This book explores how complex systems theory can contribute to the understanding of classroom language learner motivation through an extended examination of the dynamic conditions operating in a foreign language classroom in Japan. Its reflexive, narrative approach shines light on the evolving nature of research and role of the researcher.

Richard J. Sampson is a Lecturer in the University Education Center at Gunma University, Japan. His research interests concern situated exploration of the contextualised nature of the learning and teaching of foreign languages, the interrelations between language-learner self ideas, past, present and future learning experiences, and motivation.

Richard J. Sampson is a Lecturer in the University Education Center at Gunma University, Japan. His research interests concern situated exploration of the contextualised nature of the learning and teaching of foreign languages, the interrelations between language-learner self ideas, past, present and future learning experiences, and motivation.

The book proved to be a rich, gripping and sometimes theoretically demanding read, which I strongly recommend to teachers interested in foreign language learning motivation, regardless of the language they teach.

This is an ambitious and highly original book, exploring language learning motivation through a novel combination of complexity theory and action research. In his well-informed and insightful work, Richard Sampson has succeeded in integrating these two, seemingly incompatible fields. The outcome is an intriguing diary of a personal academic journey that covers an impressive range of ideas, from future self-images and transportable identities to classroom dynamics and directed motivational currents.

Sampson courageously opens up his classroom to explore how the students and their teacher develop from their emerging eclectic identities and how they socially influence each other. A whole-class awakening through iterations of possible-selves interventions, near-peer interactions, imaginings, self-reflections and mutual understandings, this landmark book establishes practitioner action research as a consequential inquiry in applied linguistics.

This is a deeply engaging and thought-provoking book that brings together action research, complexity thinking and self-and-identity perspectives to the analysis of language learning motivation as it evolved among persons-in-context in a particular classroom group over one year. Its reflexive insights will resonate with all of us interested in motivation as language teachers, researchers or teacher-researchers.