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- Herausgeber: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
- Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
- Serie: AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
This book offers a nuanced, integrated understanding of EFL learning and instruction and investigates both learner and teacher perspectives on four thematically interconnected parts. Part I encompasses chapters on psychological aspects related to teaching and learning and presents the latest research on positive language education, teacher empathy, and well-being. Part II deals with EFL teaching methodology, specifically related to teaching pronunciation, language assessment, peer response, and strategy instruction. Part III addresses aspects of cultural learning including inter- and transculturality, digital citizenship, global learning, and cosmopolitanism. Part IV concerns teaching with literary texts, for instance, to reflect on social and political discourse, facilitate empowerment, imagine utopian or dystopian futures, and to bring non-Western narratives into language classrooms.
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Carmen M. Amerstorfer / Max von Blanckenburg (eds.)
Activating and Engaging Learners and Teachers
Perspectives for English Language Education
Veröffentlicht mit Unterstützung der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften, des Forschungsrates und der School of Education der Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24053/9783823394600
© 2023 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KGDischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen
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Internet: www.narr.deeMail: [email protected]
ISSN0939-8481
ISBN 978-3-8233-8460-1 (Print)
ISBN 978-3-8233-0478-4 (ePub)
Inhalt
Contributors
Alaa Al-Tamimi has an MA in TESOL from the American University of Sharjah. She owes her background education in Marketing to fuelling her passion for writing, raising her awareness of the inherent power of language, and inspiring her to pursue her professional development in language education. Her teaching experience as an ESL instructor in the Middle-East is what steered her research efforts towards the impact of positive psychology in language teaching - a domain she feels is worthy of further recognition. She hopes to continue to contribute to the research in language and education in the future.
Grit Alter is Professor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University College of Teacher Education in Innsbruck, Austria. Her research focuses on using picturebooks in English language teaching (ELT), playful learning in primary ELT, diversity education, curriculum studies, and critical pedagogy. She is currently involved in projects on critical textbook studies, teaching Canadian studies on the secondary and tertiary level, and narrative inquiry into teacher education.
Carmen M. Amerstorfer is a senior scientist and teacher trainer at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. She has extensive experience of teaching students at various age and proficiency levels at educational institutions in Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, and China. Carmen’s research encompasses features of psychology of language learning and teaching as well as learner-centred teaching approaches, particularly problem-based learning and cooperative learning. Besides having published numerous book chapters and journal articles, she has co-edited Language Learning Strategies and Individual Learner Characteristics: Situating Strategy Use in Diverse Contexts (Bloomsbury, 2018) together with Rebecca L. Oxford.
Daniel Becker is a senior lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in English language education at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany. He studied English, History, and Educational Studies at the University of Koblenz-Landau. After graduating, he started his practical teacher training at the Studienseminar Trier, where he obtained his Second State Exam. He then moved to Wuppertal to work on his PhD-project in literary studies (Title: On the Thresholds of Memory – National History and Liminal Memory Practices in Contemporary Irish Poetry). Since October 2018, Daniel Becker has worked at the University of Münster. His research interests include teaching literature and culture, inter/transcultural learning, digital game-based language learning, multiliteracies, and digital media.
Armin Berger is a senior scientist and senior lecturer in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, where he acts as academic coordinator of the English Language Competence programme. His main research interests are language testing and assessment, washback effects on language teaching and learning, speaking for academic purposes, and language assessment literacy. He is the author of the book Validating Analytic Rating Scales: A Multi-Method Approach to Scaling Descriptors for Assessing Academic Speaking, and he has just co-edited Developing Advanced English Language Competence: A Research-Informed Approach at Tertiary Level. He is also active in pre- and in-service teacher education and has served as a consultant to a number of national and international language testing and other educational projects.
Max von Blanckenburg is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany. After completing his studies in English and Physical Education at the University of Göttingen and the University of Gloucestershire, he pursued a PhD at the University of Munich, which centred on the role of rhetoric in English language education. Max subsequently completed his teacher training and has taught at different grammar schools.
His main research interests include democratic education; teaching with literature, film, and music; digital learning as well as performative approaches in EFL. Max has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, he works on the editorial board of the journal AAA – Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, and he co-edited Drama in Foreign Language Education. Texts and Performances (2021) with Christiane Lütge.
Jean-Marc Dewaele is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. He has published widely on individual differences in psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, psychological and emotional variables in Second Language Acquisition and Multilingualism. He is former president of the International Association of Multilingualism and the European Second Language Association and current president of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning. He was General Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism before becoming General Editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He won the Equality and Diversity Research Award from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (2013), the Robert Gardner Award for Excellence in Second Language and Bilingualism Research (2016) from the International Association of Language and Social Psychology and the Distinguished Scholar Award from the European Second Language Association (2022).
Maria Eisenmann is Professor of EFL Teaching at the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg. She studied the subjects English, German, and Pedagogy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne/England and at the University of Würzburg, where she completed her M.A. degree and state examination. After finishing her PhD and working as a teacher in school, she taught at the University of Education in Freiburg, held a deputy professorship for EFL Teaching at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and held the chair for EFL Teaching at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her primary research interests lie in the field of teaching literature, media literacy, and inter-/transcultural learning including individual differences. She has edited and co-edited numerous books and published widely in the field of foreign language education, literary literacy and teaching literature in the EFL classroom. She edited Teaching the Bard Today – Shakespeare-Didaktik in Forschung und Lehre, published in 2019, and co-edited Queer Beats – Gender and Literature in the EFL Classroom, published in 2018.
Christina Gkonou is Associate Professor of TESOL and MA TESOL Programme Leader in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, UK. She convenes postgraduate modules on language teacher education and development, and on psychological aspects surrounding the foreign language learning and teaching experience. She is co-editor of New Directions in Language Learning Psychology (with Sarah Mercer and Dietmar Tatzl), New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (with Jean-Marc Dewaele and Mark Daubney), and The Emotional Rollercoaster of Language Teaching (with Jean-Marc Dewaele and Jim King). She is also co-author of MYE: Managing Your Emotions Questionnaire (with Rebecca L. Oxford) and has published several research articles in international, peer-reviewed journals. She serves as expert consultant on a number of international projects and is often invited to give plenaries and train language teachers across different countries. Her new co-authored book (with Kate Brierton) for Cambridge University Press is on Cultivating Teacher Wellbeing.
Nursen Gömceli is attached to the Department of English at the University of Klagenfurt, where she has taught as a visiting professor since 2009. She received her PhD at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Department of English Language and Literature and has previously held positions at Akdeniz University in Antalya and Hacettepe University in Ankara. Within literature she has mainly taught in the areas of British theatre and British novel and has taught English as a foreign language at all levels. As part of her collaboration with the Pädagogische Hochschule Kärnten in Klagenfurt, she has carried out teacher training courses with the focus on how to teach literature to young learners and young adult learners not only to improve language skills but also to raise cultural awareness and an understanding of cultural diversity among young learners. Nursen Gömceli’s main research interests are in Irish drama, contemporary British drama, and British feminist drama. Her national and international publications are in the areas of drama and performance, literary linguistics and feminist drama. Major publication: Timberlake Wertenbaker and Contemporary British Feminist Drama, Palo Alto, 2010.
Tammy Gregersen, a professor of TESOL at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, received her MA in Education and PhD in Linguistics in Chile, where she began her academic career. She is co-author, with Sarah Mercer, of Language Teacher Wellbeing, published by Oxford University Press and The Routledge Handbook of the Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching. Together with Peter MacIntyre, she wrote the books, Capitalizing on Language Learner Individuality and Optimizing Language Learners’ Nonverbal Communication in the Language Classroom. She is also a co-editor with Peter MacIntyre and Sarah Mercer of Positive Psychology in SLA and Innovations in Language Teacher Education. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and contributed several chapters in applied linguistics anthologies on individual differences, teacher education, language teaching methodology, and nonverbal communication in language classrooms.
Peter Yongqi Gu is Associate Professor and Head of School at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His main research interests include learner autonomy and learning strategies, vocabulary acquisition, and language testing and assessment.
Pamela Gunning lectures at Concordia University, Canada. She has vast experience as an elementary ESL teacher and has co-authored ESL textbooks for children. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Education of Québec, she co-authored a strategy instruction module for teachers. She authored the Children’s SILL, the first adaptation for children of Oxford’s Strategy Inventory of Language Learning. Her teaching and research focus on primary pedagogy, strategies, self-regulation, and classroom-based assessment.
Helen Heaney is a senior lecturer in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. She studied French and German at Durham (GB) and obtained her teaching degree in English and French from Klagenfurt University (A). Her PhD was on developing a tertiary-level English reading comprehension test. After spending many years team teaching in a CLIL programme and teaching ESP in diverse settings, from medical English to tourism, Helen worked in the English Department at Klagenfurt University (language competence, linguistics, and teacher education). Now in Vienna, her focus is on teacher education. Helen’s special interests are language testing and assessment, especially language assessment literacy, innovative approaches to language teaching and learning, and reading comprehension. She has just co-edited Developing Advanced English Language Competence: A Research-Informed Approach at Tertiary Level and is active in in-service teacher education throughout Austria.
Teresa Hernández-González is the Program Director for the Teaching English as a Second Language degrees at Concordia University, Canada. Her extensive experience in elementary ESL classrooms and teacher education, with a particular interest in assessment and self-regulated learning, has led to investigating the application of gamification principles in language learning and research.
Ha Hoang is a teacher of English for Academic Purposes at the English Language Institute, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Ha has worked in ESOL areas for 20 years. She is interested in EAP, writing pedagogy, figurative language processing, and autonomy and agency.
Allan James is Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Klagenfurt, having held previous positions at the Universities of Tübingen, Nairobi, and Amsterdam. His main research interests are in the sociolinguistics of international English(es), literary linguistics, Celtic and English (esp. Welsh studies), second language phonology, and pronunciation teaching, having published widely in these fields. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of leading international journals in linguistics, applied linguistics, and English studies, and is a life Fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study (Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences).
Christiane Lütge is Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU) where she holds the Chair of Teaching English as a Foreign Language. She is also the director of the Munich Centre of Teacher Education (MZL). Her areas of expertise in research and teaching include digital literacies, literature in the foreign language classroom, as well as inter- and transcultural learning and global citizenship education in EFL. She is a co-editor of the volumes The Praxis of Diversity (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) and of Digital Teaching and Learning: Perspectives for English Language Education (Narr 2021) and – most recently – editor of the volume Foreign Language Learning in the Digital Age. Theory and Pedagogy for Developing Literacies (Routledge 2022).
She is the Principal Investigator of a project on improving the quality of teacher education funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (‘Lehrerbildung@LMU’) and also the coordinator of a third-party funded ERASMUS + project on digital citizenship education with project partners from Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Latvia (DiCE.Lang).
Peter D. MacIntyre received his PhD in psychology from the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) in 1992 with Robert C. Gardner and is now a professor of psychology at Cape Breton University. His research examines emotion, motivation, and cognition across a variety of types of behaviour, including interpersonal communication, public speaking, dynamic systems, and learning. The majority of Peter’s research examines the psychology of communication, with a particular emphasis on second language acquisition and communication. He has published several books including Capitalizing on Language Learners’ Individuality (Multilingual Matters, 2014), Motivation Dynamics in Language Learning (Multilingual Matters, 2015), Positive Psychology in SLA (Multilingual Matters, 2016), and Optimizing Language Learners’ Nonverbal Behavior (Multilingual Matters, 2017).
Frauke Matz is Chair of English Language Education at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. After completing her studies in English and History at the University of Essen, she received her M.A. in English Studies from the University of Wolverhampton and completed her Graduate Teacher Training with CILT and the University of Birmingham. She also completed her PhD in English Literature and was a Language Teacher in England and Germany. After having worked at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Justus-Liebig University Gießen she became Chair of English language education at the University of Münster.
Her research interests lie in the field of teaching methodology of literary and digital texts in language education, with a special focus on young adult fiction; the role of cultural studies in the EFL context, especially cosmopolitan education; alternative forms of summative assessment, such as speaking exams and portfolios, and the development of mediation competence.
Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria, where she is Head of ELT methodology. Her research interests include all aspects of the psychology surrounding the foreign language learning experience. She is the author, co-author, and co-editor of several books in this area including, Towards an Understanding of Language Learner Self-Concept, Psychology for Language Learning, Multiple Perspectives on the Selfin SLA, New Directions in Language Learning Psychology, Positive Psychology in SLA, Exploring Psychology for Language Teachers (Winner of the IH Ben Warren Prize), LanguageTeacher Psychology, Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms, and Wellbeing and Development as a Language Teacher. She has also published over 140 book chapters and journal articles. She has served as Principal Investigator on several funded research projects, including currently a large FWF-funded project investigating language teacher wellbeing. She works on the editorial board of various journals, was co-editor of the journal System for several years, is co-editor of Multilingual Matters’ Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching book series, is currently vice-president of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL), and serves as a consultant on several international projects. In 2018, she was awarded the Robert C Gardner Award for excellence in second language research by the International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP).
Thorsten Merse is Professor of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Education with a special focus on Anglophone Literatures and Cultures. In his research, he explores inter- and transcultural learning, pedagogies of teaching literature, and digital education in EFL. He places particular emphasis on engaging with LGBTIQ* diversity and Queer Theory in EFL education and on researching teachers’ developing digital competences, also in light of Digital Citizenship Education. In view of research approaches chosen, Thorsten Merse embraces theoretical and conceptual paradigms as well as critical coursebook analyses and qualitative pathways, including surveys and interview studies. He joined the University of Duisburg-Essen in October 2021. Previously, he held research positions at the University of Münster (WWU, 2011-2016) and the University of Munich (LMU, 2016-2021), where he completed his PhD in 2017. During his Postdoc time at the LMU, he also coordinated an interdisciplinary research network on teacher education in the context of the BMBF-funded Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung. Thorsten Merse studied English and Biology at the University of Münster (WWU) to become a teacher in secondary education.
Michael C. Prusse is Professor of English language teacher education at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. His studies at the University of Zurich and Trinity College Dublin resulted in a PhD in 1996. This was succeeded by a PGCE for the subjects of English and History in secondary schools. Apart from teaching at secondary level in Great Britain and Switzerland, he was also a lecturer at the University of Zurich and the Universities of Applied Sciences Rapperswil and Winterthur before joining the Zurich University of Teacher education. There, he is responsible for the university’s master programs in subject-specific education.
His current research focuses primarily on language in professional contexts, pedagogical content knowledge, and on teaching literature in the ELT classroom. Stylistic analysis (chiasmic structures) and transmedia narratives are recurrent themes. Together with Barbara Prusse-Hess, he is the editor of Wirksamer Englischunterricht (2018), a collection of expert interviews on effective English teaching. Most recently, he has published a contribution to the debate on subject specific education (BzL, 2022), a discussion of refugees in children’s literature (ETAS-Journal, 2022), and an analysis of transmedia narratives in the volume Foreign Language Learning in the Digital Age: Theory and Pedagogy for Developing Literacies (ed. C. Lütge, 2022).
Manuela Schlick attained experience in the field of foreign language teaching both from doing research and from everyday classroom practice. Currently she is post-doc researcher and teacher educator at the Center for English Language Learning, Teaching and Teacher Education Research (CELTER) at the Department of English Studies of Vienna University.
Previously, she worked as Senior Lecturer and External Lecturer at the English Department, Englischdidaktik, and School of Education at Salzburg University alongside teaching English at an upper secondary school with inclusive classes in Salzburg.
Since her PhD project (“Professional vision and collegial feedback within expert-novice groups”) at LMU Munich 2009-2014, where she worked as research assistant, her research has focused on foreign language teacher education and continuing professional development through classroom videos, professional discourse and cooperation among practitioners. She has since been running various teacher trainings on collegial feedback and professional development for teachers and headteachers. Based on her practical experience she also publishes on topics of differentiation and material development for individualized learning settings. In her current research project, she focuses on how student teachers cope with and can be supported in adapting to increasingly dynamic teaching conditions, and the role of value awareness for professional teacher development.
Günther Sigott is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the English Department at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. He started his career at the Department of Romance Philology at the University of Graz and as a freelance translator for specific purpose English, French, and German in Austria and North Africa. He has taught English and French at secondary-level schools in Graz and Klagenfurt while at the same time working as a lecturer at the Department of Romance Philology and at the International Language Centre at the University of Graz. In his teaching he has covered a broad range of subjects ranging from practical language training to translation, semantics, lexicology, text linguistics, discourse analysis, research methodology, and language testing. He has also acted as director and consultant to large-scale national test development projects for English, German, and Classical Languages. His research interests are in all areas of Applied Linguistics and particularly in Language Testing and Evaluation. He is co-editor of the international monograph series Language Testing and Evaluation (Peter Lang Publishers) and has recently brought out volume 40, Language Testing in Austria: Taking Stock, in that series.
Harald Spann is Professor of EFL teaching at the University College of Education Upper Austria in Linz, Austria. His main research interests are literary texts in the EFL classroom and action research. He is currently involved in two projects, the ABC Approach to Literature in the EFL Classroom and DIGIT:TIME (Digital Technologies, Innovations and Media in English Language Teaching).
Laurenz Volkmann is full Professor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. He has a long teaching experience both at schools in Germany and at universities in the USA, the UK, and in various German states. His main research interests are in the areas of inter- and transcultural learning as well as in literature, culture, media, and gender-related issues. He has edited and co-edited numerous books, published around 300 academic articles, and co-authored the standard textbook Teaching English (2015).
Joanna White is a past co-editor of the journal Language Awareness. She is retired from Concordia University, where she was a professor in the Department of Education. In her research, she focuses on maximizing the benefits of instruction in second language classrooms for learners of different ages in a variety of instructional contexts. She is particularly interested in promoting collaboration between first and second language teachers.
Foreword
A Book to Celebrate Werner Delanoy
Quo vadis, language education?
This is a pivotal question, and also a very dynamic one: One that asks for movement, action, directions, perspectives.
It was one of the questions Werner Delanoy, whose retirement we commemorate in this publication, raised in a symposium he chaired at the SLTED2022 conference in Vienna. In his presentation, he then suggested an innovative concept of cultural learning and English language education which, highly dynamic by nature, provides multiple perspectives to meet the challenges facing teachers and learners in a rapidly changing, globalised world. In essence, this concept is founded on three pillars: A dialogic life approach, a cultural learning perspective which addresses topical socio-cultural challenges, and the inclusion of multimodal and digital dimensions in language education.
And this is where this timely volume comes into play. Activating and Engaging Learners and Teachers: Perspectives for English Language Education makes these three pillars clearly visible. In a way, it showcases their significance, and, by doing so, pays tribute to Werner’s work as a researcher, writer, and lecturer in the field of English language education.
The dialogic principle, the first pillar, is already reflected in the title since it encapsulates both the conditions for and the ultimate goal of English language teaching and learning: People who actively engage with each other through interaction in and with the target language. Seen this way, it points to Werner’s notion of dialogic learning, which takes place when learners and teachers, as equal dialogue partners, proactively try to learn from each other. Whether such relationships can be successfully established not least depends on a number of psychological factors and their complex interplay. The first part of this book brings to light the nature of this complexity. Here, the contributions offer multiple psychological perspectives on emotional, attitudinal, and motivational factors affecting EFL teachers and learners, emphasising the need for developing empathy and well-being in language learning contexts.
As a theorist in the tradition of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, one of the key tenets pervading Werner’s theory-building is that all our understanding is inherently limited and that we therefore need engagement with different perspectives to at least partly overcome these limitations. A dialogic life approach, therefore, does not solely rest on personal relationships between teachers and learners, but also on the respectful dialogue between universities, schools, and other key players in and outside the educational field. One could say, it needs and thrives on critical encounters with different viewpoints. This is why EFL teacher education needs to foster a lively and dynamic discourse, where theories and the teaching methodologies they inform can meet, challenge each other, mix, and, eventually, enrich each other. This volume not only contributes to this discourse substantially, it also underscores its multifaceted quality. The latter is particularly exemplified in Part 2, where the contributors offer a wide range of methodological considerations on how to activate and engage learners, including studies on kinaesthetic learning, peer feedback, language assessment literacy, and strategy instruction.
Given Werner’s extensive research output in the field of EFL cultural and literary teaching and learning, it does not come as a surprise that the second pillar of his educational concept – a cultural learning perspective with a focus on topical socio-cultural challenges – repeatedly surfaces in the remaining parts of this book. In fact, the question Who to engage with and in what ways?, posed in the title of Part 3, could well have come from him. It invites us to reflect on current developments in cultural learning, and, at the same time, to rethink language education as a whole – both from a conceptual and methodological perspective. From a conceptual perspective, the contributions in this part address salient and controversial concepts in cultural educational contexts, such as transculturality, global citizenship, and cosmopolitanism. Methodologically, there is a focus on how, in times of globalisation and digitalisation, learning opportunities can be created to develop cultural competences in learners. Here, our attention is also drawn to discourses on digital citizenship education, which, in turn, gives rise to reflections on how to incorporate multimodal and digital approaches in modern EFL education. Thus, I would argue that Part 3 also makes visible the third pillar of Werner’s timely concept of cultural learning and language education.
The contributions in Part 4, which offer intriguing discussions on how to engage EFL learners through literary texts, aptly exemplify the huge educational potential of such an engagement. Not only do these chapters throw some light on the broad spectrum of learning opportunities literary texts can provide for developing, for instance, aesthetical, political, global, and cultural competences, they also make us aware of the complex processes that are at play between learners and texts. What these chapters suggest is that engaging with literary and creative texts is never a one-way street. Teachers, learners, and texts need to enter relationships to unfold their potential. In a way, they need to activate each other. And, I would argue, theories and concepts in language education, such as Werner’s, undoubtedly support this mutual activation.
So, quo vadis, language education? Of course, no single volume can ever answer this question. Personally, I think, however, that all four parts of this volume offer numerous fresh perspectives. They put up signposts, so to speak, on the many avenues language education may take in the future.
Let me return to our retiree again and finish on a personal note. As my former PhD supervisor in the field of EFL literature teaching and learning, Werner introduced me, among many other thought-provoking books and theories, to Lothar Bredella’s works on Rezeptionsästhetik (reception aesthetics). I thoroughly enjoyed these meetings! What I can still remember, more than ten years later, is that, although he himself drew largely on dialogic reception aesthetic concepts for his own theory-building and teaching, he never seemed to give them preference over other approaches. In a way, this is a good example of how Werner, as a role model, has embodied his own approach to English language education and, by doing so, has profoundly influenced my views on reading and teaching literature.
Thank you, Werner, for being such an inspiring dialogue partner.
And all the best for your retirement.
* * *
I am grateful to the editors, Carmen M. Amerstorfer and Max von Blanckenburg, for compiling this volume and for giving me the honour of writing its foreword.
Strengthening the Involvement of Learners and Teachers in English Language Education
An Introduction to the Volume
Ask a hundred people what they consider key aspects of good teaching, and you will most likely get quite a variety of responses. But many of us – whether you are a foreign language teacher, university student, teacher educator, researcher, or do not belong to any of these groups – can typically remember a lesson that somehow left a positive impression. As editors of this book, we would like to invite you to think back to a foreign language class that you experienced as enjoyable and purposeful. What was the lesson about and what made it meaningful to you?
This volume aims to explore such questions and, in doing so, starts from the premise that stimulating lessons require a readiness on the sides of learners and teachers alike to get involved in the educational process. We thus chose “Activating and Engaging Learners and Teachers” as a leading theme to describe both a prerequisite and a goal of foreign language education. Managing to “get someone on board” arguably depends on individual, social, and systemic factors which are interdependent and influence how teachers design and conduct lessons and how learners experience and profit from them. The contributions in this book investigate these aspects from various angles to illustrate how activation and engagement relate to
positive learning environments and relationships,
texts and teaching materials that facilitate immersive as well as reflective learning experiences,
approaches allowing for both individualised as well as social learning and engage students cognitively, socially, and emotionally,
diagnostic measures for assessment and classroom research, and
current concepts for engaging learners with cultural themes and spaces as well as with political issues.
This volume commemorates the retirement of Werner Delanoy, who has been a cherished staff member at the Department of English at the University of Klagenfurt since 1984 and Professor of English Didactics since 2001. Werner has tremendously influenced both of our academic careers and those of many others as advisor, confidence booster, role model, and “critical friend,” as he likes to call himself.
His work has been characterised by a deep interest and extensive research output in various areas, particularly in the fields of cultural and literary learning within English language education. Werner’s reflections – on concepts of culture in a globalised modernity, on the relevance of literary texts to promote educational processes, or on the notion of dialogue as a basic orientation in teaching and learning scenarios, to name but a few – have shaped and advanced English didactics in a substantial manner.
Werner’s interest in the concept of dialogue likewise translates into his understanding of his various roles as researcher, lecturer, supervisor, or colleague, where he is consistent in meeting others in most respectful and appreciative ways. He will be greatly missed as a board member of the ÖGSD (Austrian society for the didactics of language teaching), which he cofounded in 2007. With his exceptional people skills and academic genius, he is a tough act to follow. Moreover, Werner is a gifted musician and creative songwriter who has dedicated much of his free time practicing and entertaining others at social gatherings as well as university festivities. By dedicating this volume to Werner Delanoy, we express our deep gratitude to a dear colleague and friend.
This book is divided into four thematically interconnected parts. Part 1 of the book encompasses chapters on psychological aspects related to teaching and learning a foreign language and presents the latest research on positive language education as well as teacher empathy and well-being.
The opening chapter by Carmen M. Amerstorfer and Peter D. MacIntyre summarises the history of psychology of language learning (PLL) and highlights the most important developments. It furthermore presents the opinions and experiences of ten experts in PLL and attempts a preview of how the field may progress in the years to come.
The chapter that follows, composed by Alaa Al-Tamimi and Tammy Gregersen, empirically investigates the capability of a foreign language teacher to decode his students’ facial expressions and his empathetic responses. The authors combined multiple research methods in this idiodynamic case study to raise the participant’s awareness of the emotions of his students and to discuss his empathetic responses as a practical approach to empathy development.
The third chapter in Part 1 by Carmen M. Amerstorfer switches the focus to the wellbeing of three teachers who employ a student-centred teaching methodology in their foreign language classes. In semi-structured interviews, the teachers explained how cooperative learning affects their professional contentment and motivation, and they highlighted the importance of positive relationships with students and colleagues.
Jean-Marc Dewaele, Sarah Mercer, and Christina Gkonou investigate the wellbeing of teachers from a different angle, bringing Part 1 of this volume to a close. They quantitatively analysed the wellbeing of 513 EFL teachers in relation to personal and professional background factors, indicating an interplay between the motivation, attitudes, and wellbeing of teachers, the environment in which they work, and the people they work with.
Part 2 deals with aspects related to EFL teaching methodology, specifically teaching pronunciation, peer feedback, language assessment, and language learning strategy instruction.
In the first chapter of Part 2 Manuela Schlick investigates how kinaesthetic learning material inspired by the practices of Maria Montessori can be used for teaching pronunciation in EFL. She reports a small-scale research project, in which pre-service teachers of EFL developed kinaesthetic learning materials to practice English pronunciation and reflected on their experiences.
The following chapter by Ha Hoang and Peter Gu was inspired by the reluctance of L2 teachers to endorse peer feedback activities in foreign language teaching. The authors conducted an exploratory study with a peer response task without any teacher guidance in a writing skills class at a Vietnamese university. They convincingly demonstrate that unguided peer response can be valuable alongside guided, focused, and targeted feedback activities as it encourages students’ self-reflection, critical thinking, text improvement, and joy during the learning experience.
The third chapter in Part 2 turns to the topic of language assessment literacy and presents an empirical investigation of the perceived level of difficulty of specified assessment-related abilities, knowledge, and understanding of pre-service English teachers in Austria. The authors, Armin Berger, Helen Heaney, and Guenther Sigott, discuss possible implications of the findings of their study for teacher education and language assessment literacy programmes.
In the final chapter of Part 2, Pamela Gunning, Teresa Hernández-González, and Joanna White report two studies, one conducted in Quebec, Canada, the other in a CLIL context in Spain. The studies examine the practicalities of implementing strategy instruction for reading in a foreign language with young learners aged 11-12 years. Their research is unique because it implements elements of gamification in strategy instruction, which, to the best of our knowledge, has never been done before.
Part 3 addresses current trends and future perspectives of cultural learning through a focus on concepts and approaches including inter- and transculturality, digital citizenship, global learning, as well as cosmopolitanism.
The opening chapter by Laurenz Volkmann delineates the educational potential of moments of discomfort that may arise or even be responsibly sought after by language teachers. Drawing on the notion of hermeneutic perturbation, Volkmann elaborates how instances of irritation and embarrassment can be regarded as learning opportunities, which may be productively harnessed and need to be pedagogically framed through materials and tasks.
In their chapter, Frauke Matz and Daniel Becker argue for a reconceptualisation of cultural learning in English language education with a view to current global challenges. In light of a world shaped by risks and uncertainties, they highlight the relevance of civic education that starts from a cosmopolitan viewpoint and aims at fostering resilience in (language) learners.
Christiane Lütge and Thorsten Merse, in their contribution, reflect on the locus of cultural and global learning within EFL from the perspective of digital citizenship education (DCE). They retrace and merge current discourses on DCE to then put forward a model that anchors the concept within the theory and practice of foreign language education and incorporates larger societal digital transformations.
In the last chapter of Part 3, Grit Alter reviews central concepts and paradigm shifts in the context of cultural learning and argues that the goal of becoming culturally competent needs to be revisited considering the implications of digitization. She identifies three main dimensions, namely de-localization, de-temporalization, and disembodiment, which emerge from digitized communication and impact on the practice and desired outcomes of cultural learning.
Part 4 sets out to investigate questions and developments concerning the educational potential of literary texts in current EFL teaching. In the chapters, a twofold direction becomes visible: On the one hand, they thematise the aesthetic dimension of literature that may be explored with learners, and, on the other, focus on unique ways in which literature allows to reflect on social and political discourse, and in turn facilitate empowerment and civic engagement.
Nursen Gömceli and Allan James take Harold Pinter’s play The Dumb Waiter as a starting point for a literary and linguistic analysis to reveal the interactional dynamics and struggles for social positioning between the characters in the drama. In that, the authors showcase the benefits of an in-depth examination of a literary text in tertiary English language education that gives profound insights into the realisation and contestation of speech acts and supports the design of targeted learning activities.
Michael Prusse’s chapter centres on the short story Japanese Girl, a literary text that negotiates Singapore’s colonial past and hence allows integrating perspectives from outside the Western hemisphere into the university EFL classroom. Harnessing a cultural studies approach, Prusse illustrates how the story offers manifold benefits to engage learners with themes such as a country’s narrated and experienced history, the mingling of cultures, and the creation of hybrid identities.
In his chapter, Max von Blanckenburg interrelates two fields within English language education in discussing how political education may be fostered through a focus on literary texts. He conceptualizes core dimensions of an intersection between rhetorical and aesthetic language use, and exemplifies how this heuristic allows to approach current discourses via analytical and reflective tasks.
Aiming at the promotion of global and ecological education, Maria Eisenmann, in the final chapter of this volume, reflects on the benefits of teaching with young adult dystopian fiction. By drawing on a wide array of literary texts, she demonstrates how this genre lends itself to being included in English language classrooms as it connects with learners on an individual level and involves them in global discourses of climate change and sustainability.
With the chapters in this volume, revolving around psychological, methodological, literary, and cultural themes in language learning, we hope to provide readers with impulses for reflection – be it through empirical data, conceptual thought, or concrete teaching approaches. The polyphony and diversity of contributions in this book showcase the complexity of foreign language education as a field of research and practice, and likewise speak to the manifold ways in which learners and teachers can be activated and engaged in and beyond foreign language classes.
Part 1: Psychological Perspectives on EFL Teacher and Learner Emotions, Well-Being, and Relationships
Psychology of Language Learning
Where Are We and where Are We Going?
1.Introduction
Psychology and language learning are a natural combination of scholarly topics. With more than half of the world’s population able to speak two or more languages, under a wide range of personal, pedagogical, social, and cultural conditions, the psychology of language learning (PLL) is of practical concern to much of the population. Understanding the psychology of language learning and teaching is relevant to professions including foreign language teachers, material developers, curriculum designers, policy makers, educational psychologists, and foreign language researchers. Research that underlies the psychology of foreign language learning comes from many perspectives, including informal classroom observations, structured action research, projects that form part of pre-service teacher education programmes, large-scale multi-site studies, and meta-analyses. The diversity in scope and magnitude of the scholarly domain leads to flexibility in topics and research questions being investigated, and ultimately a better understanding of the topic.
The purpose of this chapter is to open a discussion of PLL, the theme central to the first part of this book, by examining the state of the art as interpreted by the present authors and 10 experts in the field who responded to our call for their perspectives on where the field is now and where it might be going. Following a brief literature review (Section 2), the experts weigh in on the future of this flourishing research field.
2.Psychology of language learning (PLL)
PLL is a broad research field that explores how psychological processes, such as self-concept, mindsets, motivation, anxiety, engagement, personality, styles, and strategies, influence foreign language learning. These topics and others provide substantial food for thought for researchers, philosophers, psychologists, and teachers. Research about psychology of foreign language learning is informed by theories from educational psychology (Corno and Anderman 2016; Roth 2019; Roth and Jornet 2017) and a large, ever-growing body of empirical research. These studies reflect a range of methodologies and designs and include large-scale, statistical data as well as targeted, in-depth analyses of individuals. In recent years two specific areas have become influential, complex dynamic systems theory (Larsen-Freeman 1997) and positive psychology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000). Complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) reflects an approach that examines the emergent properties of interacting systems over the multiple timescales of language development (see Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008), focusing on processes such as vocabulary acquisition (Verspoor et al. 2011), motivation (Dörnyei et al. 2014), and emotions such as anxiety or enjoyment (Boudreau et al. 2018). Positive psychology has emerged as an approach to examining “the strengths that enable both language learners and teachers to thrive individually and in communities” (MacIntyre, Gregersen, and Mercer 2016, 4). Moreover, new methods for research about the interrelated, multifaceted topics of learner psychology have been developed (e.g., Hiver and Al-Hoorie 2020; Sampson and Pinner 2021) in the hope of achieving profound insights into the complexity of foreign language learning as well as practical ramifications for foreign language classrooms.
A growing number of monographs (e.g., Dörnyei 2005; Griffiths and Soruç 2020; Williams, Mercer, and Ryan 2015) and edited volumes (e.g., Gabryś-Barker and Gałajda 2016; Gkonou, Tatzl, and Mercer 2016; Gregersen and Mercer 2022; Mercer, Ryan, and Williams 2012) are being published every year, and seemingly countless articles (e.g., Gkonou, Mercer, and Daubney 2018; Mercer and Ryan 2016) have inspired the readers of established journals and special issues (e.g., Kalaja, Mäntylä, and Nikula-Jäntti 2017; Mercer and Ryan 2015a, 2015b; Padilla, Chen, and Lake 2019-2020) dedicated to this important topic. In 2014, the first international conference on Psychology of Language Learning (PLL) gave the research field a crucial boost, as did the founding of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL) four years later. Meanwhile, IAPLL has grown to more than 200 members and publishes its own open-access online journal, the Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning (JPLL). Two founding members of IAPLL, Sarah Mercer and Stephen Ryan, are the editors of a new book series with Multilingual Matters publishing, entitled “Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching.”
Alongside individual learner characteristics, the academic literature also acknowledges other influences on learner psychology that are relevant in foreign language classrooms such as learner autonomy (Benson 2011; Little, Dam, and Legenhausen 2017), self-direction (Pemberton and Cooker 2012), self-determination (Wehmeyer and Zhao 2020), self-regulation (Oxford 2017), cooperation (McCafferty, Jacobs, and DaSilva Iddings 2006; Slavin 1995), group dynamics (Murphey et al. 2012), and multilingualism (Thompson 2016). While many books emphasise theoretical information, others integrate findings from empirical studies (Oxford and Amerstorfer 2018) and provide practical guidance for teachers (Ferlazzo 2013; Gregory and Kuzmich 2015), thereby considering “both the ‘premise’ and the ‘practice’” (Gregersen and MacIntyre 2014, ix) of individual characteristics of foreign language learners. The richness of the field has inspired us to take stock of the state of the art and in doing so ask, where might we be going? A firm theoretical and empirical foundation that has been developed based in part on the longevity of interest in topics such as language learning motivation (Gardner and Lambert 1959) and aptitude (Carroll and Sapon 1959), followed by a wave of studies about individual differences of “good language learners” (Rubin 1975; Stern 1975) such as language learning strategies (Naiman et al. 1978) and styles (Dunn, Dunn, and Price 1975); progress has been made in understanding the psychology of the learner, with much left to learn. Although predicting the future can be difficult, we draw on the insights of colleagues from various parts of the world, who are at various stages of their careers, to help us make sense of where we might be going.
3.The experiences and opinions of experts
3.1Procedure
We invited 14 researchers in the field of PLL to participate in this study. During the selection, we aimed for a balance between early-career and experienced researchers, variation regarding their preferred research methods, and diversity of research interests within the research domain of PLL. We asked the participants to read the literature review (Section 2) and answer the following two questions in an online questionnaire:
How have the above-described developments influenced your work?
2)How do you anticipate the future of psychology of language learning?
The data were analysed by identifying prominent themes in the participants’ responses and by summarising them accordingly (Section 3.3).
3.2Participants
Ten of the 14 invited researchers responded to the questionnaire and gave us permission to share their answers in this chapter, brief biographies are listed below alphabetically. They are all experts in the broader field of PLL with individual research interests in specific areas.
Ali H. Al-Hoorie is an Assistant Professor at the English Language and Preparatory Institute, Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. He completed his PhD degree at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Zoltán Dörnyei and Norbert Schmitt. He also holds and MA in Social Science Data Analysis from Essex University. His research interests include motivation theory, research methodology, and complexity. His publications have appeared in a number of journals including Language Learning, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, ELT J, Language Teaching Research, and Learning and Individual Differences. He is also the co-author (with Phil Hiver) of Research Methods for Complexity in Applied Linguistics and co-editor (with Peter D. MacIntyre) of Contemporary Language Motivation Theory: 60 Years Since Gardner and Lambert (1959).
Chengchen Li is an Associate Professor of applied linguistics at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China as well as a research fellow at the Center for Applied Linguistics, Institute of Education, University College London, UK. Dr. Li has taught Ph.D., MA, and BA courses in academic writing, psycholinguistics, and general English. Her research interests include positive psychology, second language acquisition, and L2 writing. She has published widely on individual difference factors in journals including Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Teaching Research, System, Applied Linguistics Review, and Journal of Multilingualism and Multicultural Development. She is the author of A Positive Psychology Perspective on Chinese EFL Students’ Emotional Intelligence and Classroom Emotions (2020). She is Associate Editor of Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching. She is a board member of IAPLL as well as co-chair of EMOTION SIG of IAPLL.
Phil Hiver is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at Florida State University. His teaching ranges from courses in domain-general learning and instruction as part of initial teacher preparation at the undergraduate level up to doctoral level courses in second language development and L2 research. In his own research he tries to weave together his interests from instructed language acquisition with the study of the individuals doing the learning and teaching in classroom contexts. Often this leads him to study the impact that individual and contextual factors have on the type and quality of students’ involvement and engagement in classroom learning. He also extends this to investigate how teacher thought and action, broadly conceived, contribute to language learners’ proactive learning. Another part of his research is related to methodological innovation and explores the methods for researching complex and dynamic phenomena in language education. This work is part of a broader pivot in L2 research to acknowledge interconnectedness and change and to address issues of precision and rigor through open science practices.
Gholam Hassan Khajavy (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at University of Bojnord, Iran. His main research interests are at the intersection of the psychology of language learning and teaching and instructed second language acquisition. He examines the role of individual differences such as emotions and mindsets in foreign language learners’ and teachers’ performance. He has recently co-edited a special issue on the role of grit among language learners which was published in the Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning. He has published in different international journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Learning, and Contemporary Educational Psychology.
Paula Kalaja is a former teacher educator and Professor Emerita of English at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland (with a PhD from Georgetown University, Washington, DC). Issues related to PLL have been a keen interest of hers for some decades, and she has been carrying out research on a few individual learner differences, including learner beliefs, attitudes, motivation (or more specifically, attributions and visions), identity, and emotions. Her publications include co-authored and/or co-edited collections of articles or chapters, such as Beliefs about SLA: New Research Approaches (2003), Narratives of Learning and Teaching EFL (2008), Beliefs, Agency and Identity in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (2016), and Visualising Multilingual Lives: More than Words (2019) as well as textbooks on doing research in Applied Language Studies (2011) and learning-to-learn skills (2005) for the local market, published in Finnish.
Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria, where she is Head of ELT methodology. Her research interests include all features of the psychology surrounding the foreign language learning experience with a focus on aspects of self, positive psychology, wellbeing, and engagement. She is the author, co-author, and co-editor of several books in this area including Towards and Understanding of Language Learner Self-Concept (2011), Psychology for Language Learning (2012), Multiple Perspectives on the Self in SLA (2014), New Directions in Language Learning Psychology (2016), Positive Psychology in SLA (2016), Exploring Psychology for Language Teachers (2016; Winner of the IH Ben Warren Prize), Language Teacher Psychology (2018), Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms (2020), and Student Engagement in the Language Classroom (2021).
Luke Plonsky (PhD, Michigan State) is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University, where he teaches courses in SLA and research methods. His work in these and other areas has resulted in over 100 articles, book chapters, and books. Luke is Editor of Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Managing Editor of Foreign Language Annals, Co-Editor of De Gruyter Mouton’s Series on Language Acquisition, and Co-Director of the IRIS Database (iris-database.org). In addition to prior appointments at Georgetown and University College London, Luke has lectured in China, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Puerto Rico.
Stephen Ryan is currently Associate Dean in the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences at Waseda University, Tokyo. He has been involved with language education for over thirty years but does very little language teaching these days. His recent research has looked at the experiences of older language learners and he has also been interested in the experience of Chinese tertiary students studying overseas.
Richard J. Sampson has been working in the Japanese educational context for over 20 years. He is currently an Associate Professor at Rikkyo University, teaching courses in English communication and language learning psychology. His research explores the social and dynamic emergence of language learner and teacher psychology by drawing on complexity thinking, with a particular focus on emotions and motivation. He uses action research approaches to investigate experiences of classroom language learning from the perspectives of students and teachers. He has published widely in international journals, and is the author of two research monographs – Complexity in Classroom Foreign Language Learning Motivation: A Practitioner Perspective from Japan (Multilingual Matters, 2016) and Complexity in Second Language Study Emotions: Emergent Sensemaking in Social Context (Routledge, 2023) – and co-editor (with Richard Pinner) of the volume Complexity Perspectives on Researching Language Learner and Teacher Psychology (Multilingual Matters, 2021).
Amy S. Thompson (Ph.D. Michigan State University) is a Woodburn Professor of Applied Linguistics and Department Chair of the Department of World Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics at WVU and the Director of International Relations and Strategic Planning for Eberly College. Her teaching experience includes a range of theoretical and methodological courses in Applied Linguistics. Regarding research, her primary research foci involve Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition and the interaction of these IDs and multilingualism. Thompson has authored a book about context and motivation (Multilingual Matters, 2021) and has co-authored a book about language learning in Anglophone settings (Palgrave, 2021). Other examples of her research can be found in journals such as the Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Foreign Language Annals, and the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, among others. More information can be found on her WVU website: https://worldlanguages.wvu.edu/faculty-staff/administration/amy-thompson.
3.3The experiences and opinions of the participants
The participants provided us with rich data in the form of detailed explanations and personal accounts of their experiences and opinions regarding research in PLL. On the basis of their responses to the questionnaire, we could identify the following themes:
3.3.1 Individual differences
Perhaps the defining theme of PLL, or at least one of its longest running concerns, is a recognition that individuals respond differently within the same situations; where some persons succeed others struggle to learn, where some find anxiety others find enjoyment. Over the years, the observation of different trajectories of success among learners helped solidify a concern for how differences in learner psychology affect the learning process. Stephen Ryan summarized his observation as follows:
