risk-taking

Perhaps one of the most important factors involved with success in language learning is learners’ willingness to take necessary risks such as guessing from context or using forms that they are not yet very familiar with. This willingness is referred to as risk-taking. Learners who are unwilling to take such risks miss out on many valuable learning experiences. This unwillingness to take necessary risks is referred to as low risk-taking. On the other hand, some learners seem to take too many risks, often acting without thinking or reflecting afterwards. This disruptive, impulsive, and random gambling with language is referred to as high risk-taking. Learners who act without thinking and don’t reflect on their actions afterwards not only may be disrupting their language classes, but may also not even be benefiting from their risks. In that sense, what is demanded of language learners is a sort of optimal risk-taking that we may refer to as good risk-taking. Good risk-takers make intelligent guesses about language and then test their hypotheses carefully, observing what happens, paying attention to the response, and reflecting on it later.

Risk-taking is often referred to as a personality characteristic, assumed to be connected to inhibition, self-esteem, and introversion/extroversion; yet, it is also a skill in some sense. Actions classified as risk-taking behavior such as acting on hunches, asking questions, or initiating conversation with native speakers, are skills that can be learned. While some learners’ problem may be a lack of courage, others may be a lack of experience or competence, and still others may be a lack of reflection. Some learners don’t use those learning strategies because they don’t know how. Maybe nobody has ever taught them such strategies. Maybe they have never been in the kinds of communicative situations in which those skills are built. Other learners however, might be using those strategies a lot but not learning from them because they don’t think before they act or reflect after acting. Since good risk-taking is a skill that can be learned, we may also assume that it is something that can be taught, or at least fostered. In that sense, an important part of language teaching is teaching those skills. Techniques for developing learners’ risk-taking vary according to the learner.

In the case of learners whose unwillingness to take risks stems from their weak egos or lack of self-esteem, teachers can help by treating their self-esteem and ego. Students with a low self-esteem and weak egos need to practice taking risks regularly and see some successful results from their efforts. Success will boost their confidence and overall willingness to take future risks while learning. If they experience some success in communication then their fears will eventually diminish.  In the case of students with really high inhibition, teachers may have to use very safe techniques just to get started on building confidence.  Choral repetition or reading out-loud, which are usually quite useless, can be quite useful for dealing with inhibition because they give students very safe opportunities to practice the language.  Students can feel safe when their own voice is lost in a mass of voices and no one can hear them.  They can feel safe when they know what they are saying is correct.  They can feel safe when what they are reading or hearing is more comprehensible.  Teachers can use these techniques for building confidence but eventually need to escalate.  Keep in mind that the goal isn't to stay safe forever but instead is to eventually learn to deal with situations that are less safe.  When the teacher decides that the students are ready to speak, the teacher can have them speak in pairs or small groups first.  Teachers must make their classes a safe place to build up risk-taking confidence. Small group work provides such opportunities. When working in small groups, students feel more comfortable and will be more likely to take risks. Because small groups have fewer members than the full class, they also give every student a chance to interact in the target language so they will all have more opportunities to try and will eventually build up some tolerance to the anxiety involved. Later, when the small group work is finished, students will be braver about speaking in the full class knowing that they have already experienced some success in small groups.  Later, when the students are contributing to full class interaction, being more accepting of students’ efforts or contributions to the class can make the students feel less afraid to contribute. Very few learners have enough self-esteem to continue participating in a class in which the teacher corrects every answer or belittles their ideas.  Teachers have to be especially sensitive to learners who are just beginning to speak in public.

Sometimes learners don't take risks in their language classes because they lack motivation to do so.  Not only do teachers have to provide opportunities for risk-taking, but they also have to find ways to motivate risk-taking.  A common approach to motivating risk-taking is to encourage the students with encouraging language and positive feedback.  Although this is good, it is not necessarily the most effective way.  Teachers must also provide a reason for risk-taking.  If students are given some interesting task or topic, they will feel more motivated to take risks.  In particular, an interesting topic will often lure students out.  They might take the risk of speaking because they are compelled to express an opinion.  Likewise, an interesting text might compel them to take the risk of guessing the meaning or making an inference.  Besides methodology however, students are more likely to take risks if they feel comfortable with the people they are with.  Teachers can help a lot by building personal relationships among their classmates.  Furthermore, students will be much more likely to take risks for teachers who they believe care about them and respect them as human beings.

In the case of students who don’t take risks simply because they don’t know how, teachers must actually teach risk-taking skills. One example of such a risk-taking skill that learners can be taught is asking questions. Good learners are willing to ask questions in order to learn what they need to know or check their hypotheses more directly. An example of this would be expressions such as "What is the difference between ---- and --------?" or "How do I pronounce this word?" These and many other questions can be taught to students and practiced in class so they will be better equipped to take responsibility for their own learning. Another example of a useful skill associated with risk-taking is initiating conversations with native speakers. Lessons can teach students how to appropriately initiate conversations with native speakers so they can create more authentic opportunities to practice their target language out of class like good risk-takers do. Other vital skills include guessing meaning from context, making inferences, or stating and defending opinions. All these can be taught and practiced in language classes to equip learners to be better risk-takers.

As for the third type of student who takes too many risks without thinking or reflecting, teachers need to take certain measures to help them learn more effective risk-taking behavior and make sure that they don’t disrupt the class. Examples of useless and disruptive high risk-taking include answer grabbing, random guessing, dominating classroom interaction, and randomly testing hypotheses without paying attention to the responses. Once again, the problem is often that they simply do not know how to use these strategies effectively and simply need to be taught.  In other cases it is their personality. In other words, teachers need to teach high risk-takers to take risks more mindfully and reflectively.  If the learners make random guesses or inferences then teachers must teach them how to make intelligent guesses or inferences based on background knowledge.  As for testing hypotheses and paying attention to the results, this can also be practiced in class during inductive learning sessions. In order to learn how to be more reflective, students need to be encouraged to think and be given time to do so.  Sometimes however, teachers must give direct negative feedback to make high risk-takers calm down and think. Most importantly, teachers must not let high risk-takers dominate or disrupt their classes. If high risk-takers speak too much then the other students will be deprived of opportunities to speak and will feel frustrated and inadequate. To solve this problem, teachers can use the think-pair-share technique (i.e. T-P-S) to control classroom interactions more strictly and simultaneously create more chances to speak. In a T-P-S classroom interaction teachers ask their question to the full class but require that they think about their answer for a few seconds before answering. It is generally better to write the question on the board to make the question clearer and initiate the activity. Time for thinking is probably what both the high-risk takers and the low risk-takers need. Patiently providing enough time to think after asking a question allows low-risk takers some time to think about their answer and build up enough courage. That same time can be used by high risk-takers to put more thought into their own hasty answers. Once students have had enough time to think over their responses, their teacher can let them share their ideas with their neighbors. In their pairs or small groups, teachers can assign clear roles to each student so they know which member should be talking first. For example, one student can be told to ask the question and the other to answer it. This way, no one student is allowed to dominate and all students get an equal chance to speak.  Finally, the teacher can choose students to share their ideas with the class.  Low risk-takers will be much more willing to try to answer questions in front of the whole class after having rehearsed them in pairs.  They might even ask questions about issues that came up in their pair work.  It is often advisable to slow down the language lesson and cover less content, so the students can have more time to think about what they will do and what they have done. 

While many teachers blame their students for their unwillingness or inability to take risks in language learning situations, ultimately the teacher must also share the responsibility for this problem. It is a teacher’s responsibility to make sure that all students have an equal opportunity to speak. It is the teacher’s responsibility to control classroom interactions to make sure one student doesn’t dominate. It is also the teacher’s responsibility to teach the risk-taking skills and provide enough chances to practice them. It is also the teachers responsibility to be patient while the students think.  If the students do learn how to effectively apply risk-taking skills in class then where will they learn?