Isla de La Yegua, abarca una

The prevailing affective factors identified in this study are lack of confidence and shyness when speaking English. As noted in the previous chapter, the use of English as the MoI is perceived as a challenge because it inhibits confidence in the classroom. In practice, lack of confidence among learners is expressed through being unwilling to say what they think, uncertainty in explaining or commenting on something, and fear of making mistakes in English. Consider the following extracts:

Extract 5.4 [RS1/L1: Arrival and influence of foreigners] 27. T: Traders is plural of trader. What does trader mean? 28. Ls: (-)

29. T: What does trader mean? Trader, […] umucuruzi (trader). Twari twavuze yuko mbere

yuko abazungu baza, abantu bacuruzaga gute? (How were people trading before Europeans came?) Tell me how people were buying and selling goods.

30. Ls: (-)

31. T: Byagendaga gute? (How was it done?)

32. L: Uwabaga afite ibishyimbo ashaka kugura umwenda yaraguranishaga(Someone who

had beans and wanted clothes was exchanging with the one who had clothes).

33. T: Yes, we called that goods exchange! Goods exchange. That means if Karaveri has meat and you have sorghum, you give him a basket of sorghum and he give you two kilos of meat.

Extract 5.5 [US1/L11: The government of Rwanda] 34. T: What is the function of the Executive? 35. Ls: (-).

36. T: Do you know the importance of Executive in our government? 37. L: The function is […] to […] to […] rule, to rule the country.

38. T: Yes, you are right! Speak loud, you are right! The function is to do what? 39. L: To rule the country.

In Extract 5.4, the lack of response to the teacher’s question in English can be identified from the learners’ silence (-) when the question is in English (turns 28 and 30). The silence may mean that learners have not understood the question, or they know the answer but are unable to or fear expressing it in English. The answer one of the learners provides when they are given an opportunity to respond in Kinyarwanda (turn 32) indicates that there was no problem in understanding the question, but learners were not sufficiently confident to respond in English. Extract 5.5 illustrates that the learner was uncertain of the verb she was going to use. This can be seen in her hesitations […] before saying the verb. Another sign of uncertainty is in the teacher’s encouragement to speak loud because the learner had spoken in a low, unconfident voice.

With regard to shyness, learners spoke inaudibly and the teacher made them to repeat their answers, asking them to speak louder, as is evident in the following example:

Extract 5.6[US2/L16: Important places in Rwanda] 41. T: Why people go to the museum?

42. L: [inaudible]

43. T: We don’t hear you! Speak louder! 44. L: (-) [murmuring]

45. T: Again, and you speak louder! 46. L: They go to see old things. 47. T. Okay, ikindi? (what else?)

48. L: Habayo ibintu ndangamuco (There are cultural objects). 49. T: Very important!

Although the teacher tried to ask her to speak louder, while the learner in turn 42 and 44 had shown the willingness to respond, she could not be heard. In turn 44, she spoke to herself as if she was exercising what she intended to say, and when the teacher insisted on telling her to speak louder she did it in turn 46 and provided a good answer. It seems that learners become shy to speak, possibly because they lack faith in their English knowledge. This can be supported by interview data that reveals that teachers believe that the lack of confidence among Grade 6 learners emanates from a weak ability to use English. For instance two teachers state:

(i) Learners are not confident to speak in the classroom because they fear to make mistakes. I often tell them that we all learn from the mistakes we make! (TUS 2). (ii) They are quiet because they don’t have confidence in their English (TRS2).

These interview extracts reflect silence as the consequence of the lack of confidence in the classroom. As indicated previously, the audio-recordings of lessons show very little contribution of learners in the classroom interactions, and observations reveal the learners’ shyness and unwillingness to answer the teachers’ questions, pose their own questions to the teacher or classmates, and provide their own points of view in the classroom discussion.

During an informal talk with teachers during a break, one teacher said: ‘For me, speaking becomes harder during the principal’s inspections; I feel like he is taking notes of my English mistakes’. This statement also indicates an affective factor to the English challenges. The lack of confidence in English makes this teacher think about her language difficulties and she feels that her inspector’s interest is English mistakes.

The teachers’ and learners’ lack of confidence in the classroom can be attributed to the unfamiliarity with English caused by the lack of practice. In other words, the lack of exposure to English makes teachers and learners lose their confidence in the classroom because they are not sure of the correct language for what they want to express in English.

The lack of confidence in the classroom practices has major implications for the learning process because it makes teachers and learners ‘self-critical and doubtful of their own abilities; anxious, nervous, tense, uncomfortable and insecure’ (Norman & Hyland, 2003, p. 9). In their study on the role of confidence in lifelong learning, Norman and Hyland (2003) found that lack of confidence hinders communication, prevents interactions, and impedes undertaking new tasks and adaptation to new situations. In the context of Rwanda, the lack of confidence in English is likely to prevent teachers and learners from engaging fully in the teaching and learning processes and meaningful interactions, because the majority of them do not feel relaxed and sufficiently comfortable to use English in the classroom. As research has shown, teaching requires the teachers’ and learners’ ability to handle the language of instruction in order to create confidence in the classroom activities (Donald et al., 2006).

In the overall analysis of this section, the data reveals that when a foreign language is the language of teaching and learning, many difficulties are experienced and there are obstacles to the teachers’ scaffolding of learning and learners’ effective acquisition of knowledge. The challenges posed by English as the MoI in Grade 6 in Rwandan primary schools are evident in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing, which are four interconnected language skills that are crucial for classroom activities. Lack of grammatical knowledge and affective factors such as lack of confidence and shyness are part of the challenges that English poses in the classroom. In this study it is postulated that any difficulty in the language of instruction affects the achievement of the goals of the curriculum taught in that language, in one way or another. The following section discusses the implications of English as the MoI for SS lessons.