Positive Psychology in SLA

Peter D. MacIntyre, Tammy Gregersen, Sarah Mercer, Peter D. MacIntyre, Tammy Gregersen, Sarah Mercer

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783095377
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Enseignement des arts du langage

Positive psychology is the scientific study of how human beings prosper and thrive. This is the first book in SLA dedicated to theories in positive psychology and their implications for language teaching, learning and communication. Chapters examine the characteristics of individuals, contexts and relationships that facilitate learning: positive emotional states such as love, enjoyment and flow, and character traits such as empathy, hardiness and perseverance. The contributors present several innovative teaching ideas to bring out these characteristics among learners. The collection thus blends new teaching techniques with cutting-edge theory and empirical research undertaken using qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods approaches. It will be of interest to SLA researchers, graduate students, trainee and experienced teachers who wish to learn more about language learning psychology, individual differences, learner characteristics and new classroom practices.

1	Introduction
	Tammy Gregersen, Peter D. MacIntyre and Sarah Mercer

A hand making ripples in the water struck us immediately as an embracing and suitable image for our book on positive psychology in applied linguistics. For us, water represents an ever-moving and changing environment in which we can be fully immersed. As individuals, we can influence our environments, we have agency and exercise it at times by extending a hand to others. We can cause perturbations in our surroundings, sending ripples from the slightest action that might expand to create waves from even the smallest of actions. It is this interaction of context and individual, their complete symbiosis with the potential for human agency that so captures how we feel about socially situated views of human psychology in language practice. The positivity flows fluidly from the inherent hope in having agency to be able to affect our lives and those of others, as well as how we think and feel about them.

In their seminal article outlining positive psychology, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) each wrote about a source of inspiration for them. That idea appeals to us as well, as we write about positive psychology in SLA. As editors, we have each taken one element from our cover image (hand, ripple, water) to tell our personal story about a source of inspiration that describes why positive psychology appeals to us, stories that we would like to share with readers.

When Tammy saw the hand causing ripples in the water, her mind was immediately drawn to another famous pair of hands that acted as agencies of positive change, reaching out in a most sacrificial of ways to literally ‘pay it forward’. The story is of the Dürer brothers, Albrecht and Albert, who grew up in 15th-century Nuremberg. Both were incredibly gifted artists; both wanted to pursue their talents in art school. As two of 18 children, their goldsmith father had to labor 18 hours a day to feed the family. The boys understood that their parents could never afford to finance either of them to study. After many long conversations, the brothers came to the decision that they would leave their fates to the flip of a coin. The winner would attend the academy, while the other earned money in the depths of the nearby mines. Upon completion of art school, the winner would finance the other’s art education either through artwork sales or, if need be, by toiling in the mines. Albert lost the toss, and slogged away in the dangerous mines. Albrecht, the winner, attended school, financed by his brother. His etchings and woodcuts became an immediate sensation, netting sizeable sums for his commissioned art. After four years, the young artist’s homecoming was a festive affair with a family meal full of music and laughter. At dinner’s end, from his honored place at the head of the table, Albrecht rose to deliver a toast to his beloved brother’s long years of sacrifice. He extolled Albert’s good will and told his cherished brother that it was now his turn to go to Nuremburg to pursue his dream. Albert, tears streaming down his face, slowly shook his head from side to side and sobbed, telling his brother that he could not go. Holding his hands close to his face he softly lamented that it was too late, that four years in the mines had ruined his hands. Every bone in every finger had been broken at least once, and his arthritis was so bad that he could not even return his brother’s toast, much less use his hands to make the delicate motions demanded by parchment or canvas. Several years later, to honor Albert for everything he had forfeited, Albrecht Dürer meticulously drew his brother’s battered hands, palms together and fragile fingers stretched skyward. He called his powerful drawing simply Hands, and, after 450 years, many are now familiar with only that one famous piece of Dürer’s work.

Tammy continually challenges her pre-service language teachers by asking whether there is a more poignant reason for becoming a teacher than to ‘pay it forward’. She is inspired by the symbolism of the hands in this story because it suggests that no one ever accomplishes treasured dreams alone, that it is in the context of community that important goals are achieved.

Peter’s inspiration is related to the notion of ripples; it comes from a story by Art Buchwald, who was a fascinating American satirist and humorist. Buchwald’s humor skewers the wealthy and privileged and his sentiments have always appealed to Peter, but one story in particular touched his heart. ‘Love and the Cabbie’ tells of Buchwald’s harrowing taxi ride through the busy streets of New York with one of his most optimistic friends. When the driver delivered his passengers safely to their destination, the friend gave a genuine, unexpected compliment to the driver along with a nice tip. After some convincing that the praise was both genuine and well earned, the driver accepted the compliment and went about the rest of his day. A small seed had been planted. The driver was now going to have a slightly better day than he otherwise would have, and maybe he will be a little nicer to his next passengers, who, being just a little happier themselves, would be a little nicer to their family and friends. In this way, one small random act of kindness might reach 1000 people in a single day.

Peter has used this story during workshops on teaching and with his positive psychology students for several years. For him, the meaning of the story continues to grow. Peter sees in the story the ways that teachers can affect students in positive ways through even the smallest gestures – a compliment on an otherwise dismal paper, a casual conversation about the student’s hopes for the future, or a few days’ extension on a project when the student would rather not say why it is needed. As the ripples grow, students touch each other, their family, friends and, potentially, strangers. With growing language ability, they can communicate their humanity to more and more people, even in the smallest of ways; this is how learning a language helps make the world just a little better than it otherwise would have been. Positive psychology, to Peter, is all about the little ripples of positivity that spread, often without anyone noticing. But what a thing it is when you start to notice those little ripples! The chapters of this anthology provide an abundance of ways of both noticing and appreciating the little ripples, and creating new ones.

For Sarah, water is her favorite element. She grew up on boats and around water, lakes, seas and the ocean. She learned to have a deep respect for water in all its forms. Sarah loves swimming, preferably outdoors in open water, whether lakes, rivers or the sea, although she is keen to point out that she is most definitely an amateur who typically enjoys a 10-minute paddle or a soothing float rather than any strenuous swimming. Recently, Sarah had the opportunity to take part in a charity swim and she jumped at the chance. It was an excellent way for her to get fitter, spend more time in her favorite element and do something worthwhile for a good cause. She trained for a year, some days more, some days less, and all too soon the day itself arrived. Despite some initial nerves, Sarah was just keen to get on with it and enjoy the experience, which she truly did. The atmosphere featured people, many much more out of their comfort zone than she, all challenging themselves in various ways and almost exclusively for the benefit of others; it is an experience she will never forget.

Sarah profited in so many ways from that swim, sharing the challenge with others, engaging with a meaningful purpose that inspired their collective action, watching as others pushed themselves to their limits. Sarah witnessed first-hand how we are capable of so much more than we sometimes believe but, with the right mindset, we can reach beyond the limits of our own minds. This is what positive psychology is about for her. It has the potential to dramatically alter how we cope with things, how we look at life, what we believe about ourselves and others, and how we go about living. Over time, and with cooperation among people, we can change our circumstances and even the physical conditions in which we live.

Like water, human psychology is powerful, precious and needs to be treated with great respect and care. It too is constantly shifting and moving, intimately connected with others in a complex ecology that can cover an incredibly diverse range of emotions and forms, and, ultimately, can be both powerfully constructive and destructive. While much research in psychology has examined how to cope with and manage the destructive forces, less attention has been paid to the positive powers and aspects of psychology that allow us to flourish, even in the most barren settings. In this collection, our focus is on the positive dimensions of psychology, on how we can make the most of our potential as humans; we explore the strengths we have, how we can build on these, how we can promote positive relationships within our ecologies with others, and how we can foster positive nurturing environments.

In this volume, readers will have the opportunity to explore evidence concerning the strengths that enable both language learners and teachers to thrive individually and in communities. Authors of the chapters in this collection consider what makes language learning meaningful and fulfilling. Rather than focusing on the traditional, often negative concerns that we have had in applied linguistics milieus (e.g. aptitude problems, non-native-like speech, subtractive bilingualism, high anxiety, demotivated students), colleagues in this volume focus on strengths and building upon the assets of learners and teachers. Without neglecting the importance of previous work or making a caricature of it, we attempt to demonstrate the importance of positive psychology concepts such as positive emotion, empathy, love, engagement, hope, enjoyment, meaning and relationships, among others.

Rebecca Oxford’s chapter is a thorough introduction to positive psychology that helps to organize familiar themes in applied linguistics as well as introduce concepts that have not yet been studied in this area. Oxford uses Seligman’s (2011) description of the PERMA paradigm as a base, expanding its applications to language learning and teaching. Her innovative vision, referred to with the acronym EMPATHICS, is an exhaustive exploration of the pivotal attributes that empower some language learners and teachers to achieve success, while, at the same time, it provides insight into why and how others struggle. The chapter offers a comprehensive explanation of the crossroads where positive psychology meets applied linguistics and will surely be a well cited contribution.

Following Oxford’s contribution, we have divided the remaining contributions into three parts: theoretical, empirical and applied. Sarah Mercer opens Part 1, ‘Theoretical’, with a call for greater understanding of empathy in language learning and teaching. She discusses the importance of empathy from both learner and teacher perspectives. For learners, empathy fosters an appreciation and understanding of other cultures, and demands interaction with diverse others through a foreign medium, as well as understanding of peers in class. For teachers, empathy provides the tools for positive group dynamics and a facilitative learner-centered classroom experience. Mercer takes both social relationships and interpersonal skills as central concerns in studying empathy.

Joseph Falout’s chapter draws readers’ attention to the need to appreciate, investigate and cultivate learners’ past selves in juxtaposition to their future selves. He carefully explores the similarities and connections between remembered past selves and imagined future selves, and demonstrates how past selves can help or hinder language learning. He establishes the importance of past selves in L2 learning and provides ways for learners to reconstruct their own and their classmates’ past L2 selves for the purposes of nurturing positive emotions and greater engagement in their present, experiencing selves, which results in superior guidance, adaptation and selfconsistency in language learning.

The final chapter in Part 1, by Ana Barcelos and Hilda Coelho, addresses the seemingly ‘forbidden emotion’ of love in applied linguistics literature. The authors begin their argument by discussing some myths and misrepresentations about love in education and then present several different definitions of love that can be found in education and social sciences. They conclude by highlighting the interrelationship of love, language learning and teaching as they reflect on how this intersection can instill a better quality of life in the classroom for teachers and students.

In the opening chapter of Part 2, ‘Empirical’, Tammy Gregersen, Peter MacIntyre and Margarita Meza suggest that some techniques for fostering one’s positive emotions may be more effective than others. Using a mixed- methods approach, they trace the emotional growth of five learners of academic English over the course of a 12-week, one-on-one mentoring program. The effects of positive psychology exercises (including music, exercise, animals, laughter, gratitude and altruism) were tracked using a selfreport Likert-type scale whereby participants rated their moods at various times within each session. Respondents also wrote journals at the conclusion of each of the meetings. The authors suggest that building ‘social capital’ (a network of relationships that provide resources) and the individualization of the positive psychology activities were the most important factors in the success of the mentoring program.

Phil Hiver examines novice language teachers’ struggles to find hope. He creates a strong case for examining the seemingly hopeless demands of first-year professionals from a supportive perspective. Based on the data he collected, Hiver argues that making sense of hope sometimes requires despair. However, not all novice teachers continue past their first few months in the profession – some feel futility and hopelessness, ironically reinforced by their supervisors, and cannot extract themselves from the downward spiral. Yet, for others, although it might decline initially, hope can be regained by generating goals and forging pathways to those goals that establish a sense of control over life events. These agentic feelings are associated with treating hardships as problems that can be solved, rather than insurmountable obstacles. Hiver’s evidence suggests that hope and hardiness interact adaptively to provide positivity to novice teachers, allowing them to anticipate ebbs and flows in their careers. He concludes that the intimate link between a hopeful teacher’s sense of purpose and the process of developing hope within one’s teaching persona will ultimately help novice teachers thrive in the profession.

Éva Czimmermann and Katalin Piniel offer data suggesting that flow experiences in the language classroom are characterized by optimal levels of task difficulty, together with concentrated engagement in a motivating activity that offers manageable challenges over which the participant perceives an adequate level of control. Their study tested advanced Hungarian language learners’ classroom and task-specific flow as well as anti-flow (boredom, apathy and anxiety). Using a variety of quantitative measures, their results show that the majority of the participants experienced both classroom and task-specific flow. Flow and anti-flow states in the language classroom were linked with particular tasks and situational characteristics, but not task modes. These results led Czimmermann and Piniel to encourage language teachers to plan for different ways to engage learners’ attention by using a variety of relevant and interesting activities to enhance the positive language learning experience.

In a mixed-methods study, Jean-Marc Dewaele and Peter MacIntyre associated enjoyment and anxiety in the foreign language classroom with the left foot and the right foot of the language learner. Their results from a principal components analysis of 29 items given to over 1700 learners from around the world revealed three dimensions, labelled Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety, Foreign Language Enjoyment – Social, and Foreign Language Enjoyment – Private. Supporting the quantitative results is a series of excerpts from the participants who were asked to describe enjoyable episodes in the foreign language class. Surprisingly, some of the most enjoyable episodes involve what might be considered risky or even illadvised teaching techniques, such as singling out students and making fun of errors in the classroom. Consistent with Csikszentmihalyi (2008), the authors highlight the risk that is inherent in episodes that learners report as being most enjoyable.

Using quantitative analytic techniques, J. Lake demonstrates how positive psychology constructs can be integrated with language learning motivation and self-related theories through structural equation models. Lake argues that the specificity of self-related constructs and their measurement need to be clarified and then modelled appropriately. He includes a global level, where positive self-concept references the whole person, a domain-specific level, where positive L2 self-references the person within the L2 domain, and even more specific concepts of L2 self-efficacy and proficiency. Lake’s conclusions suggest that although focusing on content and communication has an important place in the language classroom, teachers may also want to consider helping learners develop positive identities for personal growth, which may contribute to a flourishing self.

Connecting innovative ideas about language learning motivation and positive psychology tenets, Zana Ibrahim used in-depth interviews to investigate the effect of Directed Motivational Current (DMC) experiences. DMCs are prolonged surges of intense motivation that occur when a combination of contextual and personal/group parameters come together at an appropriate time to create powerful momentum directed towards a valued goal/vision. DMCs are defined as having a self-propelling property. Ibrahim defined one of the focal features of a DMC as the positive emotionality that is linked with a learner’s enjoyment and triggered by the realization that progress is being made towards potentially life-changing language-related goals. Ibrahim successfully argues that a steady presence of eudemonic happiness, fueled by future visions and anticipatory emotions, results in personal growth, self-realization and improved personal skills. He concludes that DMCs have the potential to alter the interpretation of negative emotions such as anxiety and boredom in light of feelings of happiness and prosperity that operate on a longer timescale.

The final chapter of Part 2, ‘Empirical’, marks a cross-over to Part 3, ‘Applied’. R. Kirk Belnap, Jennifer Bown, Dan P. Dewey, Linnea P. Belnap and Patrick R. Steffen share initial results of ‘Project Perseverance’, a training program to prepare learners for success in intensive study. The aim of their intervention is to empower students to become effective self-regulating language learners, especially in those circumstances that generate intense negative emotions that challenge their identity, specifically study abroad. The authors report on 52 English-speaking students of Arabic who participated in pre-program training for an intensive semester-long program in Amman, Jordan. On-site in Jordan, learners were coached almost daily...