Levels of foreign language enjoyment, anxiety and boredom in emergency remote teaching and in in-person classes

Abstract

The present mixed-method study focuses on levels of foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and foreign language boredom (FLB) among 168 Arab and Kurdish English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in both in-person and emergency remote teaching (ERT) classes. Statistical analyses revealed that learners experienced significantly more FLE, more FLCA, and less FLB in in-person classes than in ERT classes. The qualitative data revealed a more nuanced picture about the things learners appreciated and disliked in both contexts. Sitting at home in front of their computer, many learners did feel more isolated, disengaged, distracted, and missed the interactions with peers and teacher. Yet, some participants felt that ERT did allow relationship-building, lessened their fear of making errors and pushed them to develop new coping strategies. The main sources of FLCA in ERT turned out to be issues with internet connection rather the anxiety of making errors in front of everybody. Boredom arose mostly from a lack of exciting social interactions and monotony in delivery which could induce disengagement. Some pedagogical implications are presented.

Reviewing the role of positive classroom climate in improving English as a foreign language students’ social interactions in the online classroom

“…The online education promoted by the pandemic has put much pressure on students and teachers both, and has somehow threatened their cognitive and affective well-being (Casañ-Núñez, 2021; Shahnama et al, 2021b;Dewaele et al, 2022a). Regarding the construction of a positive climate of foreign or second language learning, and given the interplay of cognition and emotion, underlying the positive psychology movement of SLA, teachers should be encouraged to employ different strategies to create a positive climate in online classes to develop positive emotions and effective interactions in which learning is mixed with pleasure (Casañ-Núñez, 2021).…”

“…In recent years, marked by a rapidly growing use of online L2 learning, the prevalent use of mobile and portable devices as well as the use of wireless technology for language learning have instigated more interest in using these technologies in online language learning programs too (Kohnke and Moorhouse, 2022). Due to the unique setting of online language classes, language learners might experience different positive and negative emotions in this setting (Dewaele et al, 2022a). Therefore, given the recent positive psychology movement in the field of SLA, turning this setting into a positive climate can take place via a reflection and adoption of the main techniques and strategies introduced in the literature of positive climate and social interactions.…”

“…On the other hand, due to the pandemic issues, the online classroom environment has turned into the mainstream education system of language learning in the past few years. Compared to in-person classes, in this online environment foreign language learners might experience a gamut of feelings from anxiety to enjoyment and boredom (see Derakhshan et al, 2021;Pawlak et al, 2021;Yazdanmehr et al, 2021;Resnik et al, 2022;Dewaele et al, 2022a). Therefore, the incorporation of a positive classroom climate with the online environment of L2 classes seems to set the positive affective stage for the enhancement of online classroom interactions.…”

How should teachers tackle students' boredom in the emergency online language class?

“…As for the online language learning context, Derakhshan et al ( 2021 ) uncovered teachers' long, tedious monologs, students' insufficient participation, carelessly-chosen tasks and technical problems as the main sources of boredom, while Yazdanmehr et al ( 2021 ) revealed user-unfriendly requirements of online education, such as physical distance or sedentary position, are antecedents of boredom likewise. Moreover, Dewaele et al ( 2022 ) found that the lack of live personal interactions and the monotonous teacher delivery could induce students' disengagement and cause boredom.…”

A Three-Body Problem: The effects of foreign language anxiety, enjoyment, and boredom on academic achievement

“…Chengchen Li et al (2023) and Li (2022) showed that this negative, low-arousal emotion also exerts a powerful influence on learner FL performance as it can cause disengagement. The logical next step was to investigate how the three emotions—FLE, FLCA and FLB—were connected and how they jointly affected performance and achievement (Dewaele, Albakistani, et al, 2022; Dewaele, Botes, et al, 2022; Li, 2022; Li & Han, 2022; Li & Wei, 2022). These studies answered calls for increased diversity in the range of emotions, in methodological approaches, in the use of sophisticated statistical methods, and in language learning populations (Dewaele & Li, 2020; In'nami et al, 2022; MacIntyre et al, 2019).…”