Influential Factors Of Senior High School Students’ English Classroom Enjoyment ——A Qualitative Analysis Based On Focused Writing And Interviews

With the introduction of Positive Psychology into the field of Second Language Acquisition,researchers have shifted away from an exclusive focus on negative emotions to an inclusive focus on abundant emotions in foreign language learning especially positive emotions.Increasing scholarly attention has been attracted to Foreign Language Enjoyment that is a typical positive emotion and is one of the most frequently experienced emotions in language learning.Although a number of studies have yielded some fruitful results,a few researchers have made inquires into the student-related factors and teacher-related factors in English Classroom Enjoyment employing the method of focused writing within the English classroom contexts from the students’ perspective and scant attention has paid to the senior high school students’ English Classroom Enjoyment.Hence,for the purpose of enriching the research field,the present study is conducted to probe into the the student-related factors and teacher-related factors in senior high school students’ English Classroom Enjoyment through focused writing and interview.To be specific,the research questions addressed in this study are:1)What are the student-related factors in senior high school students’ English Classroom Enjoyment?What are the categories of the student-related factors?2)What are the teacher-related factors in senior high school students’ English Classroom Enjoyment?What are the categories of the teacher-related factors?The study adopts qualitative method including focused writing and interviews.The focused wiring consists of the general information of participants including Class and Gender and Focused Writing Task that asks students to recall the most enjoyable event,episode or experience of senior high school English classes and to generate details about the class as much as possible with some Prompts better promoting students to complete their writing tasks.A total of 170 senior two students from a four-star senior high school participated,but only those valid focused writing essays were used for analysis,generating a sample of 153 usable focused writing essays.All the 153 participants were divided into 38 high achievers（the top 25%of all the participants）and 38 low achievers（the bottom 25%of all the participants）according to their scores of the final examination of the fall semester during the academic year from 2021 to 2022.Focused writing was administered and collected on November 23rd,2021.Students’ focused writing essays were input into NVivo Version 11.0 at first to form 256 fragments（51 student-related fragments and 205 teacher-related fragments）,and then by means of open coding and axial coding based on Grounded Theory,these fragments were categorized into two main student-related categories（Self-related factors and Peer-related factors）and five main teacher-related categories（Teaching Activities,Teacher Support,Teachers’ Personalities and Characteristics,Teaching Skills and Teaching Content）.The semi-structured interview was adopted to verify and supplement the results of the focused writing and the interview data were collected from a semi-structured interview,where 9 students whose focused writing essays offer valid information with three high achievers（the top 25%of all the participants）,three medium achievers and three low achievers（the bottom 25%of all the participants）.The interview was undertaken in Chinese and the interview data were transcribed in English for in-depth analysis.Detailed analysis of focused writing essays and interview transcriptions yields the findings as follows:Firstly,the student-related factors can be categorized into five preliminary categories including Attitudes towards English,Realization of Progress,English Academic Performance,Peer Atmosphere and Peer Recognition.Then Attitudes towards English,Realization of Progress,English Academic Performance were reintegrated into Self-related factors while Peer Atmosphere and Peer Recognition were refined into Peer-related factors.Two main categories containing Self-related factors and Peer-related factors were finally extracted.Self-related factors occupy 64.7%while Peer-related factors account for 35.3%.Specifically,as for Self-related factors,Attitudes towards English are mentioned the most frequently by the participants（15 fragments）containing Feeling Interested in English（9 fragments）,Feeling Fond of English（4 fragments）and Feeling Important to Learn English（2 fragments）.Realization of Progress（11 fragments）ranks second.English Academic Performance（7 fragments）is mentioned the least frequently by the participants.There are some differences between high achievers and low achievers in Self-related factors.Compared with low achievers,high achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Attitudes towards English and English Academic Performance.Compared with high achievers,low achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Realization of Progress.When it comes to Peer-related factors,Peer Atmosphere is mentioned the most frequently by the participants（15 fragments）followed by Peer Recognition（3 fragments）.There is almost no difference between high achievers and low achievers in Peer-related factors.Secondly,the teacher-related factors can be categorized into nine preliminary categories including Teachers’ Personalities and Characters,Teaching Activities,Appraisal Support,Emotional Support,Informational Support,Teaching Content,Teaching Aids,Teachers’Instructional Language and Teaching Methods.Then Appraisal Support,Emotional Support and Informational Support were reintegrated into Teacher Support,and Teaching Aids,Teachers’ Instructional Language and Teaching Methods were refined into Teaching Skills.Five main categories including Teaching Activities,Teacher Support,Teachers’ Personalities and Characteristics,Teaching Skills and Teaching Content were finally extracted.Teaching Activities come the first,accounting for 26.3%followed by Teacher Support（23.9%）.The percentage of Teachers’ Personalities and Characteristics is 22.9%with Teaching Skills occupying 21.0%and Teaching Content making up 5.9%.To be specific,as for Teaching Activities,Group Work is the most frequently mentioned teaching activity（26 fragments）,followed by Competitions（15 fragments）,Role-plays（5 fragments）,Games（5 fragments）,Book Sharing（3 fragments）.There are some differences between high achievers and low achievers in Teaching Activities.Compared with low achievers,high achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Group Work and Competitions.In terms of Teacher Support,Emotional Support（23 fragments）is mentioned the most frequently by the students with Appraisal Support（18 fragments）ranking second followed by Informational Support（8 fragments）.There are some differences between high achievers and low achievers in Teaching Activities.High achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Appraisal Support while low achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Emotional Support.When it comes to Teachers’Personalities and Characteristics,Humor is the personal trait mentioned the most frequently by the students（20 fragments）,with Gentleness（11 fragments）ranking second and Friendliness（7 fragments）ranking third followed by Patience（5 fragments）.Enthusiasm and Extroversion have 2 fragments each.There are some differences between high achievers and low achievers in Teachers’Personalities and Characteristics.Compared with high achievers,low achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Patience.With regard to Teaching Skills,Teaching Aids（21 fragments）are mentioned the most frequently by the participants,followed by Teachers’ Instructional Language（16 fragments）and Teaching Methods（6 fragments）.There are some differences between high achievers and low achievers in Teachers’Instructional Language.High achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from teachers’ fluent and standard instructional language while low achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from teachers’ vivid and clear instructional language.With respect to Teaching Content,Content Related to the Daily Life（9 fragments）is mentioned the most frequently by the participants,with Content Related to Other Subjects（2 fragments）ranking second followed by Stories（1 fragment）.There are some differences between high achievers and low achievers in Teaching Content.Compared with low achievers,high achievers’ English Classroom Enjoyment comes more from Teaching Content.In view of the research findings,some pedagogical implications are proposed to achieve beneficial results on senior high school students’ English Classroom Enjoyment.Firstly,teachers should attach importance to learners’ English Classroom Enjoyment and take student-related and teacher-related factors into consideration.Meanwhile,teachers should closely cooperate with students to create a comfortable,active and productive learning environment.Also,teachers should make continuous efforts to improve their professional qualities.