The growth of the Chinese language in African countries and African students' consequent flocking into Chinese higher education are both emergent phenomena. This partly explains the lack of empirical research on this body of student migrants and their Chinese language learning. This paper applies Watkins' theorisation on pedagogic affect to…

In this article we discuss how the design of a higher education language course can challenge the power of sentimentality in the classroom. In particular, the paper analyses the role of literature in intercultural language education through the lens of affect theory, while focusing on minimizing sentimentality in the classroom, especially when the…

This book demonstrates how resources taken from positive psychology can benefit both teachers and learners. Positive psychology is the empirical study of how people thrive and flourish. This book explores a range of topics, such as affectivity and positive emotions, engagement, enjoyment, empathy, positive institutions, a positive L2 self-system,…

This study reviewed the mobile technology-assisted language learning studies published from 2007 to 2016 in selected journals. Several critical issues were investigated, such as research methods, research issues, language and learner types, and learning outcomes. It was found that English as a foreign/second language was the most common target…

Student attrition and falling tertiary education enrolments afflict languages education across the "inner circle" English speaking world. In the southern hemisphere, in New Zealand and Australia, Japanese has become one of the most successful languages of education. However, numbers of students are now declining. This paper examines why…

Research has shown that teaching second language (L2) learning strategies explicitly promotes an increase in strategy use and in oral proficiency. Consequently, a checklist based on the six types of strategies from Oxford's taxonomy (1990) was created to analyze strategic instruction in the most common textbooks used in the last year of Higher…

This study investigated English teachers' use of learners' L1 (Arabic) in college classrooms in Kuwait. The purpose of the study was three-fold: (1) to describe the functions for which L1 was employed by the teachers, (2) to explore the affective, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic factors that may have led teachers to use L1 in L2 teaching,…

Although Reflective Practice is a popular approach to teacher education, there have been some recent criticisms regarding its effectiveness in students learning. Some researchers have put this down to the fact that the concept has not been operationalised, and it is thus impossible to set up empirical studies. The current study was conducted to…

Describes a study that investigated the metacognitive knowledge of students in relation to the context of distance foreign language learning at Massey University (New Zealand). Explores the metacognitive experiences of students and the effect students believe these experiences have on their understandings of themselves and their learning context.…

An experiment was conducted using the suggestopedia method to learn German vocabulary words. Four students who had failed, or nearly failed, tests during the regular university term, took part in two tutoring sessions in which the following procedure was used. First, a pretest of 72 lexical items was given. The students cooperated with the teacher…

The effect of three affective student characteristics, in comparison with selected student ability characteristics, on course grade in elementary language courses is examined. Results imply that affective characteristics have at least as much influence on learning as do ability factors. (Author/RM)

This study investigated a causal model of second language learning, in particular, three situation-specific constructs: language class discomfort, language class risktaking, and language class sociability. Findings indicate that discomfort negatively predicted risktaking and sociability, risktaking positively predicted participation, and…

Describes a method for teaching literature, specifically Spanish literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The method depends upon encouraging the students to experience affectively what they are reading. (CLK)

Investigation of how college students' (N=125) personality characteristics influenced their attitudes toward various second-language learning activities partially confirmed hypotheses suggesting that risk taking and sociability factors positively influenced attitudes toward free language use and negatively affected attitudes toward highly…

Responding to foreign language learners' affective needs may help enhance learners' success in Japanese. American students face many linguistic and psychological barriers when learning Japanese. The article examines such affective variables as anxiety, risk taking, and motivation as significant contributing factors for differential success in…