English Language Challenges

Dear all, this is the end of our journey. Let's have a round-up of the most important aspects we've had to bring about learning outcomes. Tell me:

• What comments can you make about your experience learning English at university?
• What about the use of blogs?
• What aspect of your English need to be improved and how do you plan to do this?
• Outside of your English class, how much are you using English these days? what for?

A quality blog post should be in no less than 260 words. Don't forget to make comments on three of your classmates' posts and one on mine too, please.

Allow me to share with you an excerpt from my master's thesis report on self-efficacy beliefs. The reason why I thought this could be useful for you is the fact that whatever you decide to do with your life, you'll have to sort out a successful way to cope with problems. I focused my research on teachers' self-efficacy beliefs, but this theory could perfectly go along with your own thoughts too. So bear this in mind when looking for some determination: 

Self-efficacy

The construct of teacher self-efficacy originates from Bandura’s social cognitive theory. Bandura (1994) defines self-efficacy as:

People's beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes. They include cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. (p. 2)

According to Bandura (1994), a strong sense of efficacy “enhances human accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways” (p. 2). It follows from this definition that people with a strong sense of self-assurance on their own capabilities take difficult tasks as opportunities to test their own strength rather than as threats to be avoided. In other words, self-efficacy has to do with having determination to pursue goals no matter what they take to be achieved. By setting challenging goals and maintaining strong commitment to them, people solidify a strong sense of persistence in the face of failure. Thus failure is perceived as “insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and skills which are acquirable” (p.2).  In contrast, people who doubt their own capabilities try not to assume difficult tasks and hold low aspirations.

 

Bandura (1994) identified four sources that can influence people’s self-efficacy beliefs: Mastery experiences: majorly associated with people’s success in achieving goals after remarkably resilient effort.  This sense of perseverance is strongly in connection with the idea of making people convinced that they can achieve anything they want by overcoming obstacles and, as a result, becoming stronger after putting up with adversity. 
 Vicarious experiences:  provided by social models, people gain a strong sense of self-efficacy by comparing themselves to people perceived as equals and succeeding in their commitments. On the contrary, by observing others’ fails despite efforts, people’s beliefs in their own capabilities get restrained and undermined as well as their aspirations. “Modelling influences do more than provide a social standard against which to judge one's own capabilities. People seek proficient models who possess the competencies to which they aspire” (Bandura, 1994, p. 3). 
Social persuasion: persuading people verbally that they have all what it takes to succeed gives them strength to resolve difficult tasks. This influence on people’s self-assurance impacts on the development of skills and sense of self-efficacy. 
 Somatic and emotional states: the way in which tension, physical pain, and mood are perceived determines people’s judgements of their personal self-efficacy. Bandura (1994) states that “People who have a high sense of efficacy are likely to view their state of affective arousal as an energizing facilitator of performance, whereas those who are beset by self-doubts regard their arousal as a debilitator” (p.3).

These four sources that can influence people’s self-efficacy beliefs are key to understand the principles behind the theory through which teacher efficacy beliefs are based on. That is to say, by accessing the sources of self-efficacy beliefs, it can be determined what psychological processes at work influence thought patterns and emotions that enable actions in pursuit of goals (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). Based on previous research, Bandura (1994) identifies four psychological processes through which self-efficacy beliefs have an impact on human behaviour: cognitive processes, motivational processes, affective processes, and selection processes.
Cognitive processes: As much human behaviour is exercised by thought, “People's beliefs in their efficacy shape the types of anticipatory scenarios they construct and rehearse. Those who have a high sense of efficacy, visualise success scenarios that provide positive guides and support for performance” (p.4). A strong sense of self-efficacy depends on the way through which people ponder over the available information they have to resolve tasks. Thus balancing likely results of action presupposes mental problem-solving strategies by which people “predict events and develop ways to control those that affect their lives” (p. 4).
Motivational processes: self-efficacy beliefs play an important key role in motivation. According to Bandura (1994), “most human motivation is cognitively generated” (p. 4) which means that people form their beliefs in terms of what they can do. In other words, people “set goals for themselves and plan courses of action designed to realise valued futures” (p. 4). There are three different forms of cognitive motivators resulting in different theories: causal attribution (attribution theory), outcome expectancies (expectancy-value theory, and cognised goals (goal theory). In attribution theory, people who consider themselves to be highly efficacious attribute their failures to insufficient effort, whereas those who see themselves to be inefficacious attribute their failures to low ability. In expectancy-value theory, “motivation is regulated by the expectation that a given course of behaviour will produce certain outcomes and the value of those outcomes” (p. 5). People act according to what they believe they can do and the likelihood of outcomes of their performance. Self-efficacy beliefs control the motivating influence of outcomes expectancies. Lastly, in goal theory, “A large body of evidence shows that explicit, challenging goals enhance and sustain motivation” (p. 5). Goals operate in terms of self-influence processes. People direct their behaviour towards the fulfilment of their goals by creating incentives and persevering in their efforts. There are three types of self-influences. They include self-satisfying and self-dissatisfying reactions to one’s performance, perceived self-efficacy for goal attainment, and readjustment of personal goals based on one’s own progress.
Affective processes: perceived self-efficacy plays an important role in anxiety arousal in terms of control over threats. People with a strong sense of their own capabilities do not let themselves be threatened by unwanted intrusive thoughts, or, in other words, “the stronger the sense of self-efficacy the bolder people are in taking on taxing and threatening activities” (p. 5). Therefore, both coping efficacy and anxiety arousal are associated with thought processing of control over one’s own consciousness. Bandura (1994) claims that “Perceived self-efficacy to control thought processes is a key factor in regulating thought produced by stress and depression. It is not the sheer frequency of disturbing thoughts but the perceived inability to turn them off that is the major source of distress. Both perceived coping self-efficacy and thought” (pp. 5-6). For Bandura (1994), mastery experiences are important in order to build coping skills and beliefs. This process can be guided for people who lack a strong sense of self-efficacy and feel diminished by their phobias to get progress in succeeding. A low sense of efficacy produces depression as well as anxiety. Moreover, a weak sense of self-efficacy also has an impact on biological systems.
Selection processes: “people are partly the product of their environment. Therefore, beliefs of personal efficacy can shape the course lives taken by influencing the types of activities and environments people choose” (p. 7). Therefore, people tend to avoid situations or environments in which they feel their capabilities exceeded, but they commit themselves to doing activities they judge capable of handling. Choices determine life courses:
Career choice and development is but one example of the power of self-efficacy beliefs to affect the course of life paths through choice-related processes. The higher the level of people's perceived self-efficacy the wider the range of career options they seriously consider, the greater their interest in them, and the better they prepare themselves educationally for the occupational pursuits they choose and the greater is their success. Occupations structure a good part of people's lives and provide them with a major source of personal growth (p. 7).