Jean-Marc Dewaele

Birkbeck, University of London

Flow reflects an optimal balance of challenge and skill, which is exhilarating and addictive. The current study investigates the role of three learner emotions (enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom) on the proportion of class time in flow among 165 Arab and Kurdish English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in both in-person and online classes. Statis...

This paper presents a critical analysis of the EMPATHICS Model of Language Learner Well-being proposed by Oxford (2016) as a prerequisite first step to validate this model. The analysis was guided by the theories in the field of language learning and teaching as well as by some elaborations and suggestions originally made by Rebecca Oxford herself....

This paper presents a critical analysis of the EMPATHICS model of language learner well-being proposed by Oxford (2016) as a prerequisite first step to validate this model. The analysis was guided by the theories in the field of language learning and teaching as well as by some elaborations and suggestions originally made by Rebecca Oxford herself....

Three measures (in different formats, publication, print, and online questionnaire) for foreign language (learning) enjoyment, boredom and burnout respectively, validated among Chinese EFL students

The sudden shift to online foreign language (FL) learning due to the pandemic offered researchers the unique possibility to explore the role of learner emotions in different teaching modalities. This mixed methods paper investigates differences in 437 English as a foreign language (EFL) students' levels of FL enjoyment (FLE) in pre-pandemic in-pers...

In two online survey studies (N = 688 and N = 247, respectively) we developed and validated a new psychometric scale for measuring emotional resonance reduction in bilinguals’ LX (“later learnt language”) relative to their L1 (“first language”). The final scale, dubbed RER-LX (for Reduced Emotional Resonanc e in LX ), comprises 15 items and possess...

Previous research suggests that people are more prone to commit moral transgressions when they face moral dilemmas in a second language (LX) as opposed to their first language(s) (L1). This study investigated the influence of language, emotional intelligence, and the degree of severity of real moral transgressions on bilinguals' judgments of offens...

This multiple case study focuses on the fluctuations of seven beginner learners’ emotions in five successive French as a foreign language classes over a three-week period. The teacher used a language learning method based on the emotional commitment of the interlocutors (teacher and learners) during oral interactions. The learners of different ages...

Intellectual humility (IH) remains a relatively novel concept, though past research indicates a relationship to open-mindedness, lower propensity towards political bias and amenability to engage with opposing viewpoints. Intellectual humility has shown mixed effects on foreign language learning (Moskowitz & Dewaele [2020]. The role of intellectual...

The challenges that multilingual and multicultural people experience in communicating their emotions as intended, and to respond in conventional ways to the ones expressed to them, are often unexpected and steeper than expected. It is not enough to have a rudimentary semantic representation of an emotion word, or an incomplete conceptual representa...

This is an overview of the life and work of Professor Aneta Pavlenko until 2023

This is an overview of applied linguistic work on four foreign language learner emotions, inspired by various branches of psychology, especially Positive Psychology. The emotions that have been selected are Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA), Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), Foreign Language Boredom (FLB) and Foreign Language Peace of Mind...

This study is part of a growing wave of interest in foreign language learners’ emotions, their sources, and their effects. Previous studies have confirmed that there is a clear relationship between the emotions of Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA), Foreign Language Boredom (FLB), and FL performance. However...

The current study is based on a pseudo-longitudinal design to investigate the trajectory of Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), Foreign Language Peace of Mind (FLPOM), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA), Foreign Language Boredom (FLB) among a total of 502 Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced English Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Morocco wh...

Epistemological and methodological considerations about the challenges in collecting and analyzing L2 individual differences data

Personality has been identified as a possible antecedent to emotions experienced in the foreign language (FL) classroom. However, contrasting results and differing personality models have resulted in ambiguous findings. This study set out to delve deeper into the role of personality as a predictor of FL emotions through a series of increasingly res...

Research on learners’ foreign language emotions has revealed the existence of a positive feedback loop where increased enjoyment leads to better performance which, in turn, strengthens learners’ enjoyment and boosts overall happiness. The current study follows this avenue focusing on teachers’ foreign language teaching enjoyment (FLTE) and its rela...

This study longitudinally examined the effects of cognitive and sociopsychological individual differences (aptitude, motivation, personality) and the quantity and quality of second language (L2) experience on L2 speech gains in naturalistic settings. We elicited L2 spontaneous speech from 50 Chinese learners of English at the beginning and the end...

Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore how outdoor education can influence foreign language anxiety (FLA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) when young teenagers are learning a foreign language (FL). We applied a dynamic perspective to investigate if using English in an outdoor context would reduce FLA and boost FLE, leading to a stronger w...

This textbook aims to support counsellors, psychotherapists, and counselling psychologists to develop a creative research-informed practice. Following from the authors' earlier title Enjoying Research, the book covers qualitative, quantitative, pluralistic, and mixed methods approaches with a special focus on diversity, researcher support and innov...

This chapter expands on choices in mixed methods, ranging from qualitative- to quantitative-driven mixed methods research in the context of emotionally loaded and sensitive topics. Dr Sally Cook explains stages within a qualitative mixed methods approach combining Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Psychology and Health 11:261–71, 199...

The last decade has seen a proliferation of studies about emotions in FL teaching and learning. The present study examined three of the most researched and well-known FL emotions, anxiety, boredom and enjoyment, and their relationship with learners' engagement in EFL class and EFL test scores for reading, writing, listening, and speaking. One-hundr...

Personality has been identified as a possible antecedent to emotions experienced in the foreign language (FL) classroom. However, contrasting results and differing personality models have resulted in ambiguous findings. This study set out to delve deeper into the role of personality as a predictor of FL emotions through a series of increasingly res...

Although engagement is gaining attention in applied linguistics, the lack of a measurement tool with robust psychometric properties hinders progress. To address this gap, the study introduces a short language classroom engagement scale (LCES) based on Hiver et al.’s (2020) language engagement scale. Participants include Chinese high school EFL lear...

Emotions in foreign language (FL) learning have become an increasingly popular research avenue in applied linguistics. Such research is often carried out using linear correlational or regression methods, which are limited in the extent to which they can depict interrelations. In this study, we aimed to reexamine the relationships between the emotio...

This critical overview examines the body of literature on language instructors' emotion labour, with the aim of providing insights into the aspects of teachers' work that positively and negatively impact their emotional well-being, as well as possible strategies to help them flourish. Research in this novel area was divided into three broadly chron...

Questionnaires in Second Language Research is the first state-of-the-art methodological guide for producing and using questionnaires as reliable and valid research instruments in second language studies. Zoltán Dörnyei and Jean-Marc Dewaele provide a comprehensive, reader-friendly overview of the theory of questionnaire design, administration, and...

This book could be compared to the gleaming scarlet steam engine that appears half-way through J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone (1997). The Hogwarts Express that carries students to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the start of term is a revelation to the first-year students who may have heard about it from t...

Many studies have revealed multilinguals’ reduced emotionality of a foreign language (LX) compared to a first language (L1). Contrary to the bulk of research so far, which has focused on multilinguals’ own emotion experience or emotion processing, this study focuses on interpersonal communication and investigates how one perceives the intensity lev...

The current chapter looks into the tortured history of the psychology of foreign language learning where initial exaggerated expectations about the role of personality traits were never quite met by the cold, hard facts. This led to disappointment among applied linguists about the potential of psychology to shed light on the mechanisms of foreign l...

In two online survey studies (N = 688 and N = 247, respectively) we developed and validated a new psychometric scale for measuring emotional resonance reduction in bilinguals’ LX (“later learnt language”) relative to their L1 (“first language”). The final scale, dubbed RER-LX (for Reduced Emotional Resonance in LX), comprises 15 items and possesses...

Questionnaires in Second Language Research is the first state-of-the-art methodological guide for producing and using questionnaires as reliable and valid research instruments in second language studies. Zoltán Dörnyei and Jean-Marc Dewaele provide a comprehensive, reader-friendly overview of the theory of questionnaire design, administration, and...

The present study is among the first to investigate how three foreign language (FL) emotions, namely FL enjoyment (FLE), anxiety (FLCA), and boredom (FLB), are related to each other. It is the first study to consider how the three FL emotions are shaped by one learner-internal variable (attitude toward the FL), by two perceived teacher behaviors (f...

The current study contributes to the recent debate on the question whether learner emotions can be intrinsically motivating or whether they are no more than diffuse action tendencies (Dörnyei 2020). Adopting a longitudinal approach, we combined repeated analysis of variances and mixed effects modelling to capture interactions between Foreign Langua...

With the flourishing of positive psychology (PP) in foreign and second language teaching research, interest has grown in a range of positive psychological variables including the new concept of foreign language teaching enjoyment (FLTE) that mirrors that of learners' Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE). The present study investigates how positive psyc...

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 experien...

Previous research on the foreign language (FL) learner has yielded a rich body of knowledge on personality, individual differences, and conceptions of the self as a measure of motivation. While these contributions have greatly enriched our understanding of learner psychology, the current paper proposes an analytical framing of language learning bas...

The present study examines the direct and indirect relationships between classroom environment (CE), L2 (second/foreign language) learner emotions (i.e. enjoyment, anxiety and boredom), and their willingness to communicate (WTC) in classes for English as a foreign language (EFL). Participants were 2,268 university students in China. Pearson correla...

This paper explores differences in 437 learners' foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) in in‐person and online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes before the outbreak of the pandemic and during the first lockdown in spring 2020. Statistical analyses of data gathered with a web survey revealed a slight, yet significant drop in learners'...

The present study focuses on the experience of flow among 168 Arab and Kurdish English Foreign Language (EFL) learners in both in-person and emergency remote teaching (ERT) classes. Statistical analyses of questionnaire data revealed that learners did experience flow in their ERT classes but for a significantly shorter time than in the pre-pandemic...

Previous research on the foreign language (FL) learner has yielded a rich body of knowledge on personality, individual differences, and conceptions of the self as a measure of motivation. While these contributions have greatly enriched our understanding of learner psychology, the current paper proposes an analytical framing of language learning bas...

Studies examining the positive emotion of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) have recently increased exponentially, as researchers are applying the tenets of positive psychology in applied linguistics. It is therefore an appropriate time to take stock of the current literature and conduct a preliminary meta-analysis. The relationships between FLE and...

Humor can provide a multitude of benefits for language learners, including improvement of classroom atmosphere (Dewaele et al., 2018) and a reduction of anxiety (Tarone, 2000). Moreover, the integration of humor into language lessons has been strongly endorsed by both students and instructors (Askildson, 2005; Azizinezhad & Hashemi, 2011). What is...

Latest research on emotion

The current study addresses the question whether the level of proficiency of teachers who teach a “non-native” language, English, affects their attitudes, motivation, well-being and self-reported classroom practices. This quantitative study is based on a cross-sectional research design in order to investigate the relationship between actual English...

Interview about research

The present study adopted a mixed-methods approach using a convergent parallel design to focus on the role that positive and negative emotions have in the Foreign Language (FL) classroom on the ontogenesis of positive flow. Participants were 1,044 FL learners from around the world. They provided quantitative and qualitative data on FL enjoyment (FL...

The current study addresses the question whether the level of proficiency of teachers who teach a “non-native” language, English, affects their attitudes, motivation, well-being and self-reported classroom practices. This quantitative study is based on a cross-sectional research design in order to investigate the relationship between the actual Eng...

Het concept van de "native speaker" in het vreemdetalenonderwijs wordt al lang ter discussie gesteld door taalkundigen, maar vreemd genoeg blijft het een centrale pijler van het onderwijs van het Engels als een vreemde taal. Het doel van het onderwijs is vaak om de leerlingen (de "non-native speakers") aan te moedigen om als "native speakers" te kl...

We are organising a 1-day colloquium where London Second Language Acquisition Research Forum (L-SLARF) members will share ongoing research projects with students, researchers & the general public. The event will take place face-to-face & online. The event is free and open to all. Saturday May 21st 10:00-17:00 Room B35, Birkbeck, University London...

Tips for becoming a successful researcher

Research on multilinguals’ voice-hearing, sometimes termed auditory-verbal hallucinations, is dominated by psychiatrists’ reports, skewing toward etic over emic approaches. Most also pre-dates developments in both voice-hearing and multilingualism research which highlight the complexity and dynamic nature of both phenomena and shows little cross-fe...

The world of applied linguistics and the profession of foreign language teaching needs to finally sweep away the notion of “Native Speaker” (NS) and the deficit perspective surrounding foreign language learners. We argue that Positive Psychology is a source of inspiration for a new and more positive perspective on foreign language learners and user...

The current study investigates how Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) and Attitude/motivation (AM) of 360 learners of English, German, French and Spanish in a Kuwaiti university was shaped over the course of one semester by three teacher behaviours: frequency of using the FL in class, predictability and freq...

The recent and still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of an education system built around in-door teaching which was forced to switch to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) via computers at the onset of the pandemic. We argue that if educators had known about the use of the outdoors as an alternative learning arena, many stud...

Foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) is a popular construct in applied linguistics research, traditionally measured with the 33-item Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). However, recent studies have started utilizing the eight-item Short-Form FLCAS (S-FLCAS). There is therefore a need, which this study addressed in five sequential...

Foreign language teaching enjoyment (FLTE) has recently been introduced as a broad positive emotion experienced by foreign language (FL) teachers, despite obstacles embedded in FL teaching. However, identifying its psychological outcomes - and the cultural specificity of these outcomes - has received scant research attention across different contex...

The present study focused on differences in intensity of Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA), and proportion of time in a state of flow among 761 English FL learners and 825 FL learners of Languages Other Than English (LOTE). Participants in the LOTE group reported significantly higher levels of FLE and a hig...

The present study explores the relationship between learner-internal variables and enjoyment and anxiety in English Foreign Language (EFL) classes. Participants were 207 EFL learners from Spain who filled out an online questionnaire with Likert scale items. Statistical analyses revealed that sociobiographical background variables such as age and mu...

Recent research has confirmed the predictive effect of general foreign language (FL) achievement on Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA). However, few studies have examined the effect of domain-specific language achievement in shaping FL learning emotions. The present study thus aims to examine how FLE and...

Considering the multiplicity of factors that can affect language learning and communication processes, it is possible to affirm that the role of emotions has been underestimated. In fact, although they play a prominent role in most motivational processes, it has only been recently that researchers have begun to study how they operate in second lang...

Personal reflections on the emergence of emotion in Second Language Acquisition research and an argument against predeterministic thinking

I would like to start by thanking the editors of the European Educational Researcher for inviting me to provide the first editorial in their journal. I collaborated with Dr. Nuri Balta (executive editor) and colleagues on a project on the acquisition of Turkish by Kazakh learners. The resulting paper (Dewaele, Özdemir, Karci, Uysal, Özdemir & Balta...

Willingness to communicate in a second or foreign language (L2 WTC) is an important individual difference variable that influences the target language learning process. To cultivate students’ communicative competence for sustainable development and help them become active citizens of the global world, language teachers and educators need to underst...

The present study is among the first to investigate how three foreign language (FL) emotions (enjoyment (FLE), anxiety (FLCA) and boredom (FLB)) are related to each other. It is the first study to consider how the three FL emotions are shaped by one learner-internal variable (attitude towards the FL), by two perceived teacher behaviours (frequency...

Overview This contribution focuses on the crucial importance of multilingualism in shaping identity and personality. After a short look at the key issues in the field, it considers research on language learner classroom emotions before looking at the challenges that foreign language users face in communicating their emotions appropriately. Attentio...

This study presents a new positive emotion construct, 外语平和心态 ( waiyu pinghe xintai ) or Foreign Language Peace of Mind (FLPOM), drawn from the Chinese cultural tradition. It is a low-arousal positive (LAP) emotional state (e.g., calmness, peacefulness) and a state of internal harmony. Three sub-studies were conducted. In Study 1, a measurement scal...

We used a data set with n = 1,603 learners of foreign languages (FL) to develop and validate the short form of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (S‐FLES). The data was split into 2 groups, and we used the first sample to develop the short‐form measure. A 3‐factor hierarchical model of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) was uncovered, with FLE as a...

This article reports on a two-step investigation of foreign language learning boredom amongst Chinese university non-English-major EFL students and English teachers. In Study 1, 22 students and 11 English teachers were interviewed and 659 students responded to an open questionnaire, recalling and describing their experiences and perceptions of bore...

The present study investigates the effect of sociobiographical, emotional, attitudinal characteristics and teacher perceptions of 275 Kazakh secondary school pupils and 317 university students on their exam performance in Turkish as a foreign language (FL). Multiple regression analyses reveal that exam results in Turkish of secondary school pupils...

Aims and objectives This qualitative study explores the experience of using a later-learned language, English (ELX), in the therapeutic journey of refugee survivors of sexuality persecution to enhance understanding of the role of language in their rehabilitation. Design/methodology/approach This is a multiple case study of three refugees, persecut...

Interest in the role of learners’ personality, emotions and the learning environment in foreign language (FL) learning has grown exponentially in the past decade. The introduction of personality psychology in the field of applied linguistics has led to the inclusion of a set of personality dimensions in research designs like resilience and grit, wh...

Teachers routinely make a conscious effort to manage their emotions in front of students. The present study focused on emotional labor strategies from 594 Chinese English Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, seeking to discover which ones are preferred, how they are related to each other and how they are linked to teachers’ sociobiographical, instituti...

This mixed-methods study focuses on the effect of Study Abroad (SA) on the mental well-being of 33 Anglophone students who spent between four and twelve months in Francophone countries. It investigates the relationship between well-being and personality traits. Statistical analyses revealed no significant change in well-being between the start, the...

Foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) is a popular construct in applied linguistics research, traditionally measured with the 33-item Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). However, recent studies have started utilising the 8-item Short-Form Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (S-FLCAS). There is therefore a need, which this study address...

Language is an essential part of psychotherapeutic work. In psychotherapy involving more than one language and/or culture, acknowledging the impact of the therapist's and the client's language(s) can facilitate achieving the most beneficial therapeutic process and outcome. The field has witnessed a surge in interdisciplinary work combining research...

This paper investigates how inner speech in English as a foreign language (LX) and Chinese first languages (L1s) of 425 multilingual Chinese university students in the UK is affected by their stay. An eight-item scale was developed to cover two different discourse domains for inner speech, namely the academic and the general domain. LX socializatio...

The role of personality in Second/Foreign Language Acquisition

This paper reports on a study that took a positive psychology approach to foreign language anxiety reduction. More specifically, it investigated whether reminiscing about language achievements could effectively diminish the learners’ foreign language classroom anxiety. It also explored the patterns nested in the reminiscing process. To this end, 88...

Enjoyment has been described as the emotion that fuels the second language learning process and that boosts performance in the second language. This chapter shows how enjoyment emerged in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research in the second decade of the 21 st century as a result of the dissemination of concepts from Positive Psychology and Edu...

This study investigates the impact of spending more than three years in an English environment on Saudi migrants’ metapragmatic judgments of Arabic L1 nonverbal greetings and their personality traits. Participants are 437 adults comprising three groups: Saudi L2 speakers of English in the UK, Saudis in Saudi Arabia, and British L1 speakers of Engli...

This study investigates the impact of spending more than three years in an English environment on Saudi migrants’ metapragmatic judgments of Arabic L1 nonverbal greetings and their personality traits. Participants are 437 adults comprising three groups: Saudi L2 speakers of English in the UK, Saudis in Saudi Arabia, and British L1 speakers of Engli...

This empirical study investigates the differences in the appreciation of British humour by British English and American English L1 users. A total of 128 British and 95 American English L1 users (with 18 being bi-dialectal—having experiences in the UK) rated the funniness of two short extracts from two British television series and answered an open...

The current study investigated to what extent language and culture shape emotional experience. Specifically, we randomly assigned 178 Chinese English bilinguals to report on emotional situations, cultural exposure, engagement, and language proficiency in either English as a foreign language (LX) or Chinese (L1). We established their fit with both t...

Teacher enthusiasm is attracting growing attention in educational and learner psychology research. There is evidence that teacher enthusiasm is contagious in class and positively affects student emotions. Their fundamental role in shaping student engagement has also been well documented. However, the links – between teacher enthusiasm and student e...

The present study looks at the relationship between classroom Enjoyment, Attitudes/Motivation and Language Anxiety in 110 Turkish pupils’ first language (L1) and in Italian, their foreign language (FL) in an immersion school. This is one of the first studies to compare emotions in the L1 and FL classrooms. It revealed similar levels of Attitude/Mot...

The present quantitative study is part of the new wave of research into the psychology of language teachers and their emotions (Gkonou Dewaele& King, 2020). It also answers the call for more studies on languages other than English (LOTEs) by considering feedback from 174 Italian as Foreign Language (FL) teachers based in Italy and abroad. The study...