Boredom as an Aversive Emotion Experienced by English Majors

Abstract

Despite a growing focus on positive psychology in recent years, negative emotions have not ceased to play a crucial role in learning additional languages in the classroom. This paper reports a study that investigated one such negative emotion – boredom – as experienced by 115 advanced learners of English. They were asked to write a descriptive paragraph about boredom that they experienced during English classes. Qualitative analysis resulted in the identification of five broad categories of factors responsible for student boredom – namely, language tasks, the teacher, modes of class organization, class components and others. On that basis, some boredom-coping solutions are offered.