Academic Emotions and Emotional Validation as Motivating and Demotivating Factors in the ESL Classroom: A Mongolian Case Study

Abstract

Introduction. Emotions experienced in the classroom significantly affect learners’ and educators’ motivation. In foreign language learning, emotions are of critical importance, since learners are acquiring not only a language but new structures of thinking and new cultural elements. Method. In this study, 70 Mongolian students and eleven teachers responded to questionnaires or interviews. The data from students were analysed by taking percentages of their responses by gender group, while narrative analysis was applied to the teachers’ responses. Results. The data suggest that male and female students display different emotions during foreign language acquisition. Both groups perceived educators’ feelings similarly to their own emotions. They stated that a good or bad teacher could alter their learning success. Teachers experienced a variety of positive emotions, but their enthusiasm readily decreased if students did not reciprocate. Teachers perceived and understood learners’ emotions, but were not always able or willing to take them into consideration. Discussion. The present study finds that both students and teachers consider emotions in the classroom and towards one another to be crucial. Positive emotions are always conditioned by the other party’s behaviour. Validation of (sometimes negative) emotions is regarded as a great motivational tool that can transform negative attitudes into positive ones.