Abstract
This paper is concerned with the possible reasons which make some students experience spiral of silence and that may be due to some unseen fear of social, academic, religious and economic inconvenience which could be encountered by motivation through participation. For this purpose 110 students were observed. The researchers used Oxford’s Taxonomy of Learning Strategies and kept motivating the focused group throughout the semester of 16 weeks by maintaining their personal data diary, as a tool, for the collection of data as well as to monitor their progress. At the end of the semester the findings of the study show that minority students started speaking fluent English and used it for academic and social purposes without considering the opinion, attitude, or snubs of the majority students and proved vocal and confident students The results indicated that 22 students were found to have spiral of silence syndrome which proved a stumbling block for them to interact in English language outside the classrooms as the majority of students was engaged in using either Urdu or Punjabi language for academic and social purposes leaving the minority frustrated and consequently left them practiced what was done by the majority. Hence, the study suggests that ‘Spiral of Silence’ could be avoided through extrinsic motivation to get the reluctant, shy, under confident students of master level, with major in English, improve their speaking skills of English.

Mubasher Nadeem, Muhammad Naeem Mohsin. (2012) Countering Spiral of Silence through Motivation in Improving Speaking Skills of English for Academic and Social Purposes: A Participatory Study, Journal of Elementary Education, Volume-22, Issue-1.
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