Abstract
Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), as the most prevalent positive emotion predicting L2 learners' academic performance and well-being, and a critical factor contributing to the creation of positive micro-institutions (e.g., the classrooms), has received remarkable scholarly attention across the globe in the past eight years. Despite the fact that FLE is the most extensively investigated positive emotion and extant research has yielded rich and invaluable findings, it is far from being adequately studied, leaving vast lacunas to be explored. Therefore, this conceptual review article is written to familiarize language education researchers, practitioners, instructors, and learners with the current status of FLE research and its potential applications in L2 education, and suggest potential avenues for future research. To this aim, by making a diachronical and synchronical delineation of extant literature with regard to the conceptualization and theorization of FLE, and the methodology of FLE research, we argue that it is incumbent on researchers to make a new line of enquiry into the actualization of the ascertained affordances of FLE and its transmission in the microsystem of the classroom. Subsequently, by drawing on the broaden-and-build theory and the control-value theory, we highlight the significance of conducting FLE research with theoretical triangulation and methodological diversity to validate the data and minimum bias. Next, while highlighting the critical role of FLE in L2 education, we suggest some pedagogical implications with the hope of enlightening the practice of key stakeholders such as instructors, teacher educators, and teacher recruiters. In the end, the limitations of existing literature are explicated, and avenues for future studies on FLE in L2 education domain are put forward for interested researchers.
Highlights
The beginning of the new millennium has witnessed a positive turn of psychology paradigm
We gave a critical delineation of current Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) studies in SLA regarding (1) the conceptualization, and (2) the theorization of the construct, and (3) the methodology of FLE research
Dynamic and transmitting nature of FLE was ascertained and a wide range of facilitators of this emotion were excavated, existing literature revealed that inadequate research attention has been paid to the actualization or the transmission of this positive emotion, or its interaction with other prevailing positive/negative emotions
Summary
The beginning of the new millennium has witnessed a positive turn of psychology paradigm. The seminal work of PP has helped shape and strengthen the “affective turn” of SLA research in the past decade (Pavlenko, 2013; Prior, 2019), and underpined the “third phase” of emotion studies in the field emerging in the early 2010s (Dewaele and Li, 2020) Under this novel emotion wave, researchers extended their scholarly attention from an exclusive preoccupation on negative emotions involved in L2 learning and teaching, notably foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), to encompass investigations of positive experiences contributing to language learners’ well-being and academic performance (Seligman, 2011). Among the wide spectrum of positive emotions L2 learners encounter, enjoyment, is the most frequently experienced and best studied affect (Frenzel et al, 2018; Piniel and Albert, 2018; Dewaele and Li, 2020) since Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014) first introduced the notion of Foreign Language Enjoyment (hereafter FLE) to the field
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