Exploring Uncertainty Experiences, Sources and Management among Undergraduate ELT Students

Human beings open their eyes to a world surrounded by uncertainties. Uncertainty refers to things out of human control because they are natural, unexpected, and inseparable parts of life. Humans can only develop skills and coping strategies to deal with uncertain events. Psychology and communication fields searched the concept of uncertainty since individuals are at the centre of it. Interpersonal, organizational, and business relations create uncertainty for people. In addition to these domains, educational contexts are also very open to being encountered with uncertainty by educators and students because of their unique structure and functioning mechanism centring individuals. Students studying a foreign language and will teach it as a profession face uncertainties in and outside the classroom due to the complex nature of both the language and courses related to being a language teacher. It is crucial to understand learners' experiences of uncertainty, its sources, and their management of it to analyse the concept in depth for improved classroom experiences. This study uses a classroom uncertainty questionnaire and a semi-structured interview to investigate ELT major learners' uncertainty experiences and management. It is applied to the students of a university's English language teaching department. The specified group consists of all grades of the four-year university program. The findings showed that experiencing uncertainty in the ELT classroom is prevalent for students based on some reasons. It is found that uncertainty in the classroom results from cognitive, social, and course-related factors. The appreciation of uncertainty may be positive, negative, or neutral, depending on the student's perception of the concept. Students prefer to reduce, maintain or ignore uncertainty in their experiences.