The Effects of Foreign Language Enjoyment and Future Selves on Learning English

Abstract

Recently, there has been considerable academic interest in the positive emotions of language learners. As a contribution to this field, the aims of this study were to identify foreign language pleasure (FLE) patterns and their relations with language learning motivation. A total of 145 Korean university students joined the study and their responses to surveys related to the FLE and L2 future selves were analyzed. It was found, first, that there were three underlying FLE factors named Teacher-facilitator enjoyment, Private-internalized enjoyment, and Social enjoyment. Second, these factors were mostly correlated with L2 future selves. It also indicated that ought-to L2 self and the first and third FLE factors were not related to self-perceived proficiency, unlike ideal L2 self and the second FLE factor, that is, Private-internalized enjoyment. Lastly, the result of mediation analysis suggested that private-internalized enjoyment serves as a mediator in the way ideal L2 self affected self-perceived proficiency. The implications based on the findings were discussed.

Keywords:

• Foreign language enjoyment
• ideal L2 self
• language learning motivation
• ought-to L2 self
• positive emotion

Notes

1 According to Kenny (2016), effect sizes can be regarded as small, medium, and large for 0.01, 0.09, 0.25, respectively (to find similar discussion, see Preacher and Kelley, 2011).