Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
Vol. 31, 07 December 2023
Open
Access | Article
Exploring the Direct Effect of Foreign Language Enjoyment on Expectancy-value Motivation and Indirect Effect on English Competence
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This study is to examine correlations between foreign language enjoyment (FLE), expectancy-value enjoyment, and English competence of Chinese university students. A questionnaire was used to collect information from 74 Chinese non-English major college students about their FLE, expectancy-value motivation, and their English competence. According to the findings, the mean FLE of Chinese university students is 5.491, showing moderate to high levels of FLE, and the teacher factor is the highest scoring dimension (the mean is 5.982). The teacher appreciation and social environment (the mean is 5.428) are more prominent than the personal enjoyment factor (the mean is 5.065). Besides, in the expectancy-value motivation dimension, achievement value and utility value are most prominent. As far as the relationship between FLE and expectancy-value motivation of Chinese university students is concerned, the results show a significant positive relationship between the two (except for cost value), thus indicating that FLE increases with motivation. Specifically, FLE has the most significant positive relationship with intrinsic value and expectancy beliefs. The Amos path analysis concludes that in the FLE dimension, personal enjoyment factors can indirectly affect students' English competence in addition to directly positively correlating with expectancy-value motivation, which highlights the important influence of personal factors on foreign language learning.
Keywords
foreign language enjoyment, expectancy-value motivation, English competence, Chinese undergraduates
References
1. Dewaele, J. M., Witney, J., Saito, K., & Dewaele, L. (2018). Foreign language enjoyment and anxiety: The effect of teacher and learner variables. Language Teaching Research, 22(6), 676–697.
2. Mercer, S., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2014). Introducing positive psychology to SLA. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 4(2), 153–172.
3. Dewaele, J. M., & Macintyre, P. D. (2016). Foreign Language Enjoyment and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety: The Right and Left Feet of the Language Learner. In P. D. MacIntyre, T. Gregersen, & S. Mercer (Eds.), Positive Psychology in SLA (Issue April, pp. 215–236). Multilingual Matters.
4. Li, C., Jiang, G., & Dewaele, J. M. (2018). Understanding Chinese high school students’ Foreign Language Enjoyment: Validation of the Chinese version of the Foreign Language Enjoyment scale. System, 76, 183–196.
5. Botes, E., Dewaele, J. M., & Greiff, S. (2021). The development and validation of the short form of the foreign language enjoyment scale. The Modern Language Journal, 105(4), 858-876.
6. Dewaele, J.M., Botes, E., & Meftah, R. (2023). A Three-Body Problem: The effects of foreign language anxiety, enjoyment, and boredom on academic achievement. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 1–16.
7. Trautwein, U., Marsh, H. W., Nagengast, B., Lüdtke, O., Nagy, G., & Jonkmann, K. (2012). Probing for the multiplicative term in modern expectancy-value theory: A latent interaction modeling study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(3), 763–777.
8. Dewaele, J.M., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2014). The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 4(2), 237–274.
9. Dewaele, J. M., & Alfawzan, M. (2018). Does the effect of enjoyment outweigh that of anxiety in foreign language performance? Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 8(1), 21–45.
10. Li, C., & Wei, L. (2023). Anxiety, enjoyment, and boredom in language learning amongst junior secondary students in rural China: How do they contribute to L2 achievement? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 45(1), 93–108.
11. Jiang, G., Li, C., & Dewaele, J. M. (2020). The complex relationship between classroom emotions and EFL achievement in China. Applied Linguistics Review, 11(3), 485–510.
12. Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2020). From expectancy-value theory to situated expectancy-value theory: A developmental, social cognitive, and sociocultural perspective on motivation. Contemporary educational psychology, 61, 101859.
13. Loh, E. K. Y. (2019). What we know about expectancy-value theory, and how it helps to design a sustained motivating learning environment. System, 86, 1–27.
14. Dong, L., Liu, M., & Yang, F. (2022). The Relationship Between Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety, Enjoyment, and Expectancy-Value Motivation and Their Predictive Effects on Chinese High School Students’ Self-Rated Foreign Language Proficiency. Frontiers in Psychology, 13.
15. Dewaele, J. M., & Dewaele, L. (2020). Are foreign language learners’ enjoyment and anxiety specific to the teacher? An investigation into the dynamics of learners’ classroom emotions. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 10(1), 45–65.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Authors who publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open Access Instruction).
- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-177-3
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-178-0
- Published Date
- 07 December 2023
- Series
- Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7048
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7056
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7048/31/20231404
- Copyright
- 07 December 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited