of native speakers I feel like this, although I know that I am quite capable.
Thanks!
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