According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1997), definition of confidence is divided into five criteria.
- First, belief in others: the feeling that you can trust, believe in and be sure about the abilities or good qualities of somebody/ something.
- Second, belief in yourself: a belief in your own ability to do things and be successful.
- Third, feeing certain: it is the feeling that you are certain about something.
- Fourth, trust: it is a feeling of truth that somebody will keep information private.
- Finally: confidence is a secret, a secret that you tell somebody.
From the definition of confidence, it is clear that confidence relates to the belief of somebody in their own ability to do something successfully. When everyone believes in themselves that they can do something, they can do it and gain success.
Students feeling confident can speak the target language as much as possible.
2.3.2. Theoretical framework of the role of students’ confidence in second language learning
Confidence is a very difficult field to study. However, in this part the author only wants to mention some theoretical framework about building confidence in speaking class through group work.
Firstly, it is the humanism in English language teaching.
Stevick devotes the second chapter of Humanism in Language Teaching (1990) to outlining different uses of the word “humanism” in works on foreign language learning. In his opinion, there are five overlapping emphases.
- “Feelings include both personal emotions and esthetic appreciation. This aspect of humanism tends to reject whatever makes people feel bad, or whatever destroys or forbids esthetic enjoyment.
- Social Relations. This side of humanism encourages friendship and cooperation, and opposes whatever tends to reduce them.
- Responsibility. This aspect accepts the need for public scrutiny, criticism, and correction and disapproves of whoever or whatever denies their importance.
- Intellect, including knowledge, reason, and understanding. This aspect fights against whatever interferes with the free exercise of the mind, and is suspicious of anything that cannot be tested intellectually.
- Self-actualization, the quest for full realization of one’s own deepest true qualities.
This aspect believes that since conformity leads to enslavement, the pursuit of uniqueness brings about liberation.” (Stevick 1990: 23-4)
Teaching foreign language in Stevick’s opinion is not only teaching knowledge, understanding, but also other spiritual needs, such as feelings, social relations, responsibility, and self-actualization. Jane Arnold shares the same idea about the role of humanistic language teaching when it brings new view of the language teacher. In her opinion, teachers not only teach students how to think in the head, study in the head, but they also “facilitate the cognitive in language learning and encourage the development of the whole person” (Jane Arnold, 1998 Towards more humanistic English teaching: 237) for students. It means that students learn in the class should be active with various kinds of pair work, group work, presentations, etc to help them more active, more confident in speaking activities.
Similarly, Stevick (1996) strongly emphasizes the importance for language learning of the influence of affect on the cognitive processes involved in memory. Affective as well as cognitive aspects play an important role for students to achieve communicative function, and extend their language competence.
Secondly, according to Krashen, one of the five key hypotheses of second language acquisition that Krashen discussed in his book Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition (1982) is the “Affective Filter Hypothesis”.
The affective filter hypothesis accounts for the influence of affective factors on second language acquisition. In this hypothesis, Krashen shows that motivation, self – confidence, and anxieties all play a prominent role in language acquisition. These factors become crucial in the process of language acquisition, either heightening or interfering with a student’s ability to progress. Krashen shows that students who are highly motivated, have a strong sense of self, and enter a learning situation with a low level of anxiety are much more likely to be successful language acquirers than those who do not. Students who have low level of motivation, low self-esteem, and high anxiety will encounter a wall when it comes to acquiring language and will not
be able to progress as naturally or as quickly as their peers who are not blocked by these factors. The lower the anxiety students have in speaking, the higher the confident they will feel and vice versa.
Thirdly, cooperative learning also helps teachers as well as students a lot in increasing effectiveness of group work and pair work.
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it.
Fourthly, interaction hypothesis is a theory of second-language acquisition which states that the development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication.
According to Michael Long (1996), the interaction hypothesis is a type of theory proposing that one of most effective methods of learning a new language is through personal and direct interaction.
Similarly to Krashen’s input hypothesis, the interaction hypothesis claims that comprehensible input is important for language learning. In addition, it claims that the effectiveness of comprehensible input is greatly increased when learners have to negotiate for meaning. Through interaction, teachers can understand students’ level of proficiency. On the other hand, students can exchange information with teachers and their partners to correct mistakes themselves, to improve skills, and to practice English. Among the types of interactions, conversation is probably the most emphasized in the Interaction Hypothesis, an idea most probably derived from the
“discourse approach” by Professor Evelyn Hatch who, in 1978, wrote papers that stressed the importance of constant communication and interaction for Second Language Acquisition.