The Impact of Self-esteem on Developing EFL Learners’ Oral Performance

Abstract

The dissertation in hand attempts to investigate the relationship between self-esteem and learners’ oral performance. The main concern of this research paper is to figure out whether self-esteem influences the learners’ speaking skill. For this reason, it is hypothesized that if English language learners possess high self-esteem, they will be more enthusiastic to perform orally in classroom. As far as the theoretical part of this dissertation is concerned, two chapters are inserted to discuss issues related to self-esteem and the speaking skill. The research methodology adopted in this study is a correlational one; intending to identify the nexus between two variables: self-esteem as the independent variable, and the learners’ oral performance as the dependent variable. To achieve this objective, and with regard to the practical part of the dissertation in hand, two questionnaires are relied on to collect the needed data: one is administered to a representative sample of 60 third year LMD English language students, and another one is addressed to 7 oral expression teachers at the English language department at Jijel university. The results obtained from the collected data showed, to a great extent, the positive relationship between the two variables. Hence, the analysis of the data reveals the significance of self-esteem in developing learners’ oral performance.