Engaging in productive forms of classroom talk has been shown to positively impact students’ thinking and language exposure. To maximize the effects of classroom talk on students who learn English as a second language (ESL) and to create more learning opportunities by leveraging the affordances of dialogic teaching in enabling interthinking, this study set out to explore the influence of asynchronous online talk on students’ thinking through a micro-blogging tool, Padlet. Twenty-five students from a local secondary school were recruited. They were asked to post their views on current news articles and conduct dialogues with one another through the commenting function. After the discussion, the students were invited to self-evaluate the process of the discussion. Five students were also invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Results indicated that the asynchronous online talk had the potential to broaden and deepen students’ thinking through the creation and maintenance of their intermental development zone (IDZ). The talk also facilitated the internalization of co-constructed ideas for individual production. Drawing from these findings, it is recommended that the conceptualization of interthinking could capitalize on students’ self-evaluation and that the evaluative stage could be structured in interactive tasks in future instructional practices.

Emotions in language learning are increasingly recognized as playing an important role in learner motivation and flourishing in the learning process. In consequence, much of the research published to date has focused on what happens when different emotions are experienced and the various states that these may lead to. However, studies that consider how language learners understand the importance of emotions in the context of their learning efforts as well as examine ways this understanding is experienced from the perspective of a language learner are scarce in the literature. To address this gap, the present study investigates how Japanese university language learners experienced a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) course specially designed to explore emotions in language learning, including emotional literacy, motivation, character strengths, mindsets, integrated emotion regulation, empathy, and confidence-building connected to positive and negative affect. To interpret this experience, we take a qualitative exploratory approach to analyse the final diary entries of 24 course participants, using the lens of positive psychology applied to language learning. The coding of the diaries uncovered four areas key to understanding the students’ experience, which included social capital, self-awareness of emotions, personal growth, and transformation. The findings suggest that the students profited in diverse positive ways through active engagement and reflection on the rich tapestry of emotion-related constructs connected to language learning, leading to the emergence of new perspectives, growth and transformation related to an enhanced awareness of emotions in language learning.

During more than 50 years of socio-political unrest in Colombia, extreme violence has profoundly affected marginalized students in public schools. Although these topics have been mainly addressed by history and social studies teachers, English language teaching (ELT) has paid little attention to addressing issues of social injustice in the class. To fill this gap, this critical ethnography looks at how a social justice curriculum has been used in ELT classes to empower students to learn skills that allow them to discuss the violence that occurs both inside and outside of the school environment. The fieldwork was carried out in a public high school for eight months, in Bogotá (the capital of the country) with three English teachers and their young students. Data was collected through focus groups, interviews and classroom observations and then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the activities suggested by the teachers proposed a change in teaching pedagogies toward solving social problems in students’ communities. The findings further suggest that a negotiated curriculum with the students fosters a critical humanizing pedagogy that promotes social cohesion, and as a consequence improves language learning.

Considering the demanding and stressful nature of the teaching profession in general and foreign language teaching in particular, teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) are prone to experience burnout, which may result in adverse consequences for not only teachers but also their students. Therefore, it is important to understand what factors can prevent EFL teachers from burnout. The present study investigated the roles of three individual difference factors, namely, growth teaching mindset, teaching grit, and emotion regulation in EFL teachers’ burnout. The data were collected from 218 EFL teachers through convenience sampling. The results of regression analysis and relative weight analysis indicated that growth teaching mindset and teaching grit negatively predicted burnout. In addition, while reappraisal emotion regulation strategies were negative predictors of teachers’ burnout, suppression strategies were positive predictors of burnout. Implications regarding how to protect teachers against burnout are presented based on the findings of the study.

While motivational regulation strategies (MRSs) both as a core facet of self-regulated learning and as a pedagogical issue have attracted increasing attention from researchers and practitioners, what motivational regulation strategies learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) or English as a second language (ESL) tend to use and how these strategies may be associated with learner motivational beliefs in English learning remain under-researched. To fill this research gap, this study aims to contribute to a holistic understanding of Chinese EFL students’ use of MRSs and its relations to English learning motivational beliefs. Data were collected from 638 non-English major undergraduate students through two self-report questionnaires in a College English Course context. Results showed that students reported high frequency use of performance-enhancement or interest-related strategies while reporting using other types of regulation strategies (e.g. performance-avoidance self-talk) to a lesser extent. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses suggested that among the four types of motivational beliefs investigated in this study, control of learning beliefs, intrinsic goal orientation, and extrinsic goal orientation were the top three most powerful predictors of the students’ use of MRSs in English learning. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research were also discussed.

Ambiguity tolerance reflects learners’ abilities to accept unpredictable and unfamiliar contexts in language learning without frustration and discomfort. However, it has yet to be thoroughly explored when associated with engagement, motivation, and peer collaboration collaborative learning in course of English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. Relying on questionnaire survey data, this study adopts structural equation modeling techniques based on 1,200 Chinese high school students’ responses. The findings ascertain that engagement and volition significantly and positively predict ambiguity tolerance and learning effectiveness. Additionally, ambiguity tolerance predicts learning effectiveness. For peer collaborative learning, ambiguity tolerance and learning effectiveness are also critical predictors. They significantly and positively predict collaborative learning willingness. Moreover, ambiguity tolerance predicts peer feedback acceptance but not sensitivity to peer pressure. Learning effectiveness significantly and negatively predicts sensitivity to peer pressure, but its impact on peer feedback acceptance is insignificant. Dominant strategies for high school English learners to cope with unfamiliar and uncertain contexts are external help-seeking from dictionaries and instructors. The findings in this study contribute to educational research on psychological mechanisms behind ambiguity tolerance, language education in high school, learning effectiveness, and collaborative learning. As such, this study encourages continued efforts to explore such topics and the consideration of ambiguity tolerance in teaching practice.

Student engagement has long been recognized as a vital predictor of academic success, but how it associates with control-value appraisals and academic emotions of Chinese undergraduates of English as a foreign language (EFL) is underexplored. This article hence invoked the control-value theory and investigated the general profile of Chinese undergraduates’ control-value appraisals, academic emotions and student engagement in English learning, and the interrelationships between the three constructs. Descriptive statistics of the questionnaire data revealed that the 323 undergraduate participants generally showed a moderate level of control-value appraisals and engagement in English learning; furthermore, they experienced a variety of academic emotions, with positive emotions as more frequently experienced than negative ones. Correlation and regression analyses uncovered the significant predictive effect of control-value appraisals on academic emotions, and their profound impact on student engagement. Additionally, the influence of English control-value appraisals on student engagement was found to be mediated by academic emotions, with positive ones positively mediating and negative ones negatively mediating between the two. This study fills the research gap on related topics, and provides relevant pedagogical implications for EFL teaching at the tertiary level.

Despite the growing research on teachers’ identity tensions, the tensions experienced by teacher educators, especially that of in-service teacher educators, remain underexplored. To address this issue, this narrative inquiry investigates the identity tensions of English language teachers who concurrently perform the role of in-service teacher educators. The data consists of semi-structured interviews, narrative frames, and visual documents. The thematic analysis of the findings suggested that the participants experienced tensions at three levels: interpersonal, intrapersonal, and institutional. While coping with these tensions, they developed new interpersonal skills, continued their professional learning, received peer and mentor support, engaged in other communities of practice, and persisted on finding their own ways of developing. The study concludes that although tensions unsettle professional identity development, they might still offer new developmental trajectories and help in-service teacher educators strengthen their identity.