#Motivation Self-Worth Theory

    The self-worth of L2 motivation is given by Covington in 1992. Basically, this theory was adopted by the achievement motivation theory by Atkinson. The aim of this theory is to help learners to maintain self-esteem whenever they face failure. Self-worth is the most priority of many people, it is a process of giving value to oneself. It is a sense of realization that you are worthful, not worthless. In the process of second language learning, students face many difficulties such as speaking, in pronunciation so it becomes very necessary to protect their self- worth. 

    According to Dornyie (2003), people are highly motivated to behave in a way that increases their self-worth and when these behaviors are threatened, they cautiously work to maintain their self-esteem. The term self-worth is linked with self-esteem, both have the same purpose.  In our society, it is tough to maintain one’s self-worth because it is always threatened by people. 

    The basic assumption of self-worth theory is that human beings are always trying to maintain their sense of self-worth. This model focuses on the sense of worthlessness due to failure which is caused by low competency. Thus, this theory holds very powerful strategies for protecting one’s self -esteem in front of everyone. There are four elements of this theory including ability, effort, performance, self-worth. 

      

    Ability can be defined as how much you are able for the task, effort means how much you put effort into a task, performance is a mixture of your ability and effort, and self-worth is giving value too yourself. Among them, ability and effort are more important because attributing failure as an outcome of lack of effort is better than attributing failure as an outcome of lack of ability because this world allows failure could be attributed as lack of effort rather than lack of ability. Learners faced failure due to lack of ability is more threatening to their self-esteem than the failure to be lack of effort. 

        However, in school settings especially focus on l2 language learning where students faced so many failures due to committing mistakes in pronunciation or in speaking, how they can protect their self-worth before everyone. Covington 1984 identified some of the strategies to ignore the feelings of shame, humiliation, and worthlessness. These strategies are setting unrealistic goals or impossible goal, handicapping, and giving excuses.

1.         Setting unrealistic goals: This is one of the strategies proposed by Covington to protect the self-worth of students. By setting an unrealistic goals or difficult goals so that failure can be attributed as an outcome of task difficulty rather than lack of ability.

2.     Self-handicapping: Making oneself not capable of fulfilling the task such as not studying, not participating in any kind of language competence competition so that they cannot face failure in it. They can easily maintain their self-esteem.

3.     Excuse-giving: Student can maintain their level of self-worth by giving excuses to failure. Giving reasonable and uncontrollable factors to failure such as poor teachings.  

In these ways, l2 learners can protect their self-worth in the world of competition. It is important for oneself to maintain his/her self-esteem because it is one of the basic psychological needs of human beings.

Conclusion: In L2 motivation teaching expectancy-value theories play an immense role in shaping one’s motivation to learn a second language. As Dornyie (2001) states, “we do the things best if we believe we can succeed.” It provides a way to students how to set their goals, and how they can overcome their past failures and how they can protect their self-worth in the world full of criticism.