Investigating the Role of Affective Factors in Second Language Learning Tasks

This book provides an overview of affective individual variables that are considered relevant for second language learning and outlines a novel approach to researching them. In the first part of the book, the most prominent concepts and theories in connection with affective individual variables and tasks are discussed, followed by a literature review of the most significant empirical studies conducted on the reviewed individual variables with the help of tasks. The second part of the monograph reports the findings of a research project which investigated the relationships of motivation, emotions, flow experiences, and self-efficacy beliefs of secondary school students studying English in Hungary. These constructs are examined at two levels: in connection with learners’ English classes in general and in connection with a particular language task, thus linking task performance measures to specific affective states experienced while performing a task and their general trait versions reported in connection with the language classes. Teacher interviews provide further insights into the language tasks used by the teachers of the students taking part in the study and their affective correlates. The book offers multi-level interpretations of the results, puts forward pedagogical implications, and delineates further research directions.

 

I graduated from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in 1999; I obtained an MA degree in English language and literature with teaching qualifications and also an MA degree in psychology. My interest in both psychology and English prompted me to enroll in the Language Pedagogy Ph.D. program at ELTE, where studying various individual differences and their links with language learning, focusing in particular on learners' performance in language tasks, were the primary focus of my interest. I received my Ph.D. in language pedagogy at ELTE in 2009, my dissertation study centered on establishing relationships between psychometric creativity (as measured by a divergent thinking test) and different facets of language learners' narrative task performance. I have also been teaching at ELTE since 2000, first as an assistant lecturer and (for over 10 years now) as an assistant professor. Besides administering courses in our School's BA, MA, teacher training and Ph.D. programs, I have also been involved in designing courses, supervising students, and preparing talented students for various national competitions, and I have participated in various materials development and research projects. Several of these research projects have focused on investigating language teaching and learning in the public education sector in Hungary; the most recent one, the Research Program for Public Education Development of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which provides funding for the MTA-ELTE Foreign Language Teaching Research Group, assisted me in writing this book. Besides publishing several articles and book chapters alone and with my colleagues, I recently wrote a monograph on learners' creativity and narrative task performance, which was published in an online series by Akadémiai Kiadó in Hungary. Several of my recent articles have been written on the topic of studying emotions in connection with language learning, which highlights my interest in the affective aspects of language acquisition.Writing this book gave me a chance to argue for the importance of affective factors in the language learning process and suggest innovative ways of researching them in educational contexts.