A Study Of Emotion Regulation Strategies For College English Learners In Blended Learning

Emotion in Second Language Acquisition is the focus of research in the field of second language acquisition,because emotion largely affects learning effectiveness.With the development of information technology driving the popularity of education informatization,blended learning has emerged.Psychological research shows that human emotions are influenced by the environment.In this new teaching environment,how learners’ emotions are affected and how they regulate their emotions are worthy of study.Therefore,exploring English learners’ emotion regulation strategies in the blended learning can help second language learners to get better learning effect and emotional experiences,and promote further development of College English teaching mode in China.The subjects of the study were freshmen in the 2021 class of non-English majors at a university in Chongqing.The research instruments included questionnaires and interviews.A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods was used to investigate the following research questions:(1)What is the current status of the use of emotion regulation strategies of learners with different English proficiency in the blended learning?(2)Are there differences in the use of strategies? If so,what are the differences?(3)What are the factors that affect learners’ use of emotion regulation strategies in blended learning?According to questionnaire survey,College English learners in the blended learning are generally not good at using emotion regulation strategies,but they used more strategies related to study preparation,indicating that the learners are still stuck in their secondary school test-taking-oriented study habits.There are significant differences in the employment of situation selection,developing competence,and cognitive reappraisal among learners of different English proficiency,with low proficiency learners mainly adopting situation selection and cognitive reappraisal strategies,while middle and high proficiency learners preferred to adopt developing competence.There are insignificant differences between the three groups in the three dimensions: behavior modulation,redirect attention,and seeking social support.From the interviews,the study found that the main factors that influenced the learners’ different emotion regulation strategies are: learners’ adaptability to the learning environment,learners’ autonomous learning ability,past learning experiences,motivation type,and their learning peers.Faced with a blended learning model that was very different from the learners’ high school learning,due to the lower proficiency learners’ adaptability to the learning environment,their lower autonomous learning ability,their lower English proficiency,and their unpleasant past learning experiences,they have negative emotions in the blended learning.They regulated their negative emotions due to the difficult and complex learning content by abandoning the learning activities or toning down their assessment of their English level.However,with the help of peers in the learning group who could provide learning and emotional support,as well as supervision of independent learning,they are able to try to solve the problems so as to overcome the negative emotions.The flexible learning schedule and the rich online learning resources in blended learning endow intermediate and high proficiency learners with enjoyment,and these two groups of students are more likely to use the online learning resources to avoid the negative emotions caused by possible learning failure thanks to their high autonomous learning ability.Finally,due to the differences in their own learning motivation and study habits,some intermediate and low proficiency learners are not accustomed to the online learning and classroom activities of blended learning,and still insist on the test-oriented learning style.In summary,it is hoped that the findings of the study promote the development of learning effectiveness and psychological well-being of College English learners while providing ideas and suggestions for teachers to improve and refine the blended learning model.