The interplay between test takers’ emotions and test results.

Abstract

The study presents how emotions influence learners’ success in the second language acquisition context. The objective of the research is to focus on the accompanying feelings before and after the vocabulary test in a sample of two students. The learners were chosen deliberately to contrast the low achieving one with the high achieving learner. The feedback was gathered by a teacher who provided the interviews with the participants who answered the questions before and after the vocabulary test. Data analysis indicates that both Student 1 and Student 2 feel tension before and after the test but their attitude towards learning is different. The study proves that because the high-achiever puts a lot of effort into studying, the one cares about the results, but the low-achiever hopes that the holistic knowledge would allow him to pass what is tested or examined. The findings also reveal that positive emotions foster being successful but negative emotions contribute to failures due to high results achieved from the test motivate the high-scorer for further learning, making him more curious and willing to succeed, whereas the low-scorer becomes easily frustrated and feels tension throughout the whole process of studying and tests or exams taking. Considering the study results, it can be stated that there is a link between emotions and success in language learning.