Learners’ success and self-esteem in foreign language reading comprehension

Abstract

Demands for a high-level development of foreign language reading comprehension skills and competences are now escalating and processing of foreign language text information is a matter of course. Pupils and teachers are faced with the need to work with textual information in more complicated ways, in which self-esteem plays an important role. This paper analyses learners’ success of reading comprehension in foreign language and real self-esteem in acquiring those skills. Self-esteem helps to promote language self-confidence, the learner’s level of aspiration, and adjustment to perception of foreign language structure. As long as the learner does not really perceive themselves (real “self”), it is difficult to talk about understanding lexical meanings and their real perception of grammatical structures in the text. The research goal was to find differences in self-esteem and success in foreign language reading comprehension skills with respect to categories of comprehension (specifically: I always understand everything; I have a lot of problems with text understanding; specifically: I experience difficulties with understanding unknown words; problem with understanding long sentences; difficulty with understanding the unfamiliar topic of the text; pictures help me in understanding; guiding questions help me in understanding). The research question was whether the self-image of learners in relation to the skill of foreign language reading comprehension is realistic given their real success in this skill. The research was carried out in the Slovak Republic on a sample of 327 respondents and found differences in subjective perception of understanding and success in reading comprehension skills. The research showed a low real self image of learners especially in categories of global character in respect to the average understanding of foreign language texts.

How to Keep University Active during COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience from Slovakia

“…In a short time, KFU staff were very successful in turning the IFTE-2020 conference into a virtual one; all planned conference papers were presented online, and others were even added to the program of newly created conference sections which were the initiative of KFU staff. The presented conference papers of UKF staff were highly evaluated and subsequently published in databased journals [17].…”

A theoretical review on the interplay of EFL/ESL teachers' career adaptability, self-esteem, and social support

“…Accordingly, there have been several studies on the relationship among self-esteem, anxiety, achievement, positive emotions, academic motivation persistence, and flexibility (Leary and MacDonald, 2003;Dewaele, 2011;Basco and Han, 2016;Moriya, 2019). Furthermore, selfesteem has been explored in relation to different language skills and sub-skills in the past decade including speaking (Satriani, 2019), reading (Stranovska and Gadusova, 2020), writing (Fahim and Rad, 2012), and listening (Itzchakov and Weinstein, 2021). Although these are insightful investigations in L2 education, the interplay of self-esteem and psycho-social and occupational variables has not been given due attention.…”

A Theoretical Review on the Impact of EFL/ESL Students’ Self-Sabotaging Behaviors on Their Self-Esteem and Academic Engagement

“…After positioning itself in the body of knowledge concerning the interaction between psycho-emotional factors and SLA, many studies were conducted on the correlation between self-esteem, positive emotions, academic motivation, anxiety, achievement, persistence, flexibility, and the like ( Leary and MacDonald, 2003 ; Dewaele, 2011 ; Hisken, 2011 ; Koosha et al, 2011 ; Basco and Han, 2016 ; Moriya, 2019 ). Moreover, SLA researchers, in the past decade, have taken another step and examined the impact of students’ self-esteem on their language proficiency and performance in different language skills such as speaking ( Mandokhail et al, 2018 ; Satriani, 2019 ), reading comprehension ( Piran, 2014 ; Stranovska and Gadusova, 2020 ), writing ( Fahim and Rad, 2012 ), and listening skills ( Hayati and Ostadian, 2008 ; Itzchakov and Weinstein, 2021 ). Although these studies have made the concept more tangible and vivid, they have been mostly focusing on the effect of positive emotional variables on self-esteem or the role of this concept in students’ language competency domains.…”