Love and enjoyment in context: four case studies of adolescent EFL learners
By L. Pavelescu, Bojana Petrić. 2018
127 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This study explores the foreign language learning emotions of four EFL adolescent students in Romania and the ways in which their emotions emerge in their sociocultural context. Multiple qualitative methods were employed over a school semester, including a written task, semi-structured interviews with the learners and their teachers, lesson observations and English-related events outside the classroom. It was found that, while all four participants reported experiencing positive emotions in language learning, a distinction was identified in the intensity and stability of their emotions. Two participants expressed a strong and stable emotion of love towards English, while the other two participants experienced enjoyment in their English language learning without an intense emotional attachment to English. Unlike enjoyment, love was found to be the driving force in the learning process, creating effective coping mechanisms when there was a lack of enjoyment in certain classroom situations and motivating learners to invest greater effort into language learning in and out of the classroom. The findings thus revealed that, unlike enjoyment, love broadened cognition and maintained engagement in learning. The study emphasizes the role of strong, enduring positive emotions in teenage students’ language learning process.
Subfields: Language and Linguistics, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bd3165d3b0104f8260c60cb97c833f6e320fa641
How researchers see this paper
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In Language and Linguistics
- Chengchen Li
- Lawrence Jun Zhang
- Jean–Marc Dewaele
- L. Pavelescu
- Guiying Jiang
- Ali Derakhshan
- Yongliang Wang
- Ju Seong Lee
In Social Psychology
- Chengchen Li
- Jean–Marc Dewaele
- Lawrence Jun Zhang
- Ali Derakhshan
- Yongliang Wang
- Guiying Jiang
- L. Pavelescu
- Ju Seong Lee
Citations in the corpus
- The relationship between incommensurable emotions and willingness to communicate in English as a foreign language: a multiple case study (2019, background): “The multiple case study showed that love of English allowed learners to develop resilience and grit when classes were not particularly enjoyable and it pushed them to invest greater effort into the learning and use of English (Pavelescu & Petrić, 2018).”
- Teacher enthusiasm and students’ social-behavioral learning engagement: The mediating role of student enjoyment and boredom in Chinese EFL classes (2021, background): “Interest moved beyond foreign language (classroom) anxiety to include a wider spectrum of emotions including enjoyment, love, pride, hope, shame, guilt, and boredom (e.g. MacIntyre et al., 2019; Pavelescu & Petrić, 2018; Teimouri, 2018).”
- Researching and Practicing Positive Psychology in Second/Foreign Language Learning and Teaching: The Past, Current Status and Future Directions (2021, background): “A loving instructor has this ability to strengthen students’ functioning and potentials Love can also potentially create effective coping mechanisms, motivate learners, and be the driving force in language learning (Pavelescu and Petrić, 2018).”
- Conceptualisation and measurement of foreign language learning burnout among Chinese EFL students (2021, background): “…and Taherian 2018; Li, Jiang, and Dewaele 2018), guilt and shame (Galmiche 2017;Teimouri 2018), pride (Abo-Zaied Arar and Tannenbaum 2019), love (Pavelescu and Petri ć 2018), anger, excitement, hope, joy, frustration (MacIntyre et al. 2019; MacIntyre and Vincze 2017), and boredom (Kruk 2019;…”