Original title: Anxiety, enjoyment, and boredom in language learning amongst junior secondary students in rural China: How do they contribute to L2 achievement?
The researchers followed 954 junior secondary students in rural China who were learning English. They measured students’ enjoyment, anxiety, boredom, and English achievement at four points over nine weeks. At first, each emotion predicted later achievement on its own. When the researchers considered all three together, enjoyment remained the strongest predictor, anxiety predicted lower achievement at earlier checkpoints, and boredom no longer predicted achievement.
Imagine keeping track of which chores make a school week go well. Some feelings may seem linked to doing better when you look at each one separately. But when you consider them together, one may still matter while another adds no clear information. In this paper, the chores are English learning, the feelings are enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom, and doing better is later English achievement.
For English learners and teachers in rural China, the findings suggest that emotions may relate to achievement differently over time. Enjoyment remained the strongest predictor across the study’s later checkpoints, while anxiety predicted lower achievement over the shorter term.
The abstract reports predictive relationships, not proof that emotions cause changes in achievement. It describes junior secondary English learners in rural China, so it does not establish whether the same pattern applies to other learners or settings. It also does not explain what may cause these emotional patterns.
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Anxiety, enjoyment, and boredom in language learning amongst junior secondary students in rural China: How do they contribute to L2 achievement? — Chengchen Li, Li Wei — Studies in Second Language Acquisition — doi:10.1017/s0272263122000031
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.