Original title: Researching and Practicing Positive Psychology in Second/Foreign Language Learning and Teaching: The Past, Current Status and Future Directions
This paper reviews how positive psychology can apply to learning and teaching another language. It uses the broaden-and-build theoryA theory that positive emotions can widen a person's actions and help build resources for later development., which says positive emotions can widen what people do and help them develop resources over time. It describes seven factors, including enjoyment, resilience and well-being, and explains how they may support better language-learning and teaching experiences. It also discusses what the field has studied and suggests directions for future research.
Imagine learning to cook a dish that takes practice. It is harder to keep going when every mistake feels like failure, and easier when you can stay interested, recover from setbacks, and feel supported. In this paper, those everyday strengths and feelings stand for positive factors in language learning, while cooking practice stands for learning and teaching a language. The review explains how such factors may help people have better learning experiences.
Language learners and teachers are affected by more than lesson content: emotions, personal strengths and the conditions of their institutions can shape their experience. This review connects those positive factors to language education and suggests ways researchers and practitioners can consider them.
The abstract does not report new experiments or specific measured outcomes; it describes a conceptual review. It says the paper discusses limitations in existing studies and proposes future research, but does not identify those limitations or detail the proposed studies.
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Researching and Practicing Positive Psychology in Second/Foreign Language Learning and Teaching: The Past, Current Status and Future Directions — Yongliang Wang, Ali Derakhshan, Lawrence Jun Zhang — Frontiers in Psychology — doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.731721
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.