Complexity Perspectives on Researching Language Learner and Teacher Psychology

This edited volume brings together both established and emerging researcher voices from around the world to illustrate how complexity perspectives might contribute to new ways of researching and understanding the psychology of language learners and teachers in situated educational contexts. Chapter authors discuss their own perspectives on researching within a complexity paradigm, exemplified by concrete and original examples from their research histories. Moreover, chapters explore research approaches to a variety of learner and teacher psychological foci of interest in SLA. Examples include: anxiety, classroom group dynamics and group-level motivation, cognition and metacognition, emotions and emotion regulation strategies, learner reticence and silence, motivation, self-concept and willingness to communicate.

Richard J. Sampson is an Associate Professor at Rikkyo University, Japan. He uses action research approaches to give voice to the complex, situated experience of language learner psychology and is the author of Complexity in Classroom Foreign Language Learning Motivation (2016, Multilingual Matters).

Richard S. Pinner (PhD, University of Warwick) works for the Department of English Literature at Sophia University, Tokyo (Japan). He is interested in the areas of authenticity and motivation in ELT. He recently co-edited a book with Richard J. Sampson called Complexity Perspectives on Researching Language Learner and Teacher Psychology.