Abstract
The last decade has seen a proliferation of studies about emotions in FL teaching and learning. The present study examined three of the most researched and well-known FL emotions to date, namely anxiety, boredom, and enjoyment, and their relationships with learners’ engagement in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classes and their EFL proficiency. One hundred and eleven Grade 3–4 EFL children completed a questionnaire and English tests. Various statistical analyses (correlation, hierarchical multiple regression, and path analysis) revealed that all five variables were significantly inter-correlated. Enjoyment was the strongest predictor of engagement and proficiency, followed by boredom. The path analysis indicated that the hypothetical path of emotions→engagement→proficiency did not exist; rather, only two direct relationships were found in the model: Enjoyment→engagement and enjoyment→proficiency. The findings highlight the crucial role of enjoyment for young learners in FL teaching and learning.
Funding source: Language Learning early career research grant
Award Identifier / Grant number: NA
Appendix

Standardized weights of the relationships in the model.
References
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
- Research Articles
- Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
- The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
- Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
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- Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
- Editorials
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
- Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
- Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
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- Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
- Why can’t I teach English? A case study of the racialized experiences of a female Ugandan teacher of English in an EFL context
- Primary-concern solicitation in Chinese medical encounters
- The relationships between young FL learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, & enjoyment), engagement, and FL proficiency
- Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
- Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective
- Foreign language teacher grit: scale development and examining the relations with emotions and burnout using relative weight analysis
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- Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
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- A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
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