Original title: The Flowering of Positive Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching and Acquisition Research
For a long time, researchers mostly studied thinking and learning, along with problems like language anxiety. Later, they began looking more closely at both positive and negative emotions in language classrooms. Some schools and universities tried activities meant to build feelings such as hope, well-being, and resilience, aiming to support language progress. The paper describes an early period beginning in 2012 and a later period, starting in 2016, when this research became more widely recognised and publications grew quickly.
Imagine tending a school garden. For years, you focus on pulling weeds and fixing what is going wrong. Then you also start asking which conditions help flowers grow, and you try ways to improve those conditions. In this paper, weeds stand for problems such as language anxiety, while the flowers stand for positive feelings researchers aim to support in language learners and teachers.
Language learners and teachers experience more than anxiety or motivation: emotions such as hope, optimism, and resilience also shape learning and teaching. Studying these emotions may help schools choose ways to support learners’ well-being and linguistic progress.
The abstract describes the field’s development and the aims of interventions, but does not report specific intervention results or establish that these activities improve language progress. It does not give details about the studies reviewed, their participants, or how the review was conducted.
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The Flowering of Positive Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching and Acquisition Research — Jean‐Marc Dewaele, Xinjie Chen, Amado M. Padilla et al. — Frontiers in Psychology — doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02128
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.