Jean‐Marc Dewaele, Delphine Guedat‐Bittighoffer, Marie‐Ange Dat
{"title":"Foreign language enjoyment overcomes anxiety and boredom to boost oral proficiency in the first year of English foreign language learning","authors":"Jean‐Marc Dewaele, Delphine Guedat‐Bittighoffer, Marie‐Ange Dat","doi":"10.1111/ijal.12607","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The current study investigates the effect of three foreign language learner emotions on the amount of gain in oral proficiency over one school year of 159 eleven‐year‐old pupils starting English foreign language classes in France. Previous cross‐sectional studies have shown positive relationships between foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and various performance and achievement measures, as well as negative relationships between foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), foreign language classroom boredom (FLCB), and FL performance and achievement measures. A common finding is that negative emotions explain more variance in Foreign Language (FL) performance and achievement measures at a single point in time than positive emotions. Correlation analyses revealed that the amount of gain was positively linked to FLE and negatively linked FLCA and FLCB. A first multiple regression analysis showed that, surprisingly, FLE was the only (positive) predictor of gain in oral proficiency. A second multiple regression analysis revealed that the FLE teacher dimension was the only predictor of gain in oral proficiency. This suggests that positive emotions, and especially the ability of teachers to meet the psychological needs of their students, have a stronger long‐term effect while negative emotions are more likely to disrupt performance in the moment. Pedagogical implications are presented.","PeriodicalId":46851,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Applied Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12607","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The current study investigates the effect of three foreign language learner emotions on the amount of gain in oral proficiency over one school year of 159 eleven‐year‐old pupils starting English foreign language classes in France. Previous cross‐sectional studies have shown positive relationships between foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and various performance and achievement measures, as well as negative relationships between foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), foreign language classroom boredom (FLCB), and FL performance and achievement measures. A common finding is that negative emotions explain more variance in Foreign Language (FL) performance and achievement measures at a single point in time than positive emotions. Correlation analyses revealed that the amount of gain was positively linked to FLE and negatively linked FLCA and FLCB. A first multiple regression analysis showed that, surprisingly, FLE was the only (positive) predictor of gain in oral proficiency. A second multiple regression analysis revealed that the FLE teacher dimension was the only predictor of gain in oral proficiency. This suggests that positive emotions, and especially the ability of teachers to meet the psychological needs of their students, have a stronger long‐term effect while negative emotions are more likely to disrupt performance in the moment. Pedagogical implications are presented.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Applied Linguistics (InJAL) publishes articles that explore the relationship between expertise in linguistics, broadly defined, and the everyday experience of language. Its scope is international in that it welcomes articles which show explicitly how local issues of language use or learning exemplify more global concerns.