For language learners who aspire to become multilingual, commitment involves a personal journey. Defining persistence as a preoccupation with goal-focused action directed to a desired future state and drawing on research from cognitive psychology and the mental time travel paradigm, this article presents an identity-based framework of persistence…

Integrating concepts and techniques from ethnomethodology and sociomaterialism, this article investigates the observable material processes involving human action and place-based contexts of language use enabled by locative media. The focal pedagogical intervention utilized mobile augmented reality (AR) activities, the development of which was…

This study investigated the concept of corrective feedback in second language learning as a learning resource, recasting it as "feedback-seeking behavior." Dweck's (1999) mindsets, Korn and Elliot's (2016) achievement goals, and Ashford's (1986) model of feedback-seeking behavior were re-operationalized in the context of language…

In commercial materials for the teaching of second language (L2) pronunciation, common bottom-up approaches segment phonology into a series of discrete and decontextualized linguistic components with rules that students are encouraged to internalize. Such approaches seem out of step with recent second language acquisition (SLA) theory and research…

This study explored teachers' beliefs about pronunciation instruction in Spanish as a second language (L2). An online survey was used to collect data from 100 participants, grouped into 4 categories based on their previous training in principles and methods of pronunciation instruction. This article reports results from 15 survey items which…

The theoretical paradigms of second language (L2) learning motivation developed over the past 25 years have been largely based on the study of English as a target language, which raises the question as to whether they are equally applicable to the understanding of the motivation to learn languages other than English (LOTEs). It is suggested in…

In a series of articles Dörnyei and his colleagues (Dörnyei, Ibrahim, & Muir, 2015; Dörnyei, Muir, & Ibrahim, 2014; Muir & Dörnyei, 2013) describe the phenomenon of a period of intense and enduring motivation in pursuit of a highly desired personal goal or vision. These surges of motivational energy, which they call "Directed…

Some people ascribe successful language learning to an innate aptitude that cannot be further developed, at least after a certain young age (i.e., an entity mindset), while other people believe that language learning ability can be improved (i.e., an incremental mindset). The purpose of this research is to (a) introduce the Language Mindsets…

This article examines the relative effects of two treatments--goal setting and visualization--on enhancing Willingness to Communicate (WTC) among a group of 373 Japanese university EFL learners. Although longitudinal studies in both EFL and ESL settings have been conducted to examine the developmental aspect of WTC, no solid results of enhancing…

The encoding of goal-oriented motion events varies across different languages. Speakers of languages without grammatical aspect (e.g., Swedish) tend to mention motion endpoints when describing events (e.g., "two nuns walk to a house") and attach importance to event endpoints when matching scenes from memory. Speakers of aspect languages…

This study examined the extent to which 40 students enrolled in upper level foreign language literary/cultural studies content courses showed evidence of incidental language learning over the course of a semester. Students completed a cloze passage and provided both writing and speaking samples at the beginning and end of the semester. In…

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) is an alternative assessment used in foreign language classes throughout Europe to support and record language learning. Directly linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) proficiency guidelines, it is designed to achieve an ambitious dual goal: document…

The connection between goals and student motivation has been widely investigated in the research literature, but the relationship of goal setting and student achievement at the classroom level has remained largely unexplored. This article reports the findings of a 5-year quasi-experimental study examining goal setting and student achievement in…

The aim of our study was to provide an insider's account of the dynamics of language learning motivation in Hungarian students with dyslexia. For this purpose, we conducted qualitative interviews with 15 students who studied foreign languages in a variety of educational settings. In this article, we drew up a dynamic model of language learning…

This study investigated the relationship among new measures of motivation, such as persistence, attention, and goal specificity, and existing measures of motivation and achievement in 75 students enrolled in a francophone secondary school in Ontario. It concluded that these new motivational measures add to the understanding of the effects of…