SLA researcher and textbook writer H.D. Brown asks the question, "Does high self-esteem cause language success, or does language success cause high self-esteem" (Brown, 2000, p.146). This question need not be answered, because it is in itself, the answer to many questions about language learning and self-esteem. The relationship between self-esteem and success is undoubtedly reciprocal. According to research, high self-esteem makes success in language learning more likely since the learner needs to have confidence in order to try the new task (Hyde, 1979). Self-esteem in language learning is by definition a "willingness" to engage in the experiences that are necessary for learning – namely communication itself (MacIntyre, Dornei, Clement, and Noels, 1998). Simply put, if learners do not try, then they cannot succeed. Such self-esteem is thought to be built on past experiences however (Brown, 2000, p.145). A learner who has had bad experiences while attempting to learn English as a foreign language will be less willing to try to learn English further. In fact, they might actually avoid any contact with the language in order to avoid further damage to their self-esteem. That learner will certainly be unwilling to try to use English to communicate. On the other hand, it is safe to assume that a learner’s English self-esteem can increase if she has positive experiences with English. Positive experiences such as successfully using the language to communicate can build a learner’s English language self-esteem. To put it plainly, teachers can build their students’ self-esteem by giving them successful experiences with accomplishing challenging tasks in the target language. Language teachers can guarantee that their students experience self-esteem building success every day by basing each lesson around properly sequenced communicative objectives.

Communicative objectives involve having the students actually use the language to complete some communicative task. For example, a communicative, task-based objective could be written like the following model.

"By the end of the lesson the students will use the target form "should" correctly, in order to give one another advice in a series of role playing situations about health."

Notice the emphasis on what the students do instead of what the teacher does. This focus on the students’ accomplishments instead of the teacher’s actions is necessary to make sure that the lesson is truly centered on providing them opportunities to accomplish tasks. In the case of classes that are too large to allow each student to complete the task one-on-one with the teacher, group work can be used to make sure each student gets a chance to complete the task. Also notice that communicative tasks resemble the tasks learners may encounter in the real world of English. These are generally language functions such as apologizing, giving advice, or disagreeing, and need to be contextualized somehow in order to make sense. A discussion activity such as a role play or a problem-solving task can provide the necessary context.

Communicative objectives can be contrasted with non-communicative objectives and have a variety of long-term benefits for the learners. Communicative objectives center on having students actually use the language to communicate instead of just manipulating or translating language forms. Communicative objectives can be contrasted with objectives that are not truly communicative such as simply having students use a form correctly but not within a communicative context and not to complete any communicative task. For example, a teacher who is only concerned with building her students’ test-taking ability and not their communicative ability can chose to focus on building her students’ self-esteem for EFL tests by giving daily quizzes and basing her lessons around helping the students get 100% of the questions correct by the end of the lesson. Although this sort of mastery learning will help the students’ test-taking self-esteem, it will not necessarily help them to be better language learners and communicators though. While some of this confidence and skill might transfer to the real world of English communication, it is likely that most of those confident test-takers will still freeze up when actually confronted with a real communicative task such as giving directions to a tourist in the Seoul subway. A learner’s self-esteem for one specific task doesn’t necessarily transfer to other tasks that are not similar in nature or context.

For this reason, teachers might consider basing their lessons around objectives that are truly communicative if they indeed want their students to become capable and confident communicators. For example, such an objective could include having the students give directions to one another in some information gap activity involving some city map. If they have successfully done this task and function in their language class then they will be more confident and more capable of successfully doing it in the real world. They will also become better language learners because they will be more willing to actually attempt these tasks when the opportunity arises, and thus, will have more interaction with native speakers. Thus, by focusing on a communicative task-based objective, teachers can help their students build self-esteem that will make them better language learners in the future.

Making sure that students actually successfully complete such task-based objectives however, involves properly sequencing the lesson to provide them with the forms they need to accomplish the objectives and not get overwhelmed.

For example,

a teacher expects each student to be able to describe a picture of person accurately enough so her partner can identify that person’s picture in a stack of many other pictures of similar-looking people during an information gap activity simulating a police manhunt.

Before beginning the activity, the teacher may want to provide some of the forms and vocabulary necessary to describe pictures of people. This would include expressions such as, "He is wearing…", or, "He has…". This would also include vocabulary for body parts, physical features, traits, and so on. This doesn’t mean that the teacher has to solve each problem before it arises, in fact, the students’ can build more confidence by overcoming some of those problems by using communicative strategies. Generally however, it is best to make sure that the challenge is reasonable by preparing the students for it somehow. A teacher can actually do the task with her students for a while before starting the group work, thus modeling the form and making the activity more accessible. The task must seem doable to the students. If the students feel that the challenge is unreasonable, then they will feel unable to succeed, and will be less willing to try. This will undoubtedly lead to more fear and more failure as opposed to positive self-esteem. With experienced students a teacher may create situations in which they must apply strategies to solve communicative problems, but generally, good confidence building requires proper sequencing, and proper sequencing involves having each language lesson revolve around a framework of enabling objectives that facilitate a terminal objective. If the teacher focuses on making sure that every student successfully completes those performance objectives, then she will be building their self-esteem for real English communication as well as their actual ability to communicate.

In conclusion, focusing each class on task-based, communicative objectives guarantees that students will successfully complete language tasks in every class, and, students who successfully complete language tasks in English class will not only acquire more communicative competence, but will also get higher self esteem. While there is certainly a deep level of the learner’s personality that a language class can do little to affect, much of learners’ self-esteem is situational or task oriented. That means that their confidence and self-image is largely based on the situation they are in at the moment and their past experiences with similar situations. Language teachers can positively affect their students’ self-esteem by creating successful experiences, and the key to this is properly sequenced communicative objectives. In other words, the goal of every language lesson shouldn’t just be to fill students with knowledge about the target language, but should also be to provide experiences for their positive growth as future learners.

Brown, H.D. (2000), Principles of Language Learning and Teaching., Addison Wesley Longman Inc.

Heyde, Adelaide. (1979), The relationship between self-esteem and the oral production of a second language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan.

MacIntyre, P.D., Dornyei, Z., Clement, R., and Noels, K. (1998). Conceptualizing willingness to communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation. Modern Language Journal, 82., (p.p.545-562).