Exploring Chinese EFL Learners' Achievement Emotions and Their Antecedents in an Online English Learning Environment.

Yingli Yang,Yawen Han,Zihan Gao

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.722622

Yingli Yang, Yawen Han + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.722622

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Abstract

Drawing on the control-value theory, this study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the various achievement emotions Chinese EFL learners experienced in an online English learning environment and their antecedents during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Data were collected from six Chinese EFL students through semi-structured interviews and reflective journals supplemented with their class notes. Thematic analysis was performed using the qualitative data management software NVivo 12 plus. Results showed that the students experienced diverse emotions such as enjoyment, relaxation, anxiety, guilt, boredom and helplessness. Apart from the environmental antecedents of teacher and peer factors and individual antecedents of control-value appraisals, four novel antecedents were identified which had influence on emotions experienced in the online learning context, including environmental antecedents of internet connection and workload outside classroom, as well as the individual antecedents of students' self-regulation of learning behavior and learning environment.

Highlights

The past three decades have witnessed an increasing number of studies focusing on emotions in second language (L2) teaching and learning (Dewaele and MacIntyre, 2014; Li et al, 2019; Shao et al, 2020a)
In order to extend our understanding of L2 achievement emotions in the new context of online learning, we examined various achievement emotions experienced by six EFL learners in mainland China during the COVID-19 pandemic when all the students took online English classes for the whole semester
In line with Russell (2020) which emphasized anxiety aroused by the outside classroom factors of the COVID-19 pandemic and students’ home situation, this study found that the heavy workload outside classroom can arouse negative activating emotions such as anger, complementing the Control-Value Theory (CVT) which mainly focused on the inside classroom antecedents

Summary

Introduction

The past three decades have witnessed an increasing number of studies focusing on emotions in second language (L2) teaching and learning (Dewaele and MacIntyre, 2014; Li et al, 2019; Shao et al, 2020a). Various emotions in L2 classroom have been explored in an attempt to find out the relationship between L2 emotions and L2 achievement, including positive emotions such as enjoyment, love, hope, interest, as well as negative emotions such as boredom, shame and guilt (Teimouri, 2018; Li et al, 2019). Li et al (2019) found that enjoyment had a significant positive correlation with English language performance, while anxiety was negatively correlated with English language performance in both the middle and high achievement groups. Teimouri (2018) reported that shame was negatively correlated with L2 motivation and achievements, while guilt had positive effects on language achievements. Emotions have been found to have the impact on L2 learning and performance by influencing students’ attentional processes such as memory and information processing (Lantolf and Swain, 2019), enhancing or decreasing students’ interest and motivation (Li et al, 2019), facilitating or impeding

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