Recent years have witnessed a shift in empirical investigations of language learners' willingness to communicate (WTC) from quantitative studies examining the ways in which WTC antecedents co-act and contribute to communication, treating the concept as a stable characteristic, to a mixed-methods approach that allows the examination of stable behavioral tendencies and dynamic changes brought about by contextual variables. The rationale behind this study comes from the assumption that more profound understanding of motives underlying learners' readiness or reluctance to speak may help create classroom conditions that facilitate communication, thus contributing to linguistic attainment. More specifically, the study represents an attempt to tap factors that shape advanced learners' WTC during conversation classes in four different groups of students. Each time, the data were collected by means of self-ratings (i.e. indications of the level of WTC on a scale from −10 to +10) and immediate reports (i.e. questionnaires including closed and open-ended items). A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed that the extent to which WTC fluctuated was impacted by a range of contextual and individual factors. It was enhanced in particular when students were given the opportunity to communicate with familiar receivers in small groups or pairs on topics related to personal experiences.

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The regulation of language learners’ emotions by affective, or emotion-regulation strategies has received limited research attention. This gap is being filled among others by researchers who have developed and are applying a new research tool called Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning (MYE). It is based on the vignette methodology to investigate both positive and negative language learner emotions, emotion-regulation strategies that language learners employ, and language teachers’ interpersonal learner-directed emotion-regulation strategies used in a range of familiar language learning situations. In this study teachers’ interpersonal emotion-regulation strategies and their learner- and teacher-perceived effectiveness were investigated by means of MYE ( n = 64: English-major learners) and semi-structured interviews with learners ( n = 16) and teachers ( n = 9). The results revealed a rich context- and participant-dependent list of language teachers’ interpersonal emotion-regulation strategies, the frequency of which was perceived differently by language learners and teachers, who, however, agreed on their good effectiveness. The strategies belonging to the categories of ‘cognitive change’, ‘situation modification’ and ‘competence enhancement’ were used the most often, but some gaps in teachers’ strategic repertoires were also identified. Pedagogy-wise, MYE seemed to be suitable for closing the gap between learners’ and teachers’ perspectives on teachers’ learner-directed emotion-regulation strategy use. Teachers and their pedagogical practice would benefit from training in the area of emotion-regulation strategies and support of educational authorities.

The relationship between foreign language anxiety (FLA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) experienced during a creative collaborative oral English-as-a-foreign-language task, and the relationships between FLE/FLA and task speech fluency were investigated. The task was performed by mid-intermediate/high-intermediate English learners ( N = 43) in groups and culminated in 2-minute monologues by every participant, the breakdown (the ratio and length of mid- and end-AS unit pauses) and speed (mean length of run, articulation rate, and phonation time ratio) utterance fluency of which was measured. The relationship between FLA and FLE fluctuated between task parts, form negligible to medium-strong negative. There were numerous negative links between FLA and fluency, and less numerous positive links between FLE and fluency of various strength. These lend support to earlier claims that FLA is associated with impaired second language (L2) outcomes and positive emotions may facilitate L2 learning/performance. The links between fluency and FLA and FLE experienced during collaborative L2 processing/practice preceding the monologue the fluency of which was examined were more frequent and stronger than links with the emotions during the monologue, pointing to the possible depletion and improvement of L2 processing caused respectively by FLA and FLE especially during this stage. The emotions were linked especially with fluency indices associated with speech formulation/encoding. In regression analyses, proficiency was the strongest predictor of fluency, followed by much weaker predictive power FLA and then FLE, which may be related to participants’ relatively high L2 advancement. The results imply that L2 teachers exploit the emotional impact of learning tasks and attend to the emotional atmosphere of L2 classes, especially their enjoyability.