Theorizing Affect in Foreign Language Learning: An Analysis of One Learner's Responses to a Communicative Portuguese Course

Abstract

In this study we explore a student's affective responses to classroom foreign language learning. In 2 meetings each week throughout an 8‐week Portuguese course for beginners, the first author described her language learning experiences to the second author. Sessions were transcribed and then coded and analyzed. A theoretical model grounded in the learner's experiences was developed to understand the learner's affective responses to the language learning process, the events from which her affect sprang, and her affective trajectory over the 8 weeks. This study is a response to the need for methodological and epistemological diversity in second language acquisition research and contributes to studies that focus on the affective responses of the learner to the language learning experience. Implications for the role played by emotion in learners' classroom foreign language learning and the development of sociocultural competence in a second language are discussed.