Motivational drivers and emotions that students experience play an important role in the process of learning a new language (L2). This has been recognised by researchers and educators, and extensive research has been conducted in recent decades to examine the psychological and emotional factors involved in L2 learning. However, two ubiquitous…

Previous research that explores the effect of ethnicity in the perception of speaker accentedness and personality traits often finds that Asian appearance contributes to a more accented and less competent impression. Importantly, most of the work done to date employed only Caucasian first language-speaking listeners; moreover, ethnicity and gender…

Swearing uses language forms that are taboo and potentially offensive. These are often used for emotional expression. Multilingual research shows that because the first language retains most emotional force (Dewaele [2004]. "The Emotional Force of Swearwords and Taboo Words in the Speech of Multilinguals." "Journal of Multilingual…

Chinese students are frequently seen as passive learners because of their apparent reluctance to speak, particularly in English classrooms. However, this impression seems to reflect a stereotype which is likely to confound willingness to communicate (WTC) and communication behaviour. In this article we argue for more attention to be paid to…

Background: Many empirical investigations focus on how personality traits and academic motivation are related to academic achievement. Regarding the personality traits described in the five-factor model, prior research has shown associations between openness to experience and language achievement in particular. Following the principle of trait…

As a personality trait, second language (L2) grit--a combination of perseverance and passion for L2 learning--has recently been proposed as a meaningful predictor of learners' motivational behavior and L2 achievement. The results of a growing body of empirical studies carried out in various L2 contexts have substantiated the power of L2 grit in…

The role of students' well-being in their academic development and growth has been reported in the literature. Nonetheless, most of the previous studies have revolved around the predictive role of interpersonal factors in students' well-being, and the influence of personal factors is overlooked. To bridge this gap, this study probed the role of…

In multicultural education, empathy has been regarded as an essential teacher disposition that enables teachers to better understand culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students through perspective-taking. However, less is known about the mechanism that underlies how empathy fosters teachers' competence in supporting CLD students, i.e.,…

Despite the rekindled interest in emotions and individual differences in second language acquisition (SLA) under the influence of positive psychology, the interrelationships among regulatory focus, L2 grit and achievement emotions remain under-researched. Drawing on structural equation modeling (SEM) approach, this study aimed to examine the…

This study continued a project aiming at empirically investigating the Plurilingual Creativity paradigm. It looked at the mediating role of tolerance and intolerance of ambiguity in the relation between plurilingualism/pluriculturalism and creativity. To test the research hypotheses, we recruited 261 participants using a simple random sampling…

An increasing number of research is focusing on L2 grit, which plays a significant role in SLA. But few studies examine the factors that affect L2 grit. This study investigates the internal predictors influencing L2 grit in Chinese college students, specifically focusing on L2 willingness to communicate (WTC), L2 anxiety and L2 joy. A structural…

Relatively few studies in the field of second language acquisition have undertaken to investigate the interrelationships of constellations of individual difference variables. This is certainly true of how complexes of ID factors impact motivation to learn an additional language. In order to address this gap, the paper reports a study that examined…

Many previous studies have identified "foreign language anxiety" and "motivation" as two important areas of applied linguistics. This study aims to evaluate the pertinent literature with also providing new information and justifications in past studies on learning anxiety and motivation. In this paper, the first section…

Researchers have agreed that language anxiety is situation-specific; however, whether existing instruments measure stable or transient components of this anxiety remains controversial. Therefore, this study examined language anxiety's trait stability and state variability. The results from synthesizing 21 test-retest correlations based on existing…

The emerging interest in grit, referred to as sustained perseverance and passion for reaching long-term goals and conceptualized as a facet of conscientiousness, has shown that language-specific grit is positively linked to foreign language (FL) achievement. Evidence from recent studies on intended effort and academic buoyancy--constructs…