The Effect of Perception of Teacher Characteristics on Spanish EFL Learners’ Anxiety and Enjoyment

By Jean–Marc Dewaele, A. Magdalena, Kazuya Saito. The Modern Language Journal, 2019

253 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The present study explores the relationship between Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) and a number of teacher-centered variables within the Spanish classroom context. Participants were 210 former and current learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) from all over Spain who filled out an online questionnaire with Likert scale items. A moderate negative relationship emerged between FLE and FLCA. Participants who had an L1 English speaker as a teacher reported more FLE and less FLCA than those with a foreign language user of English. Teacher characteristics predicted close to 20% of variance in FLE but only 8% of variance in FLCA. The strongest positive predictor of FLE was a teacher's friendliness while a teacher's foreign accent was a weaker negative predictor. Teacher-centered variables predicted much less variance for FLCA. Participants experienced more FLCA with younger teachers, very strict teachers, and teachers who did not use the foreign language much in class. The findings confirm earlier research that FLE seems to be more dependent on the teachers? pedagogical skills than FLCA.

Subfields: Language and Linguistics, Literature and Literary Theory

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/98b6a002bdcdbfc1bac4f63cb7261c85c4c47d51

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Citations in the corpus

Is teacher happiness contagious? A study of the link between perceptions of language teacher happiness and student attitudes (2019, result): “These results dovetail with previous research findings on the crucial role of the teacher in Foreign Language Enjoyment (Dewaele & Dewaele, 2017; Dewaele et al., 2019) and the importance of the student teacher relationship in general (Hattie, 2009; Hughes et al., 2008; Klem & Connell, 2004; Wu,…”
Are foreign language learners’ enjoyment and anxiety specific to the teacher? An investigation into the dynamics of learners’ classroom emotions (2020, unknown): “This confirms previous research showing that variation in FLE is strongly related to the teacher (Dewaele et al., 2018, 2019; Jiang & Dewaele, 2020; Li et al., 2018, 2019), whereas FLCA is more strongly predicted by learner-internal variables (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2019).”
The Effect of Classroom Emotions, Attitudes Toward English, and Teacher Behavior on Willingness to Communicate Among English Foreign Language Learners (2019, result): “, 2018; MacIntyre & Doucette, 2010; Yashima et al., 2018). Learners’ classroom anxiety drains their WTC. However, the results also show that WTC benefits from increased FLE and frequent FL use by the teacher (explaining an additional 15% of variance). Interpreting these results requires caution. Dew”
Researching and Practicing Positive Psychology in Second/Foreign Language Learning and Teaching: The Past, Current Status and Future Directions (2021, methodology): “Since 2016, the burst of research papers, adopting a positive psychology perspective in L2 education and being published in more prestigious journals of applied linguistics, has been witnessed (Dewaele et al., 2019a).”
Conceptualisation and measurement of foreign language learning burnout among Chinese EFL students (2021, background): “A sizeable number of empirical studies on diverse emotions in L2 learning and teaching converge to create an emotional wave, supporting the holistic view on L2 emotions (Dewaele et al. 2019).”
Motivation and Second Foreign Language Proficiency: The Mediating Role of Foreign Language Enjoyment (2020, background): “Enjoyment encourages learners to explore the language, as it positively affects their long-term resilience and hardiness [53].”