Another good step for this is to promote collaborative work in small groups, where these students must talk to other classmates, to obtain solutions. You should observe these students´ talks and stimulate the arguments. After some experiences like that, you can try with the whole class, asking for these students participation among others.

You could maybe assign a topic beforehand and ask them to prepare a very short monologue, like just a couple of minutes (even just a minute to start with) and then progressively (very slowly) increase the mologue time up to a 5-minute talk. I think that's the strategy Trinity exams use as well, and that's why many teachers tend to prefare Trinity exams for low achievers/leff confidents students.

Once they're realised they can make it (and overcome the trauma of speking in public), I think it will be gradually easier to get them to talk also from stratch.

I agree.  Also the students should be obligated to ask questions of the presenters. If the presentations are made more and more interactive.

It would also be helpful to consider the cultural context of the environment in which students are situated. This demands asking critical questions of one's teaching practice such as: "Is my classroom culturally inclusive?" "Do I engage students in relevant conversations?" "Do I allow students to bring their lives and experiences outside the classroom into the classroom learning space?" "Do my existing communication practices reflect a Eurocentric mode of communication?"  As teachers we largely dictate the outcomes of our students in terms of engagement, motivation, and participation. This is especially true for students of color and students who are learning English as a second language.  Even when we say we promote community in the classroom---our actions and classroom practices can often promote exclusivity and alienation among students---which leads to limited participation.  What this means for teachers is that before we clamor to strategies and methods to encourage participation among students, we must critically interrogate our teaching to determine if our practices actually align with the beliefs and outcomes we want from our students.

Initially students who feel insecure about contributing in a larger setting will benefit from small group settings, for example, pairwork. Let the pairs discuss responses to a question you set. Keep the questions simple and non threatening.  This strategy forces each child in the pair to contribute something. Then as the students gain greater confidence you could increase the group sizes slowly and also the level of questions to be discussed in the small group settings. Find different ways of grouping students. Initially you will group students with similar needs and as you progress include students into the group that will stimulate further discussion. Be careful that one person does not dominate the discussion.

This approach will take a bit of time and as the students gain confidence and trust that you respect their views and will not allow them to be teased because of poor pronunciation or thinking they will respond.

BEWARE. Children, especially adolescents, are easily hurt by the criticism of other children for making foolish sounding or uninformed responses for all to hear. Furthermore, in classes where knowledge and verbal sill are heterogeneous (i.e., a mix of highly capable with less capable students), the less capable will appropriately be cautious and lack confidence in speaking out. In Hiller 1974 ( J of Ed Psych., vol 68, No. 2, 202-211), a scale of Intellectual Self Confidence was found to show significant positive correlation between confidence, college aptitude (ACT), and  performance scores for learning from text. To avoid the risk of encouraging students to speak out, and then face criticism and insult from more capable students, it would be useful to form homogenious peer groups to encourage students to speak out, and get public speaking experience.

Students will be more confident in participating in the classroom activities if the activities are of their interest and within their capacity. Therefore, tasks should be appropriately designed to cater for the diverse learning needs in the classroom. For example, open-ended activities which accept various responses may work because these activities assure every student that they can achieve success to different extents. Success leads to greater confidence. A non-threatening learning environment as well as teacher appropriate saffolding techniques are also necessary.

I agree with placing students in small groups. I would add however that allowing the students to work out answers to questions in the small group then having a group spokesperson, different each time, provide the group answer to the entire class, will require the quieter student to speak publicly on a regular basis. This should help to build speaking confidence while providing the necessary peer support that "the answer" is acceptable.

Culture is very important.  In some cultures it is expected that the student listen and not speak.  Another point made earlier is that if students are given materials in advance and asked to prepare is very important.  Many students cannot think on their feet.  In fact when I taught in China students did not ask questions because they feel that the instructor should be listened to.  It was a difficult task to get them to start to ask questions in class.  It took a long time to develop this rapport with the students.

Another point is that material should be culture specific at the beginning to let those students from different backgrounds feel comfortable.

Make sure that these students do not have selective mutism. They may speak with friends in the hallway and / or with family but not in the classroom.

Frequently intensive therapy is required for these students. On the other hand, when students feel comfortable in the classroom, selective mutes may speak. 

If you want less students talk during learning, there are some best strategies. One of which could be the use of a gallery walk technique. Through this strategy, every student is forced to talk whether he/she likes or not. This is because; at one time during the process, every single student is supposed to explain what he/she learnt in the previous (the so called Home group) group to others in the foreign (new) group. Sometimes, mentioning students by their names could help much to encourage students of such characteristics to talk especially if a teacher is fair in a sense that he/she points students of all behaviors.

Lastly but not least, a teacher should discourage a culture of students laughing when others are responding in a class!

Yes,in order  to motivate learners  to be confident enough,trust  and share their views ,during teaching-learning process,you could, as a teacher,start your session with a problem situation related to the real life ,in our connected complex world.But,you have to be pedagogue enough to match it with the curriculum.

Another good step for this is to promote collaborative work in small groups, where these students must talk to other classmates, to obtain solutions. You should observe these students´ talks and stimulate the arguments. After some experiences like that, you can try with the whole class, asking for these students participation among others.

This issue deals with students' motivation which is also affected by the teaching styles of the teachers.  From my professional experience, the teacher should play a part in making the less confident student feel at ease with the environment of the class. These include the audience (his or her classmates), the objective of the activity (why he or she needs to talk), the student's personality (introvert or extrovert) and the method of teaching (the best way to communicate). Different approach should be given to him/her to build his/her confident level.  There can be a one to one session with the teacher before the talk. Teacher can also try to investigate the background of the students at the beginning of the class.  For example have a parent assignment sheet where parents could tell about the students likes, dislikes, fears, activities, etc.  To motivate someone, we need to know what is their passion.  For the less confident student, having them to say a few words at the beginning is already a success. It takes time, but they will gradually get their confidence from the teachers's understanding.

Speaking from a personal experience, my 4th grade son is also does not have confident to talk to anybody. So when he has a presentation, I am the one who is worried. I would speak to him about the topic that he would be presenting.  The topic has to come from his own interest (intrinsic motivation).  That is winning half the battle already.  I would then slowly build up his confidence by asking him to practice with me and give a lot of positive reinforcement in terms of praise and positive comments.  So far my techniques works because I have been given a good feedback from his teacher on his presentation.

Another approach is to use a web platform to facilitate discussions.  Students can can post on a class's website such as Google+ community page with high privacy settings.  From the posts, a class discussion could be hosted.  This gives the learner time to form what he/she wants to say in a non-frontational setting.  Podcasts can be created that utilize oral responses and be posted for sharing.  As a secondary educator for the past 18 years, we need to find ways to engage our more introverted students--I've found that if you start with discussions in this manner, you're more likely to get students' participation in class the next day.  I also have students respond to each other posts on forums, which has been very successful.

I indorse the answer given by Melanie Acosta. Teachers need to consider the cultural context of their classroom and give pupils the opportunity to use their lived experiences in the classroom setting. Pupils should also be given sufficient time to think about the question/topic and answers beforehand. This will give them a chance to formulate their own answer, look things up or get help from someone. They will now be more confident  to present their answers or talk about a topic. This might be particularly helpful when children lack the linguistic competence for their age or have a different first language from the one used in their classroom. Probably one of the most underrated means by which you can get children to talk and open up is by ensuring that the teaching environment is caring, happy and as informal as possible (homely) . Many children who are quiet in school are often talkative at home.

It helps to ask students to bring examples (poetry, photos, painting, videos, etc.)  of their perspectives on an issue or subject.  This sometime help them express it without feeling vulnerable. As they share with their peers, they can open up more as they choose yet still feel they have brought their ideas to the table.

You might find Philosophy for Children (P4C) providing opportunities for more timid pupils to respond orally,merely because the structure of such dialogue provides a 'safe' environment with clear rules where the less confident can express their thoughts/contribute. The downside is that the entire process takes time and expertise in the first place to develop before becoming effective in the way described. 

Recent research published by the Education Endowment Foundation at

http://www.sapere.org.uk/default.aspx?tabid=209

Consider starting with a role play, perhaps once a week around a topic that was taught earlier. Students select a role and then engage in the discussion. Those students who have assumed roles earlier become evaluators of the role play. The evaluators are given a format to follow. Thus, they are required to be attentive to the  play as it occurs. Continue in this way until all students have participated. Then the cycle begins anew. Student teams can also create the  play as another way to delve deeper into the topic.

As you mentioned that the students are EFL, the low confidence levels would likely reflect their fear of making mistakes. A number of strategies could be tried e.g. delving a little into the backgrounds of the students to find out about their interest preferably from a parent. Include these topics in classes to encourage student participation and as Luke mentioned allowing them to bring in artefacts could also make them open up more.

So many terrific ideas.  They all reveal that a strong relationship between teacher and student, and a class community based in trust and openness are key factors to students' comfort with speaking out and contributing orally.  I always tell my teacher-candidates that spending adequate time at the beginning of the year/term getting to know students through:  "all about me" activities, multiple intelligence profiles, interest inventories, student-teacher conferences and sharing go a long way to create a class community where students feel comfortable taking risks with learning.  Creating a trusting relationship with students ensures that students can speak up when they don't understand, can voice their opinions, can become more comfortable with group and individual presentations and in the end, become self-advocating, self-directed learners.

The strategy I suggest is think, " pair and share". This allows the introvert to think and share with only one other person. This may slowly build the confidence  to share with others.One other strategy is to encourage students to talk is to have cooperative writing pairs, for instance, have them write 2-3 minutes papers describing the major point they learned in the lesson and also write down a question of something they still don't understand about the lesson.

This is not only a problem with elementary and intermediate students but also with adult professionals. I do a fair amount of continuing medical education and find that many do not want to ask questions or openly participate. One technique that has worked well for me is what I call the Phil Donahue approach. For those that have no Idea who Phil is I will describe what I mean. Walk the class room do not stay behind a desk or podium. Get down with the class even sit down next to one that you want to target so you are on even ground not standing above. Then with children gentle ask their opinion. Help them participate do not sit or stand back and expect them to set up.  Part of your responsibility is to teach them how to participate. They will respond.

Dear Azadeh Mohammadi and All,

All are GREAT answers! I do not teach EFL. I teach pharmacy and pharmacology. So what I am about to suggest may or may not apply.

I give a problem or topic with some instruction to groups of 3 to 5 students as a final or mid-term. They must collaborate and present with PowerPoint, at the end of the presentation they must answer questions asked by each student who is watching, listening and taking notes in the audience. Then I ask questions of each student in the group. All students are participating not just those who are presenting. I am looking for equal contribution/collaboration and correct answers.

This is more formal than what you are asking for, BUT an adaptation of this would work for your class to have FUN, collaborate and present:

Groups of 3 to 5 present a skit [short play] on a topic such as :

Traveling to another country via plane, train, car,  

Ordering food at a restaurant,

Asking for directions to a library, hospital,

Asking for help when in an accident, etc. 

You may ask them to do the skit with or without PowerPoint or home video , or give them an option. They may add sound effects such as or "How J say?" recordings etc. but they must all take a speaking role in the skit [play]. YOU decide if they are to wear costumes [which usually gets people talking] or not. You set the amount of time each group needs or is allowed. BUT they are asked questions by the students who are watching and listening. You decide about humor or other emotion that must be in the skit [or not]. Then in the end, after audience students ask their questions, you also ask questions. The point is to get them to "talk to each other in English".

Questions that 'audience' students ask "skit/acting" students may be:

"The word 'xyz' can also mean 'abc' in English. How do you know when to use or how to use it  correctly? "

"Your destination is in England and you have asked "where is the men's room?", how would you ask this if you were visiting in US? or Canada where English is also spoken? [American: toilet, bathroom, men's room, ladies room, restroom or lavoratory, loo, W.C. Water Closet in England, or washroom in Canada].

Please take a look at the following sites that will/may help direct your students on how to ask where is the toilet? bathroom? restroom? etc in different English speaking countries. You decide if you want them to only use proper and/or slang terms?

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/8281/washroom-restroom-bathroom-lavatory-toilet-or-toilet-room

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-loo

You may require that EACH of the actors/presenters, ask questions of the student audience instead.

Well I think I gave you enough 'idea's or topics of an "English lesson". But the main idea is to get the students to engage in English beyond a paper, reading, but orally/verbally in an impromptu conversation, not just a 'planned' one in a skit, that is also fun and entertaining. So skit.... then Q & A gets two birds with one stone ! And only verbal or oral presentation can do get the  conversation going.  But of course they will engage in background research via books, internet, interviews etc.  [Yeah 2 birds with 1 stone  is another skit: English, American, Australian, Canadian, idioms for the same thing, do they differ?]  

Hope this helps!

Respectfully,

Jeanetta Mastron

All of the above are great ideas - especially  group work / team work opportunities (try assigning specific roles to specific team members such as 'spoke s person' 'note taker' and rotate these roles over the term. 

I also find that posing a question, 'Think / Pair / Share' works brilliantly. Try as part of their own  thinking time they are encouraged to write a few notes / pictures (on a mini white board?) about what they think  before sharing this within the pair 'share'

Marbles in the jar! Another strategy for very resistant talkers and to curb the enthusiasm of the  more confident ones is (in one lesson a week depending how often you get the chance to work with these student)s - to give each student three marbles,  and a central pot or jar in the middle of their table.  Each person must get rid of  all their marbles before the end of the lesson by either asking or answering a question. They can then put a marble in the pot (big show helps to make this fun).

 Once all their marbles have gone that individual is not allowed to answer a class question or ask a question (questions can come from students or teacher!) until the end of the predetermined time eg half the lesson.

What you will find is that the 'chatty' confident ones will quickly want to hold back until they have something they really want to ask or share. The  less confident ones will want to get rid of their marbles as quickly as possible ..... in a relatively short time all the students will have become better at contributing and thinking aloud! The game will no longer be necessary

Activity based learning-teaching process /methodology is always more effective in building confidence among students. So it is very simple: Design simple experiments and involve students. More and more participation of students will bring confidence in them.e.g., water analysis: sampling, preservation ( time interval between sampling and analysis), analytical methodology, etc. ; nitrite determination

Article Letter to Editor : Query related to publication titled “A co...

Article Spectrophotometric determination of nitrite in water

I let my students vote (when I asked for one answer and get a few different ones). This naturally creates groups and for introverted  or uncertain students it is easier to show which group they would like to belong rather than say aloud what they think. People don't want be wrong alone (against the rest of students in the class). The group effect let them feel more comfortable. Then I let the groups to influence each other. To persuade them we are right and you are wrong. Finally, the whole class believes in one of the results. Usually the right one :)

I don't specifically teach EFL students, but I do teaching public speaking and therefore encounter similar reticence (not only from EFL students). In addition to the group activities noted by other respondents, I also suggest giving students the opportunity to think about their responses ahead of time. For example, if the students have some discussion questions to think about when they are reading, they may feel more comfortable talking in class because they know (approximately) what you may ask during class.

In South Africa the majority of learners in our classrooms are learning in a language that is not their mother tongue, or even their second language. Speaking in class about mathematics is problematic. Via our teacher development programme (NICLE) we have introduced Number Talks into the classrooms as a way of encouraging learner talk. 

Have a read of this article and let me know if you need further info. 

Conference Paper Adapting number talks to foreground mathematical progression...

So many wonderful ideas.  They all boil down to creating a trusting community for learning, so that students will be comfortable with taking risks.  

I used to use the marble jar in a FSL class to motivate students to participate as a group; they got more marbles put in if the group participated.  The act of putting in the marbles helped my kinaesthetic learners; they would do anything to get out of their seats.  Then, we could estimate how many marbles were in there at different points.

For me I found out that creating the trusting community does help to make students feel comfortable enough to talk.

I have a new class of Year 1 and during circle time I had one boy who kept on putting up his hand to say something and when his mother came and I told her that her son was so vocal she was shocked because apparently he never wanted to speak in Reception class last year.

I like the idea of the marble jar and will 'borrow' it to get the others that are a still very quiet to speak out more as well.

Try to incorporate Humor!

I am teaching French for business. In the handbooks, there are plenty of exercises  that suppose to establish a dialogue. When my students receive this task during the first year of study, I generally ask the ones who speak better to help the other ones "build" their conversation. So, they are allowed to write the dialogues before presenting them to their colleagues and, in this way, they arrive to express themselves alone (without any help) in two years of learning French for business at our faculty.

Dear Azadeh,

Very interesting question. It is really a problem with different age groups. One approach is to involve them in group work with a specific assignment in the group . It is also important to read their accomplishments to entire class and display their work to be seen by all students. The following links include some useful strategies.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/shore/shore059.shtml

http://www.teachhub.com/4-simple-strategies-help-shy-student

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/getting-the-ESL-student-talking-marc-anderson

http://digitalcommons.nl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1086&context=ie

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/teachingenglish/yourideas/teaching_speaking.shtml

I join the idea that children will listen to their pairs and speak to them when participate in small groups teachers and other guides will share the discussion in these groups from time to time and listen to the pupils views.

Action research plan is the best way to identify the different causes leading to their expected performances. Best approach is to involve students in small groups in activity based projects.

One thing I have found works is to pair a more confident with a less confident student. Get them to talk about something you raise in the form of a statement or question. Then write their response down and ask the less confident person to read it out. This way the response being given is shared and less risky. Also, it is only if there is a culture of answers being either right or wrong that there is more fear of being wrong, and less chance of students wanting to speak up. Very often, a so-called wrong answer can be arrived at for the 'right' reasons - so asking for reasons and getting insight into their thought processes is as important as whether the answer was 'right' or not.

My experience with this issue has led me to find that more often than not, the student lacks confidence and self-esteem. As the educator, this can be circumnavigated through building better rapport with the student by providing them with validation, and unconditional positive regard. Most of the time, if the student feels as though they have something to offer, if they feel their opinion is valuable and adds to the class discussion, they will be more confident in themselves, and thus more likely to chime in. These students need to learn that "risk taking" provides them with an opportunity for personal, professional, and academic growth.

One way to overcome this educational obstacle is by using a scaffolding approach through engaging the class in discussion of topics of interests that directly correlate to the interests of the quiet child and asking them beforehand to prepare comments and feedback related to this topic.

Try to be pedagogue enough.You could motivate your students ,through visualization of a real problem situation,pulled out  during a brainstorming session .Students are more confident,once they visualize a problem situation of their real life.Start with a concrete problem of their daily life .Provide your student, the opportunity of a  mental representation ,based on his background,in relation to the problem situation..

The question of students' lack of confidence is quite complex and there is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution. May be, you start by talking with them to find out the reasons, then make situated decisions. 

I often use a roll call at the beginning of class with fun information to share, like favorite ice cream, favorite movie, favorite snack, first pet's name, etc.  This allows every person's voice to be heard.

Karen, I like that. During first day introductions, I ask my college students to give us  1 piece of information like hobby interests etc. I also ask if they will say what city they commute from. In the end I give them a few mintes of break while I set up my pptx slides. After this I ask did any one find a study buddy who lives close by or someone to takes notes for you if you are absent or to get a ride if you get a flat tire or have car problems.  In evitably they will share who lives close to who and they will ride share or get a back up babysitter, they know people in common, have other similar interests etc. I have found that this sets a tone or the stage if "family " and makes for a better dynamic than when I skip this activity.

Thank you for sharing, which prompted me to share.....funny how that works !

Respectfully, 

Jeanetta  

Hello dear Azadeh Mohammadi!

  This is an interesting question! As suggested above, there's no 'one-size-fits-all' solution - or a panacea - that might help with elevating language learners' self-confidence. However, there're many strategies/techniques that should help shy/introvert learners to speak up. Many colleagues above have suggested useful techniques (e.g. 'pair and share', 'cooperative learning', 'situated language learning', etc.). 

As far as I'm concerned, there're many useful strategies and techniques that should help in these situations:

1-Pair work (especially, while dramatisation and acting out situations);

2-Using authentic materials that would involve learners more in the ELL process;

3-Promoting MEANINGFUL interactions, i.e by drawing on personal and social life, and linking the studied content with current events;

4-Encouraging project-based learning that would force Ss to share ideas and talk with each other;

5-Using THINK-ALOUD protocols, which involve learners in thinking aloud while they are performing a set of specified ORAL tasks; they're asked to say whatever comes into their mind as they complete the task. This might include what they are looking at, thinking, doing, and feeling.

6-Multiple-Intelligences (MI)-based techniques, especially those classroom techniques that draw on learners' INTERPERSONAL and VERBAL-LINGUISTIC intelligences.

6-Getting shy students to READ ALOUD;

7-Employing TASK-BASED language learning, which should involve learners in more meaningful interactions and LEARNER-CENTRED activities that would BREAK THE ICE and promote interactivity in learners;

8-Using COMMUNICATION-GAP activities that would require Ss to communicate (and share knowledge/background) with others;

9-Diversifying topics so that a wider range of interests and individual differences is addressed;

10-(Sometimes) Using the mother tongue to break the ice and introduce an unfamiliar (difficult) task/activity.

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Mahmoud

You could try role - playing games (RPGs). RPGs are inherently a social, and social skillsdeveloping, activity. Participants frequently develop life long friendships, and others learn to work with people they normally would have nothing else in common with. RPGs'  benefits: recreation, argumentation,socialization.

Sometimes it is just enhanced sensory processing that needs to take place for communication to be enhance-if possible, involve all of the class in activities that encourage communication along with physical movement-field trips, increased physical activity-movement, dance, role-play, hands-on.  These activities will have much more of a positive effect for all students and encourage the less-communicative students to have an opportunity to "communicate" in other formats along with language.