Why do Moroccan English Foreign Language learners experience more Peace of Mind (外语平和心态) than Chinese EFL learners and how does it affect their performance?

Abstract

The current study considers the effects of the Chinese low arousal emotion Foreign Language Peace of Mind (FLPOM) and the medium-to-high arousal emotion of Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) on the performance of 400 Chinese and 502 Moroccan English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The database consists of two merged datasets collected with the same instruments from learners with comparable profiles for English. The data on Chinese EFL learners was collected and used in Zhou et al. (Applied Linguistics Review, 2023a) while the data on Moroccan EFL learners was used in Dewaele and Meftah (Journal of the European Second Language Association, 2023); Dewaele et al. (Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 2023a). The comparison revealed that all students reported higher levels of FLE than FLPOM. Moroccan students scored significantly higher on FLPOM and FLE than their Chinese peers. They also had significantly higher scores on the FLE Personal dimension. Finally, FLPOM was more strongly associated with performance than FLE among the Moroccan EFL learners, confirming the pattern in Zhou et al. (Applied Linguistics Review, 2023a). FLPOM did explain slightly more variance in the performance of Chinese EFL learners. Pedagogical implications are presented.