I have this one middle-school cohort which as been losing students. It is now down to exactly two.
Both the remaining students are morbidly shy 8th grade girls. They are afraid to talk – not just in English: their Korean teachers report that they are just as wordless in Korean. They simply don't want to talk. This kind of painful shyness is not uncommon in Korean students, but generally I don't see it in middle-schoolers because it's rare for such shy kids to make it to the advanced levels.
They will sit and shake their heads or nod – no or yes. Sometimes they will point to what they've written in their book or on whatever worksheet. They're not stupid, and their other English skills are not poor – after all, they placed into my class, and I only teach advanced middle-schoolers. But the placement test has no speaking component.
One girl in particular, Eunjae, has excellent listening skills, and she frequently makes these wry smiles or even laughs (silently) at some joking thing or another that I might say, in my never-ending classroom "teacher-patter."
I have been struggling to figure out ways to move forward in getting them to speak. Either that, or give up on the speaking component of my course and just work to their strengths – comprehension and grammar. Those are the strengths that serve them best for the Korean exams, anyway, so I really can't begrudge them that. The only constraint is that they are ostensibly enrolled in a TOEFL cohort, which is supposed to include the "4 skills" (reading / listening / speaking / writing). I've discussed with their home teacher that I might alter the curriculum.
Last night, we had a listening class, but even that is a little bit hard with two mutes. There was a section in our book where they had to make a decision between two possible interpretations, which were to the left and right on the page. So I innovated, and wrote "Choice 1" and "Choice 2" on the extreme left and right of the board, and told them to point. They seemed to find this vaguely entertaining.
But when we got to a section where they had to actually say some words they heard, it was difficult. I kind of hammed my way through. Eunjae actually whispered a few answers, for those cases where she felt very confident. I would lean close, and she would whisper, and I would repeat it, and make a big deal of the fact she'd done that.
Eunjae was wearing one of those heavy, long, black, quilted nylon winter coats that are so much in vogue right now with Korean youth (they all look like contemporary Chicago gangsters on a winter's day). She shifted in her seat, and her movement rustled the coat. The sound of the coat drowned out her voice completely.
I said, somewhat wryly, "Eunjae! Wow! Your coat is louder than you are."
She burst out laughing. Genuine laughter. She dropped her face to the desk in embarrassment, but when she looked up, she was still smiling. "It's OK," I added, in reassurance. "Just sit still when you talk."
Small steps, right?
[daily log, walking, 7km]
I would second you on that proposal to alter the formal curriculum. While speaking might reinforce language acquisition, no one learns a language by speaking. We learn languages best by listening to native speakers and reading what native speakers have written.
I know a boy who didn’t speak until he was about five. Then the floodgates suddenly opened and he spoke like every other child his age.
You might find opportunities to boost their outward self-confidence such as the situation you described, but I suspect boosting their inner confidence in their English skills is where you can help them the most.