The Relationship Between Classroom Emotions(Enjoyment And Boredom) And English Learning Achievement In China

There has been a surge in studies on a wide variety of foreign language(FL)classroom emotions since the introduction of Positive Psychology into the field of SLA.In comparison to anxiety,research on the negative emotional experience of boredom,particularly in combination with positive emotional enjoyment,is scarce.Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory(Fredrickson,2004)and the control-value theory(Pekrun,2006),this study intends to investigate the relationship between Chinese university EFL learners’ emotions(enjoyment and boredom)and their self-perceived and actual English learning achievement,as well as the teacher factors related to the two emotions.This study included 773 non-English-major undergraduate students from 10 Chinese universities.All participants filled out an online questionnaire on enjoyment and boredom.The data was subjected to descriptive and multiple regression analyses by using SPSS 22.0,and then 12 participants who completed the questionnaire were randomly selected for semi-structured interviews.Themes and episodes of qualitative data were transcribed,encoded,and classified.Results show that enjoyment and boredom were significant combined predictors of self-perceived English learning achievement,while only enjoyment could significantly predict CET-4 scores.In regards of teacher-related factors in enjoyment,apart from attitude toward the teacher,teacher’s joking and enthusiasm,three novel factors were identified,namely interesting and active teaching style,teacher’s authentic accent,an equal teacher-student relationship.On the other hand,boredom was negatively predicted by attitude toward the teacher and teacher’s joking.In addition,monotonous teaching style,traditional teaching method,and teaching content of familiar knowledge were confirmed as the antecedents for boredom as well.Finally,it was found that enjoyment was more prone to be affected by teacher-related factors than boredom.This study offers implications for how to motivate students’ classroom emotions and improve their academic achievement.