A Study On The Effects Of Senior High School Students’ Foreign Language Enjoyment On Learning Engagement

According to the General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(Ministry of Education,2017),the senior high school English curriculum should establish a student-oriented curriculum assessment system that promotes learners’comprehensive,healthy and individual development.Additionally,the curriculum should attach importance to learning effect of assessment and pay attention to emotions,attitudes and values demonstrated by students during the process of English learning.Hence,emotion appearing in students’ learning is an important part of the curriculum assessment.Meanwhile,pertinent literature manifests that foreign language enjoyment(FLE)is the most typical and common positive emotion.A review of literature reveals that studies on FLE chiefly involve its conceptualization,measurement,exploration of influencing factors and correlation with other variables like English performance.However,few domestic studies focus on its correlation with other variables,and there is a dearth of exploration of correlation between FLE and learning engagement.Moreover,learning engagement,including emotional engagement,is a hot issue in the international higher education research,but studies involving emotions are rare.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the relationship between senior high school students’ FLE and learning engagement.This study investigates senior high school students’ FLE and learning engagement,and their correlation by means of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews,and the author primarily analyzes their correlation and causal relationship.The questions are addressed as follows:(1)What’s the current situation of senior high school students’ FLE and learning engagement?(2)Is there any correlation between senior high school students’ FLE and learning engagement?(3)If yes,how does senior high school students’ FLE affect their learning engagement?To address those research questions,108 senior high school students are recruited as participants from an international senior high school in central China,and they are in the second year of senior high school life.Exactly,senior one students are new to school and a myriad of factors likely affect their emotions,consequently demonstrating uncertainty.Meanwhile,senior three students shoulder great pressure from the college entrance examination,significantly impacting their learning engagement.However,senior two students are familiar with the school life and relatively free of burden from the college entrance examination,presenting an appropriate state for the investigation of FLE and learning engagement.Findings yielded can be summarized as follows.Firstly,senior high school students experience a high level of FLE as a whole.Specifically,FLE-teacher is reported most,followed by FLE-private and FLE-atmosphere.Secondly,senior high school students invest a relatively high level of engagement in English learning,especially in dedication and absorption.Thirdly,learning engagement and FLE are positively and highly correlated as a whole,while subcategories show slight difference.To elaborate,FLE-private is moderately correlated with vigor and absorption,while highly correlated with dedication.Moreover,FLE-teacher and FLE-atmosphere are moderately positively correlated with all dimensions of learning engagement.Fourthly,merely senior high school students’ FLE-private,among three dimensions of FLE,significantly predicts learning engagement.Comparatively,FLE-private explains most dedication and then vigor and absorption.In view of the forementioned,some suggestions are proposed for senior high school students,English teachers and school leaders,to facilitate students’ learning engagement in English and to experience more enjoyment.Specifically,senior high school students wisely attribute FLE to private dimension,English teachers increase students’ enjoyment experience in English class,while school leaders advocate positive atmosphere and help students obtain sense of achievement and reinforce their FLEprivate experience,so as to improve their learning engagement in English.