Affordances of the Microsystem of the Classroom for Foreign Language Enjoyment

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Affordances of the Microsystem of the Classroom for Foreign Language Enjoyment Majid Elahi Shirvan1   · Tahereh Taherian2 Received: 17 July 2020 / Revised: 2 October 2020 / Accepted: 5 October 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

Abstract Foreign language enjoyment (FLE) has been a recently investigated variable in the field of applied linguistics. The recent studies on FLE have provided us with insights into potential affordances for this construct. However, given the ecological nature of the environment of classrooms and the substantial contribution of teachers to the emergence of FLE, the actualization process of these potential affordances has not been addressed yet. To bridge this gap, in this case study, we aimed to explore the actualization of potential affordances for FLE in a university course of listening and speaking via a modern social hermeneutics approach, from an ecological perspective. Following this approach, via first and second round interviews with the teacher of the course, we tried to come up with accurate interpretations regarding the contextual process of the actualization of the affordances for FLE within the microsystem of the classroom. The findings indicated that not all the potential affordances for FLE are actualized as utilized affordances in the context of the classroom and only some few can be actualized as shaped affordances. The findings suggest that the limitation of the actual affordances for FLE to perceived affordances or their extension to utilized affordances in a foreign language class depends on the misalignment/alignment between the chemistry of class in the microsystem and the regulations and policies of the institute in the exosystem. Furthermore, the actualization of shaped affordances for FLE relies on a teacher’s agency capacity in terms of her or his educational level and teaching experiences. Keywords  Foreign language enjoyment · Potential affordance · Actual affordance · Modern social science hermeneutics approach · Microsystem

Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (https​://doi.org/10.1007/s4208​ 7-020-00150​-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Majid Elahi Shirvan [email protected]; [email protected] Tahereh Taherian [email protected] 1

University of Bojnord, Bojnord, North Khorasan, Iran

2

Yazd University, Yazd, Iran



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Shirvan and Taherian

Introduction The emergence of positive psychology (PP) (see Lopez and Snyder  2009), in particular the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson  2001; 2003; 2008), sets the stage for the contribution and realization of PP in the study of second language acquisition (SLA; see MacIntyre and Gregersen 2012). Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p. 5) determined the aims of PP and delineated three pivots in research on PP: “positive institutions, positive individual traits, and positive experiences.”  Also, regarding the perspective of positive psychology in SLA, Gabryś-Barker and Gałajda (2016) put emphasis on env

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