Students' perezhivaniya and engagement in English language learning

Abstract

Perezhivanie, i.e., emotional lived experience, is a psychological structure for understanding dynamic influences derived from personal and social sources. In this study, two Japanese university students' perezhivaniya (plural) of English learning in their final year of high school and first two years of university studies were examined using a dataset containing a semi-structural interview, informal interviews and a series of classroom observation. This paper describes these students' perezhivanyia of English learning and explains their engagement as 1. in-the-moment responses anchored in personally significant events or moments; and 2. beyond-the-moment refractions during re-visitation of these events. Language learning engagement is therefore experiential, situated and reflective from a perezhivanie perspective. The findings indicate that students' changing engagement in English learning cannot be fully understood if it is removed from the irreducible unit of perezhivanie.