1 SELF-ESTEEM SELF-ESTEEM 1. General or global self-esteem 2. - PDF document

INTRODUCTION • Chapter 4 and 5 dealt with two aspects of the cognitive domain of language learning: 1. human learning processes 2. cognitive variations in learning-style and strategies. • This chapter and d Chapter 7 deal with two facets of the affective domain of SLA 1. The intrinsic side of affectivity: personality factors within a person that contribute to the success of language learning. 2. The extrinsic factors - sociocultural variables that emerge as the second language learner brings not just two languages into contact but two cultures, and in some sense must learn a second culture along with a second language. 1 2 SELF-ESTEEM AFFECTIVE FACTORS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION • Self-Esteem • It could easily be claimed that no successful cognitive or affective activity can be • Attribution Theory and Self-Efficacy carried out without some degree of self-esteem, self-confidence, knowledge of • Willingness to Communicate yourself, and self-efficacy-belief in your own capabilities to successfully perform • Inhibition that activity. • Risk Taking • Anxiety • Empathy • Extroversion • Motivation 3 4 SELF-ESTEEM SELF-ESTEEM The following is a well-accepted definition of self-esteem (Coopersmith, 1967, pp.4-5): People derive their sense of self-esteem from the accumulation of experiences with • By self-esteem, we refer to the evaluation which individuals make and usually maintain themselves and with others and from assessments of the external world around them. with regard to themselves; • it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and indicates the extent to which Levels of Self-Esteem: individuals believe themselves to be capable, significant, successful and worthy. 1. General or global self-esteem • In short, self-esteem is a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that individuals hold toward themselves. 2. Situational or specific self-esteem • It is a subjective experience which the individual conveys to others by verbal reports 3. Task self-esteem and other overt expressive behavior 5 6 1

SELF-ESTEEM SELF-ESTEEM 1. General or global self-esteem 2. Situational or specific self-esteem • It is relatively stable in a mature adult • It is one's self-appraisals : • in particular life situations, such as social interaction, work, education, home, • It is resistant to change except by active and extended therapy • or on certain traits, such as intelligence, communicative ability, athletic ability, • It is the general or prevailing assessment one makes of one's own worth over time • or on personality traits like gregariousness, empathy, and flexibility. and across a number of situations. • The degree of specific self-esteem a person has may vary depending upon the situation or the trait in question. 7 8 SELF-ESTEEM SELF-ESTEEM Study: 3. Task self-esteem Adelaide Heyde (1979) studied the effects of the three levels of self-esteem on • It relates to particular tasks within specific situations. performance of an oral production task by American college students learning For example, French as a foreign language. • within the educational domain, task self-esteem might refer to one subject- Findings: matter area (e.g. Mathematics). • All three levels of self-esteem correlated positively with performance on the oral • Specific self-esteem might encompass SLA in general, and task self-esteem might production measure refer to one's self-evaluation of a particular aspect of the process: speaking, • The highest correlation was between task self-esteem and performance on oral writing, a particular class in a second language, or even a special kind of production measures. classroom exercise. 9 10 SELF-ESTEEM SELF-ESTEEM • What we do not know at this time is the answer to the classic chicken-or-egg Heyde (1979) found that: question: • certain sections of a beginning college French course had better oral production • Does high self-esteem cause language success, or does language success cause and self-esteem scores than other sections after only eight weeks of instruction. high self-esteem? • This finding suggests that teachers really can have a positive and influential • Clearly, both are interacting factors. effect on both : • the linguistic performance • It is difficult to say whether teachers should try to "improve" global self-esteem or • the emotional well-being of the student. simply improve a learner's proficiency and let self-esteem take care of itself. 11 12 2

ATTRIBUTION THEORY AND SELF-EFFICACY ATTRIBUTION THEORY AND SELF-EFFICACY • Based on the work of psychologist Bernard Weiner (1986, 1992, 2000), attribution • Two of those four factors are internal to the learner: ability and effort; theory focuses on how people explain the causes of their own successes and failures. • and two are attributable to external circumstances outside of the learner: task • Weiner and others (Slavin, 2003; Dornyei, 2001b; Williams & Burden, 1997) describe difficulty and luck. attribution theory in terms of four explanations for success and/or failure in achieving a • According to Weiner, learners tend to explain, that is, to attribute, their success on personal objective: a task on these four dimensions. 1. Ability • Thus, failure to get a high grade on a final exam in a language class might for 2. Effort some be judged to be a consequence of their poor ability or effort, and by others 3. Perceived difficulty of a task to difficulty of exam, and perhaps others to just plain old bad luck. 4. Luck. 13 14 ATTRIBUTION THEORY AND SELF-EFFICACY ATTRIBUTION THEORY AND SELF-EFFICACY • This is where self-efficacy comes in. So, • If a learner feels he or she is capable of carrying out a given task, (has a high • It is essential for learners to believe in themselves in order to succeed at tasks. sense of self-efficacy), an appropriate degree of effort may be devoted to The prospect of learning a second language is itself potentially so overwhelming. • achieving success. • One of the most important roles of successful teachers is to facilitate high levels • A learner with low self-efficacy may quite easily attribute failure to external factors of self-efficacy in their students. or to an initial lack of ability. • Both of the latter attributions can create a self-fulfilling sense of failure at the outset. 15 16 WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE • Willingness to communicate (WTC) may be defined "the intention to initiate • MacIntyre et al. proposed a number of cognitive and affective factors that underlie WTC: communication, given a choice" (Maclntyre et al., 2001,p. 369). • Motivation • Personality • In an earlier study on WTC, MacIntyre et al. (1998) found that a number of factors appear to contribute to predisposing one learner to seek, and another learner to • Intergroup climate avoid, second language communication. • Two levels of self-confidence: • State communicative self-confidence (a situational self-esteem) • Noting that a high level of communicative ability does not necessarily correspond with a high WTC. • L2 self-confidence 17 18 3