This study reports on findings of an investigation into the relationship between ideal L2 self as a motivational variable and willingness to communicate in English (L2 WTC) in and outside the classroom. Participants were a total of 90 university students majoring in English as a foreign language (ELF) at a foundation university in Ankara, Turkey. Data were collected using the Ideal L2 Self measure and the Willingness to Communicate questionnaire. Findings showed that 28% of the participants had high L2 WTC outside the classroom whereas 24% had high L2 WTC inside the classroom. The findings also indicated that there was a significant link between the ideal L2 self and L2 WTC both inside and outside the classroom and that the ideal L2 accounted for 13% of the variance in total L2 WTC scores. Based on the findings obtained, the study concludes by outlining pedagogical implications and recommendations in relation to instructional practices in L2 classrooms.

Virtual exchange (VE) is an ideal venue for digital literacy skills development (Fuchs, Hauck & Müller-Hartmann, 2012) and for critical digital literacy (CDL) (Hauck, 2019). Yet literacy is a fluid, deictic term, the meaning of which is context dependent, and digital literacies need to be defined and conceptualised within a specific context. Recent CALL literature highlights the interest in CDL from various perspectives, but how CDL is conceptualised by the VE participants themselves is not explored. Participants of this study were 37 trainee English language teachers in the UK and Turkey who joined a 6-week VE. Their ongoing reflections on CDL were captured through reflective e-portfolio entries following each VE task. Thematic analysis revealed four components of CDL in this specific VE: (1) participants’ awareness of digital affordances for self-expression, (2) semiotic and interactional means to build connections, (3) ensuring inclusiveness of all community members, and (4) implications of socio-political contexts of each participant for meaning-making and interaction. We conclude that in future pedagogical implementations of VE, facilitators can foster trainee teachers’ CDL development through more closely guided and informed reflection on the four themes presented in this paper. As such, this study makes a novel contribution to our understanding of CDL in VE settings for ELT teacher education by offering a social semiotic second language acquisition orientation within an interpretivist paradigm.

Directed motivational currents (DMCs) are portrayed as highly intense and prolonged periods of motivation oriented to a much-desired goal of personal significance. While we have seen a recent growth in studies examining aspects of DMCs, evidence on the negative side-effects of DMCs remains inadequate to date. In response to repeated calls for research into this area, we conducted a qualitative study to scrutinize the negative side-effects of DMCs as experienced by 5 trainee teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Turkey. The database comprised in-depth, semi-structured interviews carried out twice per participant. Interview transcripts were analysed in line with the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The findings suggest that the negative side-effects of DMCs manifest themselves as showing signs of a sense of inadequacy, mental distress, and feelings of sorrow. These side-effects caused temporal setbacks in sustaining goal-directed behaviors, and they resulted from varied sources such as excessive dedication towards goal achievement, occasional deviations from behavioral routines, lack of affirmative feedback on progress made, and engagement with ill-conceived subgoals. Overall, the results offer a more detailed picture of the affective properties of DMCs and add depth to the current conception of this motivational phenomenon. The results also shed some light on the potential risks of deliberately inducing DMCs in language learners for pedagogical purposes.

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Recent years have seen a growing research interest in the notion of directed motivational currents (DMCs) that defines highly intense motivational surges oriented to a much‐desired goal of personal significance. However, the learner characteristics that induce individual‐level variability in DMCs have yet to be explored. In particular, the role of personality in explaining variations in the DMC disposition remains empirically unresolved. The current study addresses this gap by looking at whether the five‐factor model (FFM) personality traits help explain variations in the DMC disposition among 172 Turkish undergraduate students majoring in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at a state university in Turkey. Data were gathered using the 50‐item version of International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) and the 12‐item DMC Disposition Scale. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that personality traits significantly predicted variability in the DMC disposition, together accounting for 42% of the variance. Conscientiousness and extraversion appeared as the strongest predictors. The findings in general bring preliminary insights into the learner characteristics that underlie individual‐level variability in DMCs, as well as having implications in particular for facilitating individual‐level DMC practices in the context of second/foreign language (L2) learning.