A Definition

self-esteem:  the feeling that you are as good as other people and that you deserve respect and happiness.

Before you read on, skim through the Quotations Box and tick the statements you like. Think about why you like them and how they reflect on your life and experience.

Quotations Box

What is self-esteem?

 Self-esteem is the degree to which we feel we have a  right to respect and fulfilment. Thus we can talk about high and low self-esteem. Self-esteem our sense of our own worth and the value we have to others and ourselves. It can be summed up as ‘I believe I deserve respect and so do others’. Self-esteem is reciprocal process. If we think about the quotations in the box, we will see that self-esteem is indeed two-sided: it has to do with our positive attitudes towards our selves and secondly towards others. The one seems to be a precondition for the other. And the flow would seem to be two-way: we need to express respect towards others and to be respected; we can practise self-esteem by focussing on the needs of others (in a practical way this gives a sense of purpose) and our own feeling of self-esteem can be developed by the way others behave towards us. In this article, we explore the nature of self-esteem in order to identify behaviour that cultivates self-esteem, outside and within the classroom. Apart from the things we do and the attitudes we express, in the classroom an important way to build self-esteem is through the choice of particular techniques. Our aim should be to make self-esteem a routine feature of classroom practice. We will look at the way we come across to students, in the way we behave: the things we say and do. Above all, we will outline a methodology which is ‘self-esteem’ friendly. Let me begin straightaway with an example. Imagine the beginning of a new course; we want to do the things teachers usually do at the beginning of the year:

1. to give the students a chance to get to know each other.

2. to practice language (grammar, vocabulary)

3. to practise skills (eg listening, speaking)

4. to give students a chance to do something with language (communicate)

I will add something that should be routine at the beginning, middle and end of the year:

5. to practise building the students self-esteem.

In this activity, we ask students to fill in a simple questionnaire about themselves:

My biography, your presentation

When students have completed the questionnaire they swap with a partner; they read each other’s completed questionnaire and use it to introduce their partner to the rest of the class:

Student: My partner, John, is from Patra, but he lives in Thessaloniki. He has a brother and sister…etc 

The class can ask the student being described more questions if they wish. When 2-3 examples have been heard the students can work in small groups to introduce each other to other members of the class, sitting near them. For homework, they may write a few lines about the students they have met or found out about.

If we now go back to our checklist of the things teachers may want to do at the beginning of the year (or whenever..) and assess the pedagogic usefulness of this task, we see that it fulfils all five of requirements: students are getting to know each other; they practise language (grammar: simple present: John comes from Patra; future: he is going to be a doctor; vocabulary; family, hobbies); they write, listen and speak; they use language to communicate (introducing, asking for more information) and finally and most important of all, students are practising self-esteem: the teacher encourages them to write and talk about themselves and to take an interest in others. We see that the two-way flow of self-esteem can be built into simple classroom activities.

Why self-esteem is important

Self-esteem is important because it influences – and can predict - academic achievement, including success at school and university and tests

Self-esteem includes beliefs and feelings, such as confidence and pride. If we create the conditions for  students to successfully complete a task this will give them confidence and pride; if the topic is themselves or is personalized in some way, this too will build their feelings of pride in who they are. This gives them confidence to build even more success. This ‘virtuous circle’ of success begins with the teacher providing achievable tasks and ends with students going on to succeed – in language learning or in other fields.

In addition to linguistic or academic achievement, self-esteem is important because it is also facilitates psychological well-being or mental health. In a time of economic crisis, unemployment is rife; people – young or old – who are without work for lengthy periods of time, will suffer symptoms of depression which spring from a feeling of low self-esteem. No work means a lack of feeling useful, needed, an important part of the social fabric. Thus, having work itself may reinforce one’s self-esteem. In the absence of work, one must find substitutes that will enable the subject to say ‘I am useful and valued’. When self-confidence is lost, it needs to be restored. Where is it to come from if the person who has lost it is sunk is despair and cannot see a way out? Initially, it will come from outside, from another person or from events. A person who believes in you (a teacher, friend, member of the family) may also be the same person who sets up events in your life that begin to restore self-esteem.

Self-esteem can apply to a specific dimension such as sport, for example, ‘I believe I am a good athlete and I feel happy about that’ or to school: ‘I know I’m the best at English in the class’ or to one’s general interpersonal relationships ‘I am a good listener’ or ‘I am amusing to be with’.

Statements such as these ( ‘I am good at tennis’ ‘I am competent’, ‘I am respected’ ‘I am loved’) are used by researchers to measure the degree to which one has or lacks self-esteem.

Self-esteem is often measured on a continuous scale. For example, the Rosenberg test scores each item out of four; it requires participants to indicate their level of agreement with statements about themselves. For example: ‘I feel I have much to be proud of’

Let’s practise a simplified version of these research instruments, using a questionnaire.

Complete the chart below, using the scores: 3-0

Strongly Agree = 3 Agree = 2 Disagree 1 Strongly Disagree 0

The higher your score the stronger your self-esteem.

To conclude this section: self-esteem is important because people with healthy self-esteem:

* believe in certain values and defend them against opposition

* feel confident enough o change their beliefs

* do not feel guilty when others don't like their choice.

* tend to do well at school and at work

Self-esteem in The ELT classroom

One of the most memorable things a student once told me about her best teacher was ‘she believed in me and made my believe in myself’. This summed up concisely what I was to learn time and again in the classroom: that the ability to create self-esteem is all about believing in others and that this is a skill that good teachers have in abundance. I say ‘skill’ because, as I suggested earlier in this article, we can create a sense of self-esteem not only in our attitudes and the way we talk but in the things we do the techniques we adopt. In short, self-esteem is built with attitudes, words and practical processes. A good example of this is the so-called ‘Pygmalion effect’; this refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectations we have of people  - whether our children, students and employees, the better they perform. The Pygmalion effect is thus a kind a form of self-fulfilling prophecy: people will internalize their negative label and will act in a way which leads to failure and those with positive labels will rise to the expectations placed upon them and succeed accordingly. In other words, high expectations provide the feeling of respect and the happiness following success that are essential to self-esteem.

When teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways. The ways in which positive expectations can be cultivated include the factors in the Pygmalion Box:

Pygmalion Box

The interesting thing about Pygmalion in the classroom is the subtle way in which success and failure are constructed in the classroom. They are not given facts. Of course, we often hear of outstanding students who will succeed whatever obstacles teachers place in their way and, conversely, poor pupils who will just not learn however we had we try to help them succeed.  I believe these static cases of gifted and difficult students are the exception to the rule. Most students succeed or fail depending on the quality of the teaching and the conditions in which learning takes place, In this section, I am suggesting that this quality of teaching is determined to a large extent by the operation of the Pygmalion effect, by the manifold ways we raise or lower expectations; and it is important to see that these subtle ways in which we raise students up or knock them down are often unconscious, subliminal, just below the surface.

On a practical level, to help you notice the Pygmalion effect in your classroom you may like to try this questionnaire:

 Toolkit for developing RAP

Abraham Maslow, the great psychologist of motivation, placed self-esteem very high in his hierarchy of needs.  Maslow, born in New York, was the oldest of eight children and so the other kids in the family looked up to him. This was good for his sense of self-worth. But things started to go wrong when  he was in his early teens: a psychologist said he was ‘mentally unstable’. This was a blow to his self-esteem, which he never forgot.

At school, young Maslow: had a tough time for his teachers didn’t like him and the other children bullied him. He didn’t get on with his mother and he made few friends. But he was a good student and loved reading. He also joined many school clubs, edited a school magazine and took lots of exercise. He took up weight-lifting to make himself look tough.

In the end, he got to University, studied psychology, married and became a father. These experiences influenced his psychological idea of self-esteem and its importance in leading a happy life

Self-esteem has a high place in Maslow’s view of what motivates human beings. Self-esteem is essential to the development of motivation but in its turn it is dependent on the fulfillment of certain pre-conditions.

Maslow says that the aim of all good learning or education is self-actualisation. By self-actualisation, he means the process of becoming the best person you can possibly be, to fulfill your dreams, your potential as a human being. But before you can do that, you have to feel good about yourself, you need self-esteem. But self-esteem depends on more basic things’; before you reach the state of self-esteem, you have to fulfill certain needs. For example, physiological needs. By this we mean things like not feeling too cold, or too hot; not being hungry or thirsty. I remember my junior classes (9 year olds) so restless because of a bad smell in the room that they just couldn’t concentrate. They frequently put their hands up and asked to go the toilet: I did not welcome the disruption but could I refuse? They could not concentrate and learn anything if there mind was on the physiological needs. We’ve all noticed how when we’re hungry during a seminar or the seas are uncomfortable, we stop paying attention.

So we need to satisfy these physiological needs before learning can take place. Difficult students may be difficult on occasion for …physiological reasons.

Then there’s safety: you can’t learn if you feel your are in danger, either physically or mentally, emotionally. So bullying at school is an example of not feeling safe or if there’s a war on and your life is in danger your mind will not be on learning – this is connected to the next level: we need to feel loved and that we belong to the group; it’s like feeling you are a part of a family, you’re amongst friends. And then, higher up the scale of needs that have to be fulfilled is self-esteem; which brings us back to where we started.

Let me end therefore with a final quotation, from the film the King’s Speech. The ‘student’ is the king, with a terrible stammer; he has to make an important speech and must therefore learn to speak fluently. His teacher tries all kinds of tricks and techniques to overcome the student’s problem, his mental and physical ‘block’. At one point, the teacher explains how he approached the problem of shell-shocked soldiers, home from the trenches of the First World War; they had, literally, lost their voice but their sense of self-worth, too; the teacher reveals his ‘method; he says:

‘No-one was listening to them (the traumatized soldiers); my job was to give them faith in their own voice; And let them know a friend was listening’

The author

Luke Prodromou is a freelance teacher, teacher-trainer and materials writer. He has trained teachers in many European and Latin American countries. Luke has published numerous articles, and written textbooks for all ages and levels. He has a special interest in drama for teaching purposes, the washback effect of exams and mixed-ability classes.

Luke has published widely in ELT magazines and journals and is the co-author of Dealing with Difficulties (Winner of the Ben Warren Prize and an English Speaking Union Award and shortisted for an ELTON). His latest coursebook is Flash on (for Italian state schools).

Luke graduated from Bristol University and has an MA in Shakespeare Studies (Birmingham University) Dip.TEFL (Leeds University) and a Ph.D (Nottingham University). His book English as a Lingua Franca was reissued in paperback in 2010. He is one half of the Dave’n’Luke English language theatre group, and a member of the Disabled Access-Friendly campaign.