Joint Event by RCPCE & FOLLM: Novel insights into motivation and emotions research

About the Speakers

1. How learners' personality and classroom emotions shape their foreign language learning

Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele
Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics
Birkbeck, University of London
United Kingdom

2. The motivation of older language learners... and its implications for other contexts

Professor Stephen Ryan
School of Culture, Media and Society
Waseda University
Japan

Abstracts

1. How learners' personality and classroom emotions shape their foreign language learning

Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele will talk about an emerging area of research in the field of foreign language learning and teaching, which was triggered by the introduction of Positive Psychology (PP) in 2012 (Dewaele, 2021; Dewaele et al., 2019).  It has focused on the role of positive personality traits such as Trait Emotional Intelligence (Li, 2020; Resnik & Dewaele, 2021) and emotions in foreign language learning, beyond established concepts like foreign language anxiety and constructs like motivation and attitudes toward the foreign language.  As a result, a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between personality traits and positive and negative learner emotions emerged, linked to the teacher and the classroom environment (Dewaele & Li, 2021; Dewaele et al., 2019).

2. The motivation of older language learners... and its implications for other contexts

In this talk, Professor Stephen Ryan aims to tie two apparently distinct and unconnected aspects of language learning motivation: language learning within compulsory education and older language learners. The number of people learning a foreign language in the later stages of life is growing rapidly and this demands serious attention from both researchers and classroom practitioners. However, in this talk his focus is more on what this group of learners can teach those of us involved in mainstream language education. Drawing on an ongoing series of studies investigating older learners in Japan, I hope to show some of the ways in which the broader field of language education—particularly contexts where foreign languages are taught primarily as a compulsory school subject—can learn from the insights and experience of these old learners, their approaches to language learning, and their responses to success and failure.