The impact of altruism on the emotions and English summary writing skills of L2 learners: An intervention study in light of positive psychology

Abstract

According to positive psychology (PP), positive emotions contribute to language learning by helping learners recognize their strengths and overcome obstacles. One form of PP is altruism (altruistic teaching), which requires teaching without self-focus. The present study aimed to investigate how altruism affects the emotions and second language (L2) summary writing skills of Iranian L2 learners, drawing on an experimental (comparison group, pretest–posttest) design within a sequential explanatory design. The participants of the study were 130 Iranian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) with B1 general English language proficiency who were assigned to one intervention and one comparison group, and underwent the intervention and control intervention, respectively. Both the intervention and control intervention involved an instructional program of 12 sessions on summary writing with one teacher. What distinguished the intervention from the control intervention was that each student in the intervention group was supposed to teach for one hour one peer what they learned about English summary writing out of altruism. Analysis of the data showed that altruism has a positive instructional influence on the L2 summary writing skills of L2 learners by promoting their self-esteem, gratitude, connectedness and community, happiness, and compassion. The article ends with implications for research and practice in second language acquisition (SLA) and PP.