A Study On The Influence Of English Teacher Support On Foreign Language Enjoyment Of Junior High School Students

Foreign language enjoyment(FLE),one of the most popular positive emotions in foreign language learning in recent years,is closely related to individual learners and the external environment.In China,teachers work as the external factor that most directly affects students.Their provision of support has an important influence on the formation of students’ FLE.In recent years,some studies on teacher-related factors of FLE have emerged at home and abroad.Most of them,however,only summarize teacher-related factors of FLE,while the inquiry into the influence of specific teacher-related factors on learners’ FLE is not deep enough.For instance,the influence of teacher support,a specific teacher-related factor of FLE,on learners’ FLE.In addition,most studies have focused on college students to explore the influencing factors of their FLE.However,research has found that younger language learners embody lower levels of FLE(Dewaele et al.,2018;Dewaele & Mac Intyre,2019).Therefore,younger age groups of foreign language learners such as middle school students at the basic education level should also receive corresponding attention in the research on FLE.In view of this,this study took 403 students from three grades of a junior high school in the southern region as research participants and adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore English teacher support and FLE around the following three questions:(1)What is the level of English teacher support perceived by junior high school students?(2)What is the level of junior high school students’ foreign language enjoyment?(3)To what extent does teacher support influence junior high school students’ foreign language enjoyment?Through the analysis of the questionnaire survey data and the results of semistructured interviews,the following conclusions are drawn:Firstly,English teacher support perceived by junior high school students is at an upper-moderate level,indicating that most junior high school students can feel the support from English teachers.Among the four dimensions,students perceive a higher level of teachers’ academic support and emotional support than that of autonomy support and competence support.Besides,students’ perception of teacher support is not significantly different in gender,but it is significantly different in grade.Secondly,the FLE of junior high school students is at a relatively high level.Most students show enjoyment in the course of learning English,and especially present a higher level of FLE from the dimension of teacher.There is no significant difference in FLE between male and female students.Students of different grades,however,show a significant difference in FLE.Finally,English teacher support perceived by junior high school students is positively correlated with their FLE and have a positive and significant influence on FLE,which can predict learners’ FLE to some extent.Among the four dimensions,teachers’ emotional support has the greatest influence on students’ FLE,followed by academic support,autonomy support,and competence support,but all of them have positive and significant influences on FLE in different degrees.Based on the above findings,this study provides relevant suggestions from three aspects: junior high school English teachers,junior high school English learners,and school administration,in order to improve the level of teachers’ rational use of teacher support and stimulate students’ foreign language enjoyment.