





































Education, Language and Sociology Research 

ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 5, No. 1, 2024 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

38 
 

Original Paper 

Current Status and Prospect of Research on Foreign Language 

Learning Enjoyment 

Yuting Yang1 

1 School of English Studies, Xi’an International Studies University, Xi’an, China 

 

Received: November 27, 2023   Accepted: December 23, 2023   Online Published: January 12, 2024 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v5n1p38    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v5n1p38 

 

Abstract 

This study adopts the literature research method to analyze a total of 20 empirical studies on foreign 

language learning enjoyment from 2018 to 2023, and the results show that foreign language enjoyment 

positively predict foreign language learning effectiveness, and foreign language enjoyment plays a 

mediating role between second language grit and other factors such as communicative willingness. 

However, most of the previous studies focus on college students from urban areas, and the research 

methods are mainly quantitative, with few tracking studies and qualitative interviews. Thus, future 

research can pay more attention to lower grade students from rural areas, and increase observational or 

tracking studies to enhance the research reliability. 

Keywords  

second language acquisition, foreign language learning, enjoyment emotions, positive psychology 

 

1. Introduction 

For a long period, second language acquisition was regarded by scholars as a brain-driven and 

emotionless process (Dewaele et Li, 2020). It was not until MacIntyre and Gregersen first introduced 

positive psychology into the second language acquisition field and proposed that positive emotions can 

improve foreign language learners’ ability to focus on new things during language learning process and 

help learners absorb more linguistic information (MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2012), that scholars began to 

realize that second language acquisition was a process influenced by emotions, and started a systematic 

exploration of what roles learners’ emotions play in the process of second language acquisition 

(MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2012; Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014) . 

Positive psychology advocates the positive side of psychology, studies the positive mental qualities of 

human beings, and pays attention to the health, happiness, and harmonious development of human beings.  



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Inspired by the fundamental theory of positive psychology, broaden-and-build theory, scholars have 

categorized emotions into positive and negative emotions and explored the different influencing 

mechanisms of positive and negative emotions on foreign language learning (MacIntyre & Gregersen, 

2012). Based on the fact that the research on foreign language learning emotions in China is still in the 

developmental stage, this study searches and sorts out 20 core studies focusing on foreign language 

enjoyment emotion published from 2018 to 2023, and analyzes the current status of the field in terms of 

its definitional connotation, theoretical foundation, research content, research background, and research 

methodology, and provides relevant topics for the future research on positive emotions in the field of 

second language acquisition.  

 

2. Definition and Theoretical Basis of Foreign Language Enjoyment 

2.1 Conceptual Connotations 

Enjoyment is one of the basic emotions of human beings, including specific emotions such as happiness, 

pleasure, gladness, etc. It refers to the psychological state of pleasure, tranquility, peace, and fulfillment 

that people bring to their hearts when they feel the external things or the surrounding environment. 

Generally, enjoyment emotions have two major sources: internal state of mind and external environment. 

Scholars’ definition of foreign language enjoyment mainly focuses on the emotional characteristics of 

the emotion. Foreign language enjoyment is one of the positive emotions experienced by most learners 

in the process of foreign language learning, which can effectively improve foreign language learners’ 

classroom participation and foreign language learning efficiency (Saito et al., 2018). 

Dewaele and MacIntyre defined foreign language enjoyment as “a broad range of positive emotions 

experienced by foreign language learners during the process of engaging in language learning activities”, 

and they collected empirical data to compare foreign language enjoyment and anxiety, pointing out that 

foreign language enjoyment is a sense of achievement and reward through breakthroughs in challenging 

foreign language activities, which can contribute to personal well-being and self-development (Dewaele 

& MacIntyre, 2014). Teimouri defined foreign language enjoyment as “the positive emotions that 

language learners experience during the process of learning or using the target language, either in a 

specific pedagogical context or in an authentic, real-life situation (Teimouri, 2018)”. Based on the 

control-value theory of academic emotion, Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia argued that enjoyment 

belonged to the category of activity emotion, which was a positive emotion with high arousal (Pekrun & 

Linnenbrink, 2012). Learners are likely to feel enjoyment when they perceive positive value in academic 

achievement activities and when they are learning to the best of their ability. Dewaele and MacIntyre 

pointed out that enjoyment not only occurred when people’s needs are met, but also motivated them to 

continue to do something new or unexpected (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2016). Jin and Zhang believed that 

enjoyment was the most important emotion for foreign language learners in second language acquisition 

field, and they thought enjoyment was a type of trait-like enjoyment perceived by foreign language 



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learners in a foreign language learning situation, and it was closely related to the academic situation (Jin 

& Zhang, 2018). 

It can be concluded that scholars agree foreign language enjoyment is a positive feeling produced by 

learners in foreign language learning process that promotes the motivation of learning foreign language, 

and is highly situational in nature, and has a close relationship with the teacher and the learning 

environment. It’s shown that foreign language enjoyment can significantly promote learners’ foreign 

language learning effectiveness and enhance students’ classroom experience, thus promoting foreign 

language learning efficiency (Li, 2022; Dong & Liu, 2022). In addition, foreign language enjoyment is 

positively related with learners’ foreign language achievement. When learners’ foreign language 

achievement improves, foreign language enjoyment will be improved accordingly, and the learners may 

have better performance in the subsequent foreign language learning process; on the contrary, if learners’ 

foreign language achievement is lower than expected, foreign language enjoyment will be reduced, or 

even negative, which will have negative impact on foreign language learning. Therefore, most of the 

existing emotion research has been devoted to explore interventions to enhance positive emotions and 

reduce negative emotions, with the aim of maximizing positive emotions during the learning process to 

stimulate students’ passion for foreign language learning and improve the efficiency of foreign language 

learning. 

2.2 Theories Related to Foreign Language Enjoyment Research 

Academic emotions are an important area of research in educational psychology, among which theories 

of the causes of learner emotions in second language acquisition have sparked a great deal of discussion 

among scholars. Broaden-and-build theory and control-value theory are the two core theories in the field 

of emotion research in second language acquisition. Broaden-and-build theory believes that negative and 

positive emotions exist simultaneously and play different roles in foreign language learning process; 

control-value theory was proposed by Pekrun in 2016, the three-dimensional framework of this theory 

advocates defining academic emotions in terms of the three dimensions of potency, activity, and targeting, 

which is considered the most comprehensive and systematic theory of academic emotions at present 

because of its focus on the causes of emotions and the comprehensive explanation of the cyclical 

relationship between academic emotions, their antecedents, and their consequences. In addition, there 

are other theories of emotion causes including control-process theory, emotion attribution theory, well-

being theory, and so on. 

The 20 collected studies are mostly based on control-value theory, for example, Li and Han investigated 

the levels of enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom and the relationship among the three emotions of non-

English-major freshmen in online foreign language classes in China through questionnaires from the 

perspective of control-value theory, explored the individual and collaborative predictive effects of the 

three emotions on the learning effectiveness of the online foreign language classes, and it is confirmed 

that foreign language boredom has more negative effects on foreign language achievement than foreign 

language anxiety does (Li & Han, 2022). Based on the control-value theory, Li analyzed how foreign 



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language enjoyment and foreign language boredom are related to the internal factors of the learners and 

the teachers, and found that foreign language emotions are affected by both learners and teachers, and 

suggested that foreign language classrooms should increase the number of activities that promote foreign 

language enjoyment and reduce boredom (Li, 2022). However, the theory has not paid enough attention 

to foreign language teachers so far, which could be a breakthrough for future research. In addition, most 

of the studies based on extension-construction theory and control-value theory have been conducted 

mainly offline, so the applicability of these theories of emotion causes to other learning modes remains 

to be explored. Some of the collected studies only reviewed and described foreign language emotion 

theories in the literature review section (Mihai et al., 2022), but did not explain the connection between 

the research questions and theories, and failed to use these theories to explore the research findings in 

depth. 

 

3. Research Methodology and Research Questions of Foreign Language Enjoyment 

3.1 Research Methodology 

In empirical research, the research methodology includes the nature of the research method used 

(quantitative/ qualitative/ mixed methods), the number of subjects, the research instrument, the 

instrument reliability, and validity as well as the type of study and the cycle time of the study. Among the 

20 studies, there are 16 quantitative studies, for example, Dewaele and Li used a questionnaire to collect 

information from 1415 subjects to investigate the relationship between self-efficacy, foreign language 

enjoyment and English proficiency, and Wei et al. also used a questionnaire to confirm the mediating role 

of enjoyment in the relationship between linguistic thinking patterns and willingness to communicate 

with a second language (Wei, Wu, & Chen, 2021). There are 3 qualitative studies, specifically, Cui and 

Meng used questionnaires and interviews to study the relationship between college students’ self-efficacy, 

foreign language enjoyment and English proficiency (Cui & Meng, 2023). There is only one mixed-

method study, that is, Li et al. adopted a mixed-method approach to test the reliability and validity of the 

Chinese version of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (FLES) (Li, Jiang, & Dewaele, 2018). The 

sample sizes of the 20 studies range from 6 to more than 2,000, and most of the quantitative instruments 

are the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (FLES) and self-reported scales, while the qualitative 

instruments include interviews, writing questionnaires, as well as Q&A, and some of the quantitative 

studies are accompanied by English language tests. Of all the studies, six report the reliability of the 

questionnaires, and in terms of the type of study, all the studies are cross-sectional, with no experimental 

or tracking studies, and most of the studies are conducted only once. 

3.2 Research Questions  

According to the analysis of the collected studies, it is found that the current research on foreign language 

enjoyment emotions mainly focuses on the following aspects. 

First, correlations between foreign language enjoyment and other emotions such as anxiety, boredom, 

and grit (Li C. & Li W., 2023). For example, foreign language boredom has a more negative impact on 



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foreign language enjoyment than foreign language anxiety, and enjoyment has a small to moderate 

negative correlation with anxiety, a medium to high negative correlation with boredom, while anxiety 

has a small to moderate positive correlation with boredom (Dong & Liu, 2022). 

Second, the predictive effect of enjoyment on foreign language learning effectiveness is also one of the 

focuses of research. For example, Jin and Zhang investigated the different aspects of the construct of 

foreign language enjoyment and how these aspects affect the pattern of foreign language learning 

effectiveness, and the analysis results showed that foreign language enjoyment has a direct effect on 

students’ English performance, while teacher-supportive enjoyment and peer-supportive enjoyment 

indirectly affect English performance through foreign language enjoyment (Jin & Zhang, 2018). Based 

on the control-value theory, Li and Li investigated how three emotions, enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety, 

affect foreign language learning achievement among junior high school students in rural China, and the 

results showed that enjoyment was the strongest predictor of foreign language learning achievement (Li 

C. & Li, 2023). Dong and Liu examined the effect paths of foreign language enjoyment on foreign 

language achievement through structural equation modeling, and showed that foreign language 

enjoyment significantly and positively predicted foreign language learning outcomes (Li & Han, 2022). 

Third, other factors that affect foreign language enjoyment are also a major part of the research. Anna 

and Hande investigated the extent to which positive language education improves learners’ enjoyment of 

a foreign language based on the extensional-constructive theory (Anna & Hande, 2023). Rezazadeh and 

Zarrinabadi investigated the different aspects of “need for closure” and “need for cognition” that can 

directly or indirectly predict anxiety and boredom in a foreign language by means of a self-report 

questionnaire, confirming that cognitive factors play an integral role in the development of learners’ 

emotions (Rezazadeh & Zarrinabadi, 2023). In addition, teachers also play an important role in promoting 

students’ foreign language enjoyment, and their educational practices such as classroom task design, 

value orientation of classroom activities or content, emotional intervention and emotion regulation can 

enhance students’ positive academic emotions (Mihai, 2022; Jiang & Dewaele, 2019). Thinking styles 

also have an impact on foreign language enjoyment, for example, based on the control-value theory and 

thinking mode theory, Li et al. found that there were significant differences in the levels of foreign 

language enjoyment and anxiety among students with different types of thinking styles by one-way 

ANOVA, which further supported the applicability of control-value theory in second language 

acquisition field from the perspective of the individual (Li et al., 2023). A comparative study of the extent 

to which Chinese students’ foreign language enjoyment and foreign language anxiety differ from those 

of foreign students was conducted, and it was found that there were similarities and differences between 

domestic and foreign students in terms of foreign language emotions, and finally it was suggested that 

foreign language enjoyment is more likely to be stimulated by teachers, while foreign language anxiety 

is more related to students’ internal factors. 

The fourth one is the mediating role of foreign language enjoyment in teaching and learning. For example, 

Wang explored the effect of second language grit on selected English majors’ communicative intention 



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and the mediating role of foreign language enjoyment and anxiety through structural equation modeling 

method by using the expansion-construction theory and control-value theory as the theoretical framework 

(Wang, 2023). The results showed that foreign language enjoyment was significantly positively 

correlated with communicative intention, and anxiety was negatively correlated with it. Wei et al. 

investigated the effects of emotional intelligence on the second language communicative intention of 

selected Chinese non-English-major freshman, and also tested the moderating role of linguistic thinking 

patterns and learning emotions by means of a questionnaire survey and structural equation modeling, 

which confirmed that emotional intelligence had a direct predictive effect on second language 

communicative intention, and enjoyment played an important role in the moderation of linguistic 

thinking patterns and learning emotions in the moderating role of linguistic thinking patterns and learning 

emotions, which also confirmed Pekrun’s control-value theory which holds that positive learning 

emotions can enhance learners’ cognition, effectively regulate learning behaviors, and increase learning 

engagement. 

The fifth is studies examining the relationship between self-efficacy, foreign language enjoyment and 

English proficiency. For example, Dewaele and Li examined how foreign language enjoyment and 

foreign language anxiety are related to foreign language learning effectiveness and self-accomplishment 

based on the control-value theory from six aspects, and the results showed that learners’ self-efficacy 

could better predict foreign language enjoyment and anxiety than actual foreign language test scores do. 

Dong examined the predictive effects of foreign language learning control-value ratings on anxiety and 

enjoyment in the foreign language classroom by Chinese English language learners, and the study 

verified the effectiveness of the control-value paradigm of academic emotions in second language 

acquisition (Dong, 2022). Based on the perspective of positive psychology, Cui and Meng explored the 

relationship between self-efficacy, foreign language enjoyment, and English proficiency of 276 college 

students who were not majoring in English through a questionnaire survey and interviews, and some of 

the results showed that personal foreign language enjoyment was related to classroom atmosphere. 

Foreign language enjoyment mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and English proficiency 

(Cui & Meng, 2023). 

Finally, research scholars continue to validate the reliability and validity of the foreign language 

enjoyment scale. The development of the scale requires the collection of data from a large number of 

learners of different ages and levels of foreign language learning to validate the reliability and validity 

of the scale statistically, so that the scale can be more widely used. Li et al. confirmed the reliability and 

validity of the Chinese version of the foreign language enjoyment scale through a quantitative-qualitative 

mixed-methods approach in Anhun province of China, and the results showed that the reliability and 

validity of the Chinese version of the foreign language enjoyment scale were good, and that students’ 

foreign language enjoyment experiences were most influenced by teacher factors, secondly by self- 

enjoyment, and least influenced by environmental enjoyment( Li, Jiang, & Dewaele, 2018). This further 



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confirmed Dewaele et al.’s earlier finding that teachers play a key role in stimulating students’ foreign 

language enjoyment experiences (Dewaele et al., 2017).  

 

4. Discussion 

In this paper, the research background and research methodology are discussed differently for the 

convenience of discussion. The research background refers to the research area, the native language of 

the subjects, the target language, the current level of foreign language, the level of education of the 

learning model, and the major, etc. The papers are sorted according to the last name of the authors of the 

20 collected studies, and the specific backgrounds are shown in Table 1. 

 

Table 1. Overview of the Background of Research on Foreign Language Enjoyment 

 

Studies 

 

Country 

area 

Native 

language of 

learners 

foreign 

language study 

mode 

Foreign 

Language 

Study Segment 

Anna & Hande 

(2023) 

Turkey Turkish  Off-line College students 

Cui & Meng 

(2023) 

Shandong Chinese  Off-line Sophomore and 

Junior 

Dewaele & Li 

(2022) 

China Chinese  Off-line Second-year 

senior 

 

Dong (2022) 

A province 

of Western 

China 

 

Chinese  

 

Off-line 

 

First-year senior 

 

Dong & Liu 

(2022) 

A province 

of Western 

China 

 

 

Chinese  

 

Off-line 

 

First and 

second-year 

senior 

Jiang (2020) Beijing Chinese  Off-line Freshman 

Jiang & Dewaele 

(2019) 

Beijing Chinese  Off-line Freshman 

Jin & Zhang 

(2021) 

Shandong Chinese  Off-line First-year senior 

 

Li (2022) 

 

China 

 

Chinese  

 

Off-line 

Undergraduate 

and graduate 

students 



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Li et al. (2018) Anhui Chinese  Off-line Senior high 

students 

Li et al. (2023)  Beijing Chinese  Off-line Freshman 

Li& Han 

(2022) 

China Chinese  On-line Freshman 

Li & Li 

(2023) 

Anhui Chinese  Off-line First-year junior 

Mihai et al. 

(2022) 

Romania Romanian On-line Freshman and 

sophomore 

Rezazadeh & 

Zarrinabadi 

(2020) 

Iranian Persian Off-line Undergraduates 

Wang (2023) Shanghai Chinese  Off-line Sophomore 

Wang et al. 

(2023) 

Northeaster

n China 

Chinese  Off-line Sophomore 

 

Wei et al. 

(2021) 

Shanghai, 

Jiangsu, 

Guizhou, 

Liaoning 

 

Chinese 

 

Off-line 

 

Freshman 

Yang (2023) Iranian Persian  Off-line Bachelor of Arts 

Zhang et al. 

(2021) 

Shanxi Chinese  On-line Sophomore 

Note. English is the target language for all participants 

 

Table 1 shows that the foreign language enjoyment studies are mainly conducted in China (16 studies) 

and relatively few in other countries, Iran (2 studies), Turkey (1 study), and Romania (1 study). As far as 

the native language background is concerned, the corresponding 16 studies were in Chinese and the rest 

were in Persian, Turkish and Romanian. The target language of all the above studies is English. 12 out 

of 20 studies has reported subjects’ foreign language proficiency (one of them is an English language 

teacher), and only 3 subjects’ learning mode is online. In terms of subjects’ educational level, only one 

of them targets middle school students in rural areas, while the rest studies target senior students such as 

college school students from universities, and the group of university students was also dominated by 

non-English majors. 



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The current research on foreign language learning enjoyment mainly focuses on its predictive effect on 

foreign language learning effectiveness, the relationship between foreign language enjoyment and other 

foreign language learning emotions, and exploring the mediating role of foreign language enjoyment. In 

recent years, the research in this field has become more and more perfect, but there are still some 

limitations, for example, as far as the subject learning mode is concerned, there are few studies exploring 

the online and offline mixed mode, so the future research can pay more attention to the process of mixed-

mode foreign language teaching, and beside the most common offline and online teaching modes, the 

future research can also consider the impact of some innovative learning modes on foreign language 

learning emotions. In addition, the selection of research objects is biased toward senior students in urban 

areas, while less attention is paid to students in the lower sections from rural places. What’s more, the 

research methodology of the existing studies is relatively limited, and most of the studies are based on 

cross-sectional and quantitative method, lacking observational or tracking studies. In the future, the study 

of foreign language enjoyment can take these limitations as breakthroughs to further perfect the study of 

foreign language enjoyment. 

 

5. Conclusion and Prospect 

The introduction of positive psychology in the second language acquisition has changed the focus of 

foreign language emotion research, scholars began to focus on foreign language enjoyment emotions, 

opening up the era of second language acquisition emotion research dominated by positive emotions, 

stimulating the interest of many scholars at home and abroad in the study of foreign language enjoyment, 

and the goal of positive psychology coincides with the concept of quality education, so we advocate 

positive education should be applied in foreign language teaching, maximize the positive emotions of 

students in the process of foreign language teaching, and then enhance students’ foreign language 

achievement and happiness. 

In this paper, 20 studies on foreign language enjoyment from 2018 to 2023 are sorted out, and the current 

status of some of the existing studies on foreign language enjoyment is presented by analyzing and 

organizing the research content, research background and research methodology: 

First of all, from the perspective of research methodology, the existing research is mostly quantitative, 

while qualitative and mixed research is relatively lacking, and the number of cross-sectional studies is 

far more than tracking or experimental studies, most of the data collection is based on questionnaires, 

and there is almost no classroom observation or tracking records, so future research can increase the 

proportion of qualitative methods, and tracking as well as experimental studies are encouraged to enhance 

the reliability of the data. 

Secondly, from the perspective of research objects, most of the research on foreign language emotions in 

China takes college students and other senior students as the objects, especially lacking of investigations 

on junior students in primary and secondary schools in rural areas like Northwest China. Under the 

premise of the national strategy of developing the western region, the educational research should pay 



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more attention to the students in the more remote areas. In addition, very few scholars have taken foreign 

language teachers as the objects of research, but teachers play an important role in foreign language 

teaching, therefore, future research can increase the study of the emotions of students in the lower grades 

in remote areas as well as the foreign language teachers. 

Thirdly, from the viewpoint of the learning mode of the research objects, most of the studies are mainly 

offline, and the studies focusing on online learning account for a relatively small proportion, while in the 

information age, online learning mode is becoming more and more common and online learning plays 

an important role in cultivating students’ independence, so the future research on foreign language 

enjoyment should pay more attention to the online mode or the online-offline mixed mode. 

Finally, most of the studies only focus on the traditional foreign language teaching classroom, ignoring 

some other foreign language learning and education scenarios, for example, extracurricular speaking 

classes, English speech contests, English corners, and other learning scenarios, so that future studies can 

also start from these aspects to carry out a wider study of foreign language enjoyment emotions under 

foreign language learning scenarios. 

There are still gaps in foreign language enjoyment studies that need to be explored. Enjoyment emotions 

are widely present in foreign language learning process, and studies have proved that foreign language 

enjoyment can effectively improve students’ foreign language classroom experience as well as the 

effectiveness of foreign language learning. Therefore, future research can adopt the concept of positive 

foreign language education and explore classroom interventions that can effectively enhance foreign 

language enjoyment to increase the sense of academic achievement for students as well as the sense of 

occupational well-being for teachers. 

 

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084527
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2018-7_12
https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1798972
https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12297
https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2019.1614184
https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12511
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1098916
https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.32358
https://scholar.cnki.net/journal/index/SJES240584403474
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13887

