A Study Of L3 Boredom Experienced By Undergraduate Students Majoring In Less Commonly Taught Languages

Boredom has long been examined as a psychological concept in the fields of psychology,educational psychology,and education(Chapman,2013).Research into boredom in second/foreign language classroom has also witnessed growing interest in recent years.However,the majority of previous studies have primarily concentrated on L2 boredom among EFL learners,little is known about L3 boredom experienced by students who majored in less commonly taught languages.To this end,this study intended to explore L3 boredom among Chinese undergraduate Thai and Vietnamese majors.Meanwhile,the causes of boredom,participants’ coping strategies towards it,and the correlation between L3 boredom and L3 achievements were also investigated.By employing a mixed-methods approach,data were collected mainly by an adopted questionnaire of Li et al.’s(2021)and semi-structured interviews.A total of274 Thai majors and 241 Vietnamese majors from 9 universities in Yunnan were recruited to fill the questionnaire,among which 36 Thai majors and 35 Vietnamese majors were ethnic minority students and had mastered their ethnic languages.Then,7 Thai majors and 7 Vietnamese majors participated voluntarily in the interviews.SPSS 22.0,Amos 25.0 and NVivo 11.0 were utilized to analyze data.The major findings demonstrated that:(1)Thai(M=2.62)and Vietnamese(M=2.54)majors’ L3 boredom was around the medium level.Among the seven factors,Power Point presentation boredom was ranked as the most boredom-inducing one.About 60% and 40% of the participants experienced boredom in the middle of or at the end of classes.More than 60% of them underwent boredom for less than 2 times within a class(45 mins),and those who suffered from frequently-occurred boredom(3 times or more)accounted for about 10%;(2)Regarding grade,Thai seniors experienced significantly higher levels of boredom compared with juniors and sophomores,but such significance barely existed among Vietnamese majors.Based on qualitative data,some previously acquired ethnic minority languages have been acknowledged to assist participants in acquiring Thai/Vietnamese pronunciation and vocabulary.In terms of college major choice,Thai participants who had applied for this major willingly tended to be slightly less enjoyable during learning,while first-choice and second-choice Vietnamese majors experienced more pleasure.Moreover,those transferred students whose interests in Thai/Vietnamese had been greatly stimulated could also experience low or moderate levels of boredom;(3)Among Thai and Vietnamese majors,teachers,teaching style,the content of class,tasks/activities,homework,classmates,and self-related factors were identified as the antecedents of boredom.Furthermore,self-related factors,the content of class,and teaching style were highly perceived as the main causes.Other boredom-inducing factors encompassed long class time,phone,curriculum design,sickness or bad mood,unpromising career prospects,the lack of Thai/Vietnamese native speaker friends,and previous negative experiences in learning languages;(4)The most widely used boredom-coping strategies among Thai and Vietnamese majors were reactive behavioral avoidance strategies,followed by reactive behavioral approach strategies,and reactive cognitive approach strategies.Both Thai and Vietnamese majors made more use of reactive strategies and behavioral strategies.Simultaneously,Vietnamese majors preferred approach-oriented strategies,while Thai students adopted more avoidance-oriented strategies;(5)Significant differences were discovered among Thai majors who had passed or had failed,and had not taken ITLCTLYN(Band 4)or ITLCTLYN(Band 8),while no disparity was found among Vietnamese majors.Precisely,Thai majors who had passed or had failed Band 4 or Band 8 suffered from more intense feelings of boredom than participants who had not taken tests.Meanwhile,significantly negative correlations were found to exist between both Vietnamese and Thai majors’ L3 boredom and their self-rated L3 proficiency as well as its four dimensions(listening,speaking,reading,and writing abilities).This study may shed light on understanding L3 boredom experiences among Chinese undergraduate students majoring in less commonly taught languages,and makes contributions to more effective learning and teaching of these languages.The thesis closes with the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.