Together with Dalia Elhawary of Alexandria University, Professor Hargreaves looked at under-resourced schools in Egypt to investigate students’ feelings of anxiety during English language lessons.
They worked with three government primary classrooms in Alexandria for six months to develop guidelines around teaching EFL, tailored to their specific needs.
They found that children’s anxiety when learning English was particularly substantial in girls, while feelings of autonomy were more apparent in boys. Reduced agency over learning made children more anxious, which in turn made learning to speak English more difficult.
However, children felt the most control over their learning and the least anxious when pair work was introduced during speaking lessons, in contrast to traditional learning methods.
