'Foreign Language Anxiety' reall exists!

​When I talk to new clients, they often say they "feel scared", "feel nervous", or "feel under pressure" when they speak English at work. If this sounds like you, you are not alone. It even has a proper name: Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) and there is scientific research on it that demonstrates the negative effects it can have.

So, what do researchers say about Foreign Language Anxiety?

• It reduces speaking performance 📉
• It slows language processing in the brain 🥴
• It causes people to avoid communicating 🤐

This means that if you could relax in your English meetings and no longer feel nervous, you would:

• speak better English
• communicate your ideas more clearly
• speak up more often in meetings

If you have an intermediate level of English or above and you get nervous or stressed speaking English at work, the thing that will help you the most is not:
❌ learning more vocabulary
❌ studying grammar
❌ watching and listening to English

It is losing your fear of speaking English and being able to stay relaxed when you speak. That's what will help you be able to make the most of the English that you already have, communicate more clearly and contribute more in your meetings.