Abstract:

Shyness appears as an important factor affecting teachers’, pre-service teachers’ and students’ performance and how teachers handle classroom management situations in the classroom environment. Thus, this study aims to bridge the gap in the research concerning teacher and student shyness and teachers’ classroom management strategies in the field of foreign language teaching and suggest new avenues for the investigation of the differences among teachers’ classroom management strategies in terms of teacher and student shyness. To achieve this goal, a sample consisting of 99 pre-service English teachers was requested to complete a survey measuring their shyness levels and their responses to hypothetical learners with different genders and shyness levels. The results suggested that pre-service English teachers’ high-powered strategy usage displayed a difference depending on student shyness, student gender, teacher gender, the interaction of student shyness and student gender and the interaction of student shyness and teacher shyness while social learning strategies indicated a significant difference depending on student shyness and the interaction of student shyness and student gender. A more detailed discussion of the findings and implications for teacher training and foreign language education were addressed in the article.

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