Emotion in second language acquisition (SLA) has recently received greater attention because it is largely implicated in daily conversations, which may affect second or foreign language (L2) use including listening comprehension. Most research into emotion and L2 listening comprehension is focused exclusively on anxiety, with an attempt to reduce…

Emotions are a fleeting experience, sometimes lasting only moments before dissipating. Prior research in SLA has either ignored emotions, underestimated their relevance, or has studied them as a relatively stable individual difference variable. In contrast, the present study takes an idiodynamic approach to examine the rapidly changing…

The role of basic emotions in SLA has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions ("joy," "gratitude," "serenity," "interest," "hope," "pride," "amusement," "inspiration," "awe," and "love")…

Positive psychology is a rapidly expanding subfield in psychology that has important implications for the field of second language acquisition (SLA). This paper introduces positive psychology to the study of language by describing its key tenets. The potential contributions of positive psychology are contextualized with reference to prior work,…

Emotional intelligence has not been widely studied in second language acquisition and studies published to date have been questionnaire-based. In this study we take a qualitative approach to focus on how emotional intelligence is used by two participants, one a learner and the other a pre-service teacher. The two focal participants were selected…

The present study investigates Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) in the classroom. Participants were 1746 current FL learners from around the world. We used a measure of FLE, based on Likert scale ratings of 21 items (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014), and a measure of FLCA based on 8 items extracted from…