This study sought to investigate how teachers perceive their self-efficacy in fostering three critical dimensions of student engagement: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive. The research used the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) as a foundation to unravel the intricate interplay between teacher cognitions and student engagement in academic settings. A mixed-methods approach was employed to ensure both breadth and depth of understanding. Quantitative data were gleaned using descriptive statistics, while qualitative insights were extracted from in-depth teacher interviews. Findings revealed that teachers feel most efficacious in catalyzing emotional engagement, with both quantitative scores and qualitative accounts affirming this observation. A palpable connection between emotional and behavioral engagement was identified, implying that active participation often stems from emotional resonance. Conversely, cognitive engagement emerged as a nuanced challenge, with teachers often grappling to influence it effectively. SCT interpretations underscored the dynamic interplay between individual cognitive processes, observational learning, and the broader educational milieu. The pronounced role of emotional engagement suggests the necessity for tailored teacher development programs. Furthermore, the intricacies of cognitive engagement advocate for more individual-centric curriculum designs. These insights have profound implications for teacher training, curriculum design, policy formulation, and future research, emphasizing the need for creating immersive and holistically engaging learning environments.

Effective vocabulary learning strategies play a fundamental role in the area of language learning and increase the vocabulary range and knowledge of students across various proficiency levels. Nowadays, students are eager to employ learning strategies which promote self-directed learning. Among the recommended vocabulary learning strategies, mnemonic strategies emerge as helpful and effective techniques for enlarging vocabulary. In this regard, the present study aims to examine the impacts of three mnemonic strategies, including the peg word, keyword, and loci techniques, on vocabulary comprehension among primary students. For this purpose, a total of 104 male elementary students in Iran participated in the study. The three experimental groups learned new words following the instructions of the chosen techniques, while the control group employed the memorization technique. A vocabulary comprehension post-test was administered, and the outcomes were assessed through a one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that the loci technique participants surpassed the performance of the remaining groups in the vocabulary comprehension test. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for syllabus designers, curriculum developers, institutions, and schools.

Emotionality plays a significant role in teaching and learning a foreign language. Emotions are always present in a foreign language classroom, and teachers and learners aim to determine how to regulate them (Bielak & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2020). In the literature on applied linguistics and psycholinguistics, the importance of emotions has been subject to considerable discussion (Dewaele, 2010; Pavlenko, 2006; Wierzbicka, 1999). We already know that students’ and teachers’ emotional needs should be discussed, understood, and met to develop (Aron, 2013; Mercer & Gregersen, 2020). Despite the importance of emotionality, there remains a paucity of evidence on language learners’ perceptions of emotions and emotionality. Researching perception seems to be an essential strategy for understanding any element influencing the affective dimension of a foreign language classroom, especially when we consider the psychological state of teachers and students due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the generally poor mental health that characterises young people from Generation Z. Thus, the primary aim of the following study was to analyse spoken definitions of emotionality, provided by Generation Z university students (N = 70). The analysis was conducted at the intersection of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics. It employed qualitative content analysis. The results show an informative picture of how GenZers talk about such personal issues as emotions, which will certainly be helpful for educators and researchers in the context of psycholinguistics and well-being research.

The study employed a mixed-methods approach to investigate the relationship between English language teachers’ teaching efficacy, emotional experiences, and situation and task-related procrastination. It aimed to explore both self-reported teaching self-efficacy beliefs and the factors influencing language teachers’ procrastination behaviors and emotions during task delay. A total of 305 Croatian EFL teachers participated in this study. Descriptive, correlation, and directed content analyses were carried out. According to the findings, the Croatian language teachers viewed themselves as highly effective in the classroom and they also reported engaging in procrastination infrequently. When inquired about language proficiency-related anxiety, they admitted having experienced it sporadically. Those confident in utilizing instructional strategies and implementing classroom management strategies procrastinated less and reported lower anxiety levels. Qualitative analysis revealed that demotivating or fatiguing tasks, especially administrative and testing-related ones, instigated procrastination, among others. When procrastinating, the teachers reported primarily unpleasant emotions, such as anxiety, nervousness, frustration, and guilt.

The Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition (TAPSLA) proudly introduces "The Minds Behind SLA: Insights from Leading Scholars," a new section designed to highlight the intellectual journeys of prominent Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers. While academic journals typically focus on research findings, they rarely explore the processes behind these discoveries. This section addresses this gap through interviews with influential scholars, offering valuable content for both experienced and early-career researchers. We begin this series with Jean-Marc Dewaele, whose work on emotions in language learning has significantly shaped the field.

Research shows that both learning style preference and strategy use are important factors affecting second/foreign language (SL/FL) learning, and that both may vary, as learners are different. Yet, studies on learning style preferences and their interaction with strategy in relation to SL/FL learning outcomes are limited. The present study thus examined Chinese undergraduate EFL (English as a FL) students’ preferences for learning styles, use of learning strategies and their predictive effects on their English achievements. Analyses of 439 questionnaires revealed the following major findings: (1) the whole sample, regardless of gender, displayed no major preference for any learning style and generally preferred the kinesthetic style the most, followed by tactile, auditory, visual, group and individual styles respectively; (2) the whole sample, regardless of gender, demonstrated a medium to high level of use of the six types of learning strategies, and used metacognitive strategies the most frequently, followed by cognitive, social, compensation, memory and affective strategies, respectively; (3) cognitive strategy use significantly positively predicted all samples’ English achievements, additionally, memory strategy use and the tactile style significantly predicted female students’ English achievements, and (4) no significant difference was observed between genders in learning styles or strategy use except for group learning. These findings further pinpoint the importance of learning styles and strategy use in second/foreign language learning, which thus deserve continuous research.

Phonesthesia is one of the counterexamples of the arbitrariness of human languages. Although an individual word still appears arbitrary, a group of words bearing the same sound pattern might share similar meaning. This study investigated phonesthesia as a route to improving word acquisition. First, by comparing the guessing accuracy of phonesthemic versus prosaic words, we found phonesthemic words were significantly guessed better, suggesting EFL learners’ sensitivity to English phonesthemes prior to explicit instruction. Phonesthemes provide hints for learners trying to ascertain the meaning of an unknown word. However, according to the participants’ self-report, such sensitivity seems to lie somewhere in between pure clang association and genuine phonesthemic association. In another experiment, we examined the effect of phonesthemic knowledge, induced by explicit instruction, on the retention of phonesthemic words. The experimental group was taught 12 English phonesthemes while the control group wasn’t. It was revealed that learners equipped with phonesthemic knowledge could retain phonesthemic words significantly better over an interval. We argue this is due to an extension of the lexical network in learners’ minds. The second experiment further verified the facilitative role of phonesthemes in word retention. It is recommended that EFL teachers raise learners’ attention to phonesthesia, which may potentially assist in word learning.

Metalinguistic orthographic awareness plays a crucial role in the development of Chinese language proficiency: writing, reading, and learning new words. However, few studies have explored the topic using qualitative methods. The aim of this work is to explore how the perception of Chinese characters of Chinese foreign language learners changes along with their proficiency. The responses were collected from 43 Polish university students of Chinese with the use of a graphemic awareness test during which participants were to decide on correctness of presented pseudo-characters. The results of this study show that beginners focus first and foremost on correctness of the strokes, the intermediate learners’ attention shifts to character elements and their correct position, and the advanced learners analyze the characters taking into consideration both character elements and structure of characters. It is suggested that the overall rapid development of graphemic awareness in the study group might be due to the explicit instruction. The conclusion can be drawn that the described shift in learners’ perception is a result of them learning to direct their attention towards the critical orthographic aspects of the characters.

Although language anxiety is the most widely studied emotion in second language acquisition, the extent to which emergency remote teaching (ERT) provokes anxiety is still insufficiently understood. The present research fills this gap by analyzing variables affecting anxiety in the new mode of instruction, while also exploring apprehension-relieving pedagogical approaches. This qualitative study was conducted among 218 university students and data were obtained by an online questionnaire and a focus group interview. Additionally, an online questionnaire was used to find out how teachers adapted their approaches to ensure student wellbeing in ERT. The findings reveal several factors affecting anxiety levels as well as pedagogical approaches that students find effective for anxiety reduction. On the whole, the study extends language anxiety research by looking closely at the variables affecting FLCA increase and decrease in a new, insufficiently explored mode of instruction.

It has been reported that second language (L2) learners of English including Japanese learners of English (JLEs) overpassivise unaccusative verbs although it is a kind of intransitive verbs. In order to account for the phenomenon, several assumptions have been proposed. However, so far, it is unclear which assumption is the most effective for explaining the overpassivisation of unaccusatives. Thus, this study tries to examine which of the three factors, animacy of subjects, existence of conceptualizable agents, or telicity of verbs, the most strongly affects overpassivisation of unaccusative verbs by JLEs. In this study, we conducted two experiments to examine this question. Study 1 was conducted with 100 university JLEs to compare the effect of animacy of subjects with that of the existence of conceptualizable agents. As a result, it was found that the animacy of subjects more strongly affected the overpassivisation of unaccusatives than the existence of conceptualizable agents. We conducted Study 2 with 101 university JLEs to examine which of the two factors, the existence of conceptualizable agents or the degree of telicity, is more influential. The results showed that the former was influential, but the latter was less so on the overpassivisation of unaccusatives. From the results of the two experiments, we concluded that the animacy of subject is the strongest influential factor among the three. On the other hand, the telicity of verbs hardly influences any errors.