本文是一篇教育论文，本研究通过对数据的分析，得出了以下主要结论：首先，通过对所有关于教师的书面作品进行开放编码，从高中生潜在的FLE叙事中提取了24个因素，包括幽默、耐心、热情、责任心、小组工作、视频观看、角色扮演、，熟悉和有趣的东西、学习策略、外国文化、清晰的教学说明、各种教具的使用、师生之间的有效互动、情感支持、工具支持、信息支持和评估支持。
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Since the 1990s, with the increasing development of positive psychology, thepositive emotions of foreign language learners and their influencing factors haveattracted the attention of many scholars. It is generally held that a big majority ofresearchers have been studying people’s psychological disadvantages and deficiencies,while those who have been enthusiastically advocating positive psychology tend tofocus not only on individuals’ positive experiences, particularly enjoyment and flow,on individuals’ positive traits, especially emotional intelligence and grit, but also onpositive institutions, such as classroom environment and school environment(Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). The goal of the endeavor has been to helppeople develop positive psychological traits, so that their sense of happiness, sense ofsuccess or sense of satisfaction will be increased.
Although the effort in the studies of individuals’ negative emotions has neverfaded away as time went by, yet as positive psychology has been rapidly developingin recent years, more and more scholars have attached great value to the potentialeffects of positive emotions on an individual’s physical or mental development.According to Fredrickson’s (2004) broaden-and-build theory, people’s positiveemotions have a lot of advantages in broadening momentary thought-actionrepertories, building enduring resources, coping with lingering effects of arousal fromnegative emotion, fueling psychological resilience in addition to enhancingpsychological and physical well-being. On the basis of Fredrickson’s findings,MacIntyre and Gregersen (2012) argue that positive emotions can not only helplearners notice things in classroom environment, they can also enhance learners’consciousness of language input, so that the target language can be well absorbed.Moreover, it is also indicated by MacIntyre and Mercer’s study (2014) that bothpositive emotions and negative emotions should be considered as independent entitiesas the two emotions differ completely in function. Positive emotions are as significantas negative emotions and thus should be given due and serious consideration.
1.2 Research Purpose
For quite a substantial period of time, the attention of the scholars in the field ofsecond language acquisition (SLA) has been drawn to the study of learners’ negativeemotion, especially foreign language anxiety, as a result of which, the efforts put inthe study on learners’ positive emotions are far from enough. However, recent years’arrival of positive psychology overseas has encouraged more and more scholars and practitioners in the field of SLA to probe into the emotions of second languagelearners, demonstrating more interest in the study of positive emotions than that ofnegative ones, FLE in particular (E.g. Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014; Dewaele &MacIntyre, 2019). Nonetheless, the scholars and researchers in the field of SLA inChina have not yet generally realized the importance to study learners’ positiveemotions.
Being an organizer of classroom activities, and a facilitator and guide in students’learning process, the teacher plays a crucial role in junior high school English class.All the English teachers desire to create an enjoyable environment for the students inthe process of English learning. Thus, they always strive to try all the possiblemethods in order to live up to their students’ expectations. Although a great number ofscholars have conducted studies on teacher-related constructs and have identified thefactors exerting positive impact on learners’ FLE, yet the existing endeavors havebeen mostly exerted from their personal perspectives rather than learners’ perspectives.Namely, they have not completely contemplated on learners’ thoughts regarding theteacher-specific factors that are correlated with their FLE. Most likely, teachers andstudents could have different perceptions.
The present study, is designed to study the teacher-related factors underlyingChinese junior high school students’ foreign language enjoyment using focused essayand interview.
Chapter 2 Literature Review and Theoretical Bases
2.1.1 Emotion and Positive Emotions
It is not an easy thing to define emotion, despite the fact that it is a very commonconcept. The reason is that a consensus concerning its definition across different fieldsof study, such as philosophy, psychology and anthropology, is very hard to reach.Moreover, MacIntyre and Gregersen (2012) hold that the process of defining theconcept is usually trapped in a circular fashion in which emotions are depicted asfeelings that are explained as states of emotion. Reeve (2005) has offered a definitionconsisting of four components, according to which “Emotions are short-lived,feeling-arousal-purposive-expressive phenomena that help us adapt to theopportunities and challenges we face during important life events.” This definitionimplies that emotion is certainly a multi-faceted construct encompassing not onlyphysiological, affective, but also behavioral and cognitive dimensions.
There has been a wide acknowledgement with regard to the value of emotion inlanguage learning (E.g. Méndez Lopez & Pea Aguilar, 2013). Nevertheless, as held byDörnyei and Ryan (2015), the role that emotion plays still remains underestimated onaccount of the cognitive convention that has been so strong in SLA. As a matter offact, emotions can pose a substantially significant impact on an individual’s languagelearning and target language performance not merely through the employment ofcognitive resources and the regulation of processes, but also through the arousal andmaintenance of his/her interest in learning and the application of modes ofinformation processing. Additionally, emotions can also function to promote an individual’s participation and self-regulation in learning (Schumann, 1994). Just asReeve (2005) has put it, motion gets involved in almost everything human beings do.Therefore, emotion merits a great amount of research attention.
2.2 Theoretical Foundations
The theoretical foundations of the present study are made up of bothBroaden-and-build Theory and Control-value Theory, which are to be elucidated inthe following section.
2.2.1 Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-build Theory
Broaden-and-build Theory was established by Fredrickson (1998) who hasclarified the form and function of positive emotions that are greatly different from thatof negative emotions. Fredrickson (2001) further argues that positive emotions, suchas contentment, interest, joy, love and pride, all are capable of broadening people’smoment-to-moment repertories of thought-action and build their lasting resources forthe future which range from intellectual and physical resources to psychological andsocial resources. With regard to the first function, Fredrickson did some conceptualanalyses of a series of positive emotions to support the view that they can widen a bignumber of thoughts and actions that have come to the mind. Specifically, joystimulates the desire to play, interest arouses the motive to explore, contentmentignites the urge to savor and integrate, pride kindles the wish to share accomplishmentwith others and envision more extraordinary achievements in the future. Finally, lovestarts a recurrent cycle of these urges within intimate and secure relationships(Fredrickson, 2004).
Moreover, the broadened mindsets built by positive emotions will in turn createpeople’s lasting personal resources which can be applied in to subsequent occasionsand different emotional states in order to increase the likelihood of success in copingwith different situations for the ultimate survival purpose. An individual with theexperience of these positive emotions can more easily achieve self-transformation andbecome more adaptable, creative, knowledgeable, and thus become more closelyintegrated with society and even embrace good health (Fredrickson, 2004). In addition to what has been discussed, other hypotheses pertinent to the crucial role of positiveemotions are derived from Fredrickson’s theory that positive emotions can not merelyundo the lingering consequences of negative emotions, they can also increase anindividual’s psychological resilience and strengthen his/her psychological andphysical well-being.
Chapter 3 Research Methodology................... 19
3.1Research Questions................................19
3.2 Research Participants........................ 19
3.3 Research Instruments..................... 20
Chapter 4 Presentation of Results and Discussion.............................24
4.1 Teacher-related Factors on Junior High School Students’ FLE...................... 24
4.2 Categorization and Percentage of Teacher-related Factors on Junior HighSchool Students’ FLE................25
4.3 Differences of Various Types of Teacher-related Factors on Junior HighSchool Students’ FLE.............26
Chapter 5 Conclusion..................38
5.1 Major Findings...............................................38
5.2 Pedagogical Implications......................................... 39
5.3 Limitations of the Study............................................42
Chapter 4 Presentation of Results and Discussion
4.1 Teacher-related Factors on Junior High School Students’ FLE
All the 372 participants’ written pieces related to FLE-Teacher were coded in thepresent study. After the open coding, 24 teacher-related factors in junior high students’FLE were extracted from the narratives of the participants’ through the focused essays.Altogether 519 references were specified, including humor, clear enunciation ofinstructions, use of varied teaching aids, emotional support, and so on, which isdemonstrated in Table 4-1 as follows.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Major Findings
This study has probed into the teacher-related factors underlying senior highschool students’ English classroom enjoyment from the perspective of learnersthrough collecting data of focused-essays and interviews. The analyses of the datashowed the major findings, which can be summarized as follows:
To begin with, through the open coding of the all the written pieces aboutFLE-Teacher, twenty-four factors were extracted from the narratives of the highschool students’ underlying their FLE, which include humor, patience, enthusiasm,responsibility, group work, video watching, role-play, something familiar andintriguing, learning strategies, foreign culture, clear teaching instructions, use ofvarious teaching aids, effective interactions between the teacher and the students,emotional support, instrumental support, informational support and appraisal support.
Second, following the axial coding, these twenty-four factors were categorizedinto five major categories, namely teacher character, teaching activities, teachingcontent, teaching skills and teacher support. More specifically, the category ofcharacter includes humor, patience, enthusiasm. responsibility and optimism; teachingactivities include group work, video watching and role-play; teaching content, beingthe third category, gets involved the coverage of something familiar and interesting,learning strategies, foreign culture and testing strategies; the category of teachingskills is concerned about clearly enunciated teaching instructions, the use of variousteaching aids and effective classroom interactions; and the last category of teachersupport is composed of emotional support, instrumental support, informationalsupport and appraisal support. Of all the five categories, teacher character wasmentioned most frequently in the focused essay writing, accounting for 31.7%, whichis also the largest percentage among all the five categories, followed by teaching activities (22.4%), teaching content (19.5%), teaching skills (15.8%) and teachersupport (10.6%).
reference(omitted)