Student Engagement in the Language Classroom

This book defines engagement for the field of language learning and contextualizes it within existing work on the psychology of language learning and teaching. Chapters address broad substantive questions concerned with what engagement is or looks like, and how it can be theorized for the language classroom; methodological questions related to the design, measurement and analysis of engagement in language classrooms and beyond; as well as applied issues examining its antecedents, factors inhibiting and enhancing it, and conditions fostering the re-engagement of language learners who have become disengaged. Through a mix of conceptual and empirical chapters, the book explores similarities and differences between motivation and engagement and addresses questions of whether, how and why learners actually do exert effort, allocate attention, participate and become involved in tangible language learning and use. It will serve as an authoritative benchmark for future theoretical and empirical research into engagement within the classroom and beyond, and will be of interest to anyone wishing to understand the unique insights and contributions the topic of engagement can make to language learning and teaching.

Phil Hiver is an Assistant Professor at Florida State University, USA. His research interests include instructed language learning and the role of psycho-social factors in second language teaching and learning.

Dr. Ali H. Al-Hoorie is an assistant professor at the English Language Institute, Education Sector, Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. He completed his PhD degree at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Professors Zoltán Dörnyei and Norbert Schmitt. He also holds an MA in Social Science Data Analysis from Essex University. His research interests include motivation theory, research methodology, and complexity. His publications have appeared in a number of journals including Language Learning, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, ELT J, Language Teaching Research, and Learning and Individual Differences. He is also the co-author (with Phil Hiver) of the upcoming book Research Methods for Complexity in Applied Linguistics and a co-editor (with Peter D. MacIntyre) of Contemporary Language Motivation Theory: 60 Years Since Gardner and Lambert (1959).

Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching and Head of ELT Research and Methodology at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research interests include all aspects of psychology related to the learning and teaching of foreign languages and she is co-editor of Multilingual Matters’ Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching book series.