This study is intended to understand teaching quality of English student teachers when they conduct their teaching practicum. Teaching quality is conceptualized based on the principles of effective teaching resulted by teacher effectiveness studies. Thes IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 293 Employing Blended Literature Circles to Foster Activating Academic Emotions of Struggling Readers DAVID IMAMYARTHA 1 , EKA WAHJUNINGSIH 2 , ARETA PUSPA 3 , MITASARI 4 , SITI MASRIFATUL FITRIYAH 5 , RIZKI FEBRI ANDIKA HUDORI 6 , RIKA ANDAYANI 7 , ZAKIYAH TASNIM 8 , AAN ERLYANA FARDHANI 9 , SITI SUNDARI 10 , AND BAMBANG ARYA WIJAPUTRA 11 Abstract Grounded within academic emotion and transactional reading theory, the present study investigates the understudied struggling readers’ academic emotions after taking part in three blended literature circles in an English class at tertiary education. Thirteen Physics Education students partook in the research. Data were garnered by open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, the results of which were analyzed by directed content analysis bound to Academic emotion theory. The research findings explicate that blended literature circles pave the path to propelling reading-to-learn endeavors. Despite sub-optimal reading proficiency, the students’ academic emotions depict the efforts towards achievement goals, primarily laden with a mastery approach, and social goals through dialogic reading in blended literature circles. Keywords Academic emotion Blended literature circle, content-and-language integrated learning 1 a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University, Indonesia 2 a senior full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University 3 a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University 4 a graduate from the Department of English Education of Jember University 5 a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University 6 a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of State University of Jakarta 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 a senior lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 294 Introduction Requiring copious literacy skills, reading denotes an enigma to struggling readers for they even still grapple with below sentence-level comprehension because they are incapable of decoding texts (Swanson, 1986), text comprehension (Paris & Oka, 1989), operationalizing complex metacognitive strategies (Worthy & Invernizzi, 1995), and applying comprehension strategies (Bakken et al., 1997). Struggling readers with low self-efficacy oftentimes think they are unable to improve their reading. Venegas (2018) posits that these learners require more balanced learning to develop their literacy skills. Students in 21 st -century education are in fact empowered to excel their learning toward deep learning when they are liberated to share ideas and take part in the thinking process (Gee, 2001). To this end, applying a combination of collaborative activities denotes the key to improving literacy (Flint, 2010), equity in learning (Gee, 2001), positive attitude toward English learning (Shih & Reynolds, 2015), and learning engagement in inter-and intra-mental processes (Maine, 2013). Grappling with the complexity of reading instruction for struggling readers, teachers need to attend to students’ academic emotionality as this determines their learning outcome (Pekrun et al., 2011; Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). Considering the multifaceted impacts of emotion on language instruction (Macintyre & Gregersen, 2012; (Pishghadam et al., 2016), the present study aims to foster struggling readers’ activating academic emotions through blended literature circles. By extension, it aims to narrow the empirical gap concerning struggling readers as current literature is predominantly occupied with developing their self-efficacies (Cho et al., 2015), motivation (Dreher, 2003; Hall, 2005), and engagement (Hall, 2005). The following research inquiries inform the present study: a) What are the profiles of students’ academic emotions when engaged in blended literature circles? b) How do the students’ academic emotions influence their shared reading as a meaning-making process? Literature Review The psychological bases of blended literature circles Learners co-construct knowledge when engaged to collaborate within a specific learning context (Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). They point out that learner’s competencies develop in mental processes when activating those processes in tandem with their peers (Bodrova & Leong n.d.). It is this socio-constructivist nature that is related to Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD portrays the distance between the learner’s actual development and the potential development as triggered by independent problem-solving in collaboration with more competent partners or with the support of the teacher (Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). Along with Vygotsky’s theory, Louise M. Rosenblatt’s transactional reading theory also guides the present study. He contends that reading represents a two-way undertaking, which involves IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 295 text and readers along with their prior language and world knowledge to construct meaning (Rosenblatt, 1982) The present study believes that literature circles meet what the aforementioned theorists consider essential within the sociocognitive facet of English learning, that is meanings created through social interactions lay the cornerstone for meaningful enduring learning (Gee, 2001; Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). Literature circles have been acknowledged to result in the development of reading comprehension and critical thinking (Thein et al., 2011), critical awareness and interdependence (McCall, 2010; Widodo, 2016), leadership (Certo, 2011), and engagement (McElvain, 2010; Eeds & Wells, 1989). The theoretical bases of blended literature circles Reminiscent of Pizzi's (2014) work, the notion of blended is motivated by the premise that to develop the best academia teachers need to adapt to students’ changing needs. The present study proposes one model of literature circles, blended literature circles (henceforth BLC). The traditional literature circles are defined in numerous ways, yet still allude to such common properties as students’ freedom to choose any forms of literature, mini-group discussion, student-centeredness, and role assignment (Widodo, 2016; Cameron et al., 2012). In this study, BLC is defined as shared reading involving distinctive roles and emphasizes the involvement of technology (internet, tablet, laptop, and smartphone) upon completing each role and extension project. Blended learning leads to a stronger learning community to achieve knowledge construction (e.g., Rose & Ray, 2011; Rovai & Jordan, 2004). The ubiquity of technology has brought the concept of hypermedia into blended learning, which is deploying multimedia to access mounds of information (Mohamad et al., 2015). Armed with hypermedia, BLC can be an apt avenue for teachers to enhance their practices to prepare students for a technological society. This section unravels conceptual congruence between blended learning and literature circles which pave the enactment of BLC. These include 1) self-directed learning, 2) learning community, 3) dialogic space, 4) multimodality, 5) attending to students’ diversities, 6) scaffolding, and 7) multidimensional learning processes. Pondering this congruence, BLC is in harmony with the notion of literature circles in that such learning structure involves 3Cs involving content, communication, and construction (Kerres & Witt, 2003). The empirical bases of blended learning in literature circles A recent study by Day and Kroon (2010) which investigates online literature circles in middle-grade class has revealed that online literature discussion poses rippled impacts to the classroom discussion since students are exposed to numerous textual and, more importantly, multimodal resources which encourage students to read more. Their study on undergraduate students found two important findings from online literature circles: (1) the students are engaged and excited and (2) they embarked on technology trials and triumphs. Whittingham (2013) adopted the idea of literature circles for his online class involving 18 college students. The online literature circles have created a better dialogic space which motivates his students to collaborate more with their peers. The personal and shared reading IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 296 becomes way more meaningful as they read for communicative purposes with structured foci. The students also reported more ownership over their learning and a more supportive community of learning. Bromley et al. (2014) conduct an experiment focusing on undergraduate students involved in digital literature circles. Although their study does not include virtual discussion, the power of technology in face-to-face discussion has afforded the students with richer multimodal resources. The combination of online inquiries with face-to-face learning aids in transforming traditional literature circles in ways which enrich digital research, reading comprehension, and literacy analysis. The online research enables the students to gain myriads of information, enriching their schemata and exposing them to the wealth of lexical as well as multimodal resources. Academic emotions and instructional practices Emotions stemming from achievement processes, such as learning, or achievement outcome, such as test grades, are viewed as achievement emotions (Pekrun et al., 2011). The fundamental premise to the emotionality-grounded analysis of the study is that academic emotions play an essential role to empower students’ learning, performance, identity development, motivation, and health (Macintyre & Gregersen, 2012; Pekrun, 1992). Emotions also bear a significant impact on learning a foreign language (Macintyre and Gregersen, 2012), and (Pishghadam et al., 2016). However, emotionality in foreign language learning has not gained much attention (Pishghadam et al., 2016). The control-value theory (CVT) (see Pekrun, 2006) for an overview) emphasizes the ways by which a student’s appraisal of certain context influences his achievement emotions. Pekrun et al. (2007) highlight three-way taxonomy of academic emotion, pertaining to valence, activation, and focus. In regard to focus, two academic emotions are of crucial concern: activity emotions pertinent to current achievement-oriented activities and outcome emotions associated with the activity outcomes. Furthermore, activity emotions and outcome emotions are categorized according to the valences (positive vs. negative or unpleasant vs. pleasant) and also the levels of activation (activating vs. deactivating). (Meyer, 2014) suggests that instructional activities drive students’ emotions. It has also been suggested that learning support and classroom management are influential to students’ emotions. Kunter et al. (2013) have affirmed that classroom management, cognitive challenge, and resultant process, and learning support substantially determine learning enjoyment. Other works (e.g., Goetz et al., 2013; Schweinle et al., 2008) demonstrate that classroom management and teachers’ learning support, such as constructive response, respectful interactions, and proper pacing, affect students’ enjoyment. Referring to CVT, BLC is presumed to play role in the environment dimension, particularly with respect to the task, social support, and achievement environments. This initial notion presumes the direct link between BLC and students’ academic emotion through control-value appraisals, which escalates students’ literacy performance, resulting from increased cognitive resources, motivation, and strategies. IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 297 Figure 1. Control-value theory in achievement emotion (Pekrun, 2006) Pekrun (2006) highlights four academic emotions associated with learning. These include achievement emotions, topic emotion, epistemic emotion, and social emotions. a. Achievement emotions are concerned with achievement activities as well as the success and failures from these activities. b. Topic emotions are germane to the lesson topic. Positive and negative topic emotions can trigger or obstruct interest in learning. c. Epistemic emotions are concerned with the cognitive problems upon dealing with new tasks. These include surprise, curiosity, confusion, and frustration from the task. d. Social emotions correspond to teachers-students and students-students interaction in collaborative learning. These can include sympathy, compassion, envy, contempt, admiration, or social anxiety. The present study highlights several reasons for introducing BLC in reading instruction. First, the concept of BLC has remained under-explored. Several studies have delved into the low-tech mode of literature circles, eventually leaving technology-empowered counterparts under researched (see Bromley et al., 2014; Day & Kroon, 2010; Gill & Islam, 2011) The second reason is to scrutinize how students are emotionally engaged in BLC. In other words, this study aims at investigating whether BLC is supportive to reading instruction, as indicated by academic emotions, among sub-optimally proficient readers. Lastly, previous studies on literature circles do not employ any specific theoretical framework underpinning their analysis (Bromley et al., 2014; Certo, 2011; Day & Kroon, 2010; Whittingham, 2013). The present study is grounded in the priory assumption of incremental growth of struggling readers’ activating academic emotions resulting from blended literature circles. Methodology Research design, site, and participants The present study involved thirteen female and two male students with ages ranging from 19-20 years old. They were students of Physics Education who were enrolled in a IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 298 course titled English for Physics Education at an Indonesian state university. These participants were recruited on the basis of their poor reading performance. This was indicated by 60% correct answers on average in a reading assignment where they had to complete eight multiple-choice questions to a text containing 266 words with a Flesch Reading Ease Score of 69.7. The text and questions were adopted from a TOEFL course book published by an international publisher. The authors were lecturers at the university where the research participants were enrolled. In order to counter-balance bias, each author was assigned a different role: either teacher or interviewer. Data collection and analysis The class was conducted for 100 minutes each meeting for 16 meetings in a one-and-half month. Three blended literature circles served as the focus of the study, wherein the participants worked in a group sharing different roles. Across different readings, they were encouraged to shift the roles to allow different experiences in the shared readings. The topics in the literature circles pertained to Using Technology in Teaching Physic, Teaching Physics to Children, and Using Games in Teaching Physics. The students held the autonomy to choose one out of three texts provided in each topic. These texts had reading ease levels which ranged from 36.00 to 64.00. This reading ease range was pondered appropriate to ensure a sense of accomplishment among the research subjects, students of the non-English education department. Drawing on previous works on literature circles (Cameron et al., 2012; Day & Kroon, 2010; Whittingham, 2013), the roles shared among the students were as follow: a. Discussion Leader leads group discussion and formulates probing questions b. Paragraph Master is required to search and document key passages found throughout the reading selection c. Connector locates the connections between the texts and the students’ life. d. Summarizer composes a summary covering both the text and the result of the discussion. e. Illustrator creates a digital mind map or poster representing the gist from the texts. After completing their task, each group created a digital storytelling project to showcase the results of the group discussion. BLC emphasizes the use of online tools and resources and also in extension projects subsequent to the literature circles. This attends to the back-end version of blended instruction where online resources are engaged in order to review and reinforce what has been learned in class discussion (Rose & Ray, 2011). The back-end model allows for the gradual transfer of control from the teacher to the students. The extension projects, taking the form of digital posters and storytelling, facilitated the presentation of each role’s work. To collect the data, this study involved open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview anchored to the notion of academic emotions, allowing the researchers to establish priory criteria upon data analysis, yet remain open to unexpected meanings. The present study also deployed (Braun & Clarke, 2006) thematic analysis. This entails an analytical strategy for identifying, analyzing, and accounting for themes extracted from collected data (Braun & Clarke, 2006), aimed at portraying the presumed increment of IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 299 activating academic emotions of struggling readers after being engaged in BLC. The participants’ names were made pseudonym. Pekrun's (2006) framework was applied as priory themes in guiding data analysis. There were four categories of questions, encompassing achievement emotion, social emotion, epistemic emotion, and topic emotion, each of which was atomized into two specific questions. Both instruments, along with their use, were operationalized in the Indonesian language. The students completed an open-ended questionnaire concerned with academic emotion at the end of the course. To clarify the findings from the questionnaire, we interviewed three participants, the results of which were also analyzed using the same analysis technique. These students were chosen based on the richness of their responses to the open-ended questionnaire. Findings and Discussion This study scrutinized the EFL readers’ academic emotions after being engaged in three BLCs. It disclosed several vignettes of academic emotion. The findings were elaborated in a retrospective manner, followed by a relatable discussion. Students’ vignettes on achievement emotions The students reported positively activating academic emotions in achievement context. These emotions led to engaging literature circles, expanded vocabulary knowledge, deeper understanding, enhanced grades, and spoken English proficiency. The instrumental orientation for passing course requirements was evident, yet this goal eventually turned into an integrative orientation of mastering English driven by discipline-related content. Eve reported the value of having a technology-assisted project subsequent to the literature discussion. “My motivation was to learn working on shared reading and creating poster project using technology. This helped me to learn vocabulary. I hoped through being involved in such teamwork that I could speak English fluently and solve problems I faced in learning English.” [Eve - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] The discussion offered learning opportunities for the learners so they were able to excel not only in what was being assigned but also in what was important to them, which was being proficient in spoken English. The dialogic space fostered the students to expand their vocabulary by exposing themselves to specific academic discourse. Zee also voiced the same idea about the motivation for learning vocabulary. “BLC supported me to research more information related to the assigned topic for gaining a deeper understanding and also vocabulary knowledge specific to my subject. This helped me to be familiar with specific vocabulary related to my major (Physics).” [ Zee - Interview, 7 th March 2018] IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 300 BLC contributed to the value approach as the students envisaged shared trial and triumph associated with BLC. Certo (2011) contends that shared reading, which triggers active engagement, gives impetus to social and leadership development and develops a reading community wherein students can work collaboratively for deeper understanding (Rose & Ray, 2011; Rovai & Jordan, 2004). Nea pointed out how BLC encouraged her to become a better team member as she worked together. She mentioned that social goals allowed her to gain a better understanding in an engaging learning environment. “My motivation was to be a better member of my group discussion, so we were able to solve problems. BLC motivated us to collaborate with the other group members, which led to better and deeper understanding as well as a more challenging learning experience.” [Nea - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] Regardless of instrumental orientation manifest in the pursue of high marks, integrative orientation, as depicted by the mastery approach, was also at work. Sally voiced the goal for an increased grade, but she was also concerned with the increment of her English proficiency. BLC gave the impetus to the learners’ mastery approach due to the exposure to authentic texts relevant to their major. “My motivation was to improve my grade and to enhance my English proficiency. BLC helped me to achieve these goals as it afforded topics familiar to me, therefore keeping me encouraged to recall my knowledge pertinent to the information presented in the text and retell the ideas I had learned using my language through the extension project. “ [Sally - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] Referring to Sally, the transactional reading facilitated the learners to escalate their speaking fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary mastery, as she embarked on creating video. BLC sparks robust enthusiasm for mastery goals, performance goals, and social goals. These impacts concomitantly result in positively activating emotions. Students’ vignettes on topic emotions The students’ familiarity with the topics provided was vital to accruing motivation and interest in learning English. The disciplinary content enthused the students not only to learn English but also to deepen their discipline-related understanding. This was exemplified by the following response. “The topics were very interesting as they were related to my daily life, which then encouraged me to learn more after I read the texts concerned with the use of technology and multimedia in Science learning.” [Queen - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] Physics-related content in BLC created enduring positive attitudes towards language learning and the learning of content knowledge (Roiha & Sommier, 2018). Another vignette from IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 301 Eve manifested a positive attitude toward Physics learning and English learning, which resulted from familiar and self-rewarding topics in the discussion. “The topics given were very familiar to me and interesting as they were related to the integration of technology into education, which motivated me to use the existing technology.” [Eve - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] “I really liked the topic since I was familiar with it. Also, I found the task of finding additional texts more achievable because I had the freedom to choose the texts. “ [Zack - Interview, 7 th March 2018] The students above voiced the link between ownership over their learning and self-efficacy as well as self-regulated learning. Students’ interest and engagement were escalated when literacy activities and students’ own lives were connected. The intrinsic values bridge the cognitive quality of task structures with positively activating emotions of enjoyment and hope to reach the utmost of their learning. Students’ vignettes on epistemic emotion At the onset of literature circles, the teacher-led talk was prominent before full control was entrusted to the students and they worked in tandem to gain an understanding of the texts and solve problems due to language breakdown, as voiced by the following students. “Learning through BLC was very supportive as we were motivated to share and discuss the readings in our team. This helped me to make meanings based on the texts as I obtained support from my friends.” [Queen - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] “The task helped me to focus on important parts of the text to gain meaning, rather than trying to find out every single meaning from each word. Also, the use of technology was really engaging as I could use my smartphone and laptop to complete a mind map summarizing the whole discussion, thus helping me to better understand the texts. Creating the mind map was also challenging as I had to make sure that I designed the right visual properties.” [Dee - Interview, 7 th March, 2018] The group discussion created a community of engaged struggling readers, encouraged them to be committed to their learning progress, and enhanced the learning experience upon dealing with multimodal discourse. As Dee mentioned, the negotiation on multimodal discourse triggered students’ critical thinking. The observation revealed that the students deployed idea reinforcement in Bahasa Indonesia to negotiate and clarify meaning. Therefore, translation was pivotal in meaning negotiation within academic discourse. Littlewood and Yu (2011) point out that using native language in discussion motivates students and helps to clarify word meaning. These struggling readers gradually obtained their self-efficacy, as expressed by the following comments. IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 302 “The use of the internet helps me to tackle the problems of unfamiliar words and difficult pronunciation and it motivates me to find the answer to inquiries related to the text using online resources.” [Via - Questionnaire, 2nd February 2018] “The learning activities in BLC were relevant to the current development where technology has been much advanced. As I could use the internet, I had the access to retrieve abundant of information from many resources, which helped me to solve problems understanding the overall and detailed information in the texts.” [Sally - Questionnaire, 2nd February 2018] All of the students commented that they had never done even the traditional literature circles, as implied by the unfamiliarity with the task. One of the students in the interview, Zack, made the following comment; “When I was in senior high school, English class was related to doing tasks on grammar and reading, but in this class, I could learn more because there were role-based discussion and extension projects. Also, peer-feedback and comment helped me to improve my reading comprehension and speaking accuracy”. [Zack - Interview, 7 th March 2018] In congruence, another student, Zee, also voiced the same outlook on the role-based assignment with respect to its mediating impact on a deeper understanding of the text. “Although at first, it was confusing, due to differentiated assignment, the task encouraged everyone to probe further into the content of the text and helped us to gain more understanding. This was because everyone was assigned to investigate different aspects of the task, such as summary, investigation, and probing questions. This role-based assignment encouraged us to collaborate further by rechecking each other’s work.” Zee [Interview, 7 th March 2018] Zee further pointed out that role-based assignments scaffold students’ learning ownership and self-efficacy regardless of the difficulty at the outset of BLC. It provided dialogic space for the students to learn specific vocabulary and thus discipline-related knowledge, therefore resulting in the development of high literacy. “I think it was really challenging and exciting. Not only did BLC give the impetus for collaborative inquiry, but it also supported the students to probe deeper into the text together and then shares the meaning we understood with our friends. The task encouraged us to think critically as we had to search for additional texts to accomplish mini-group research, while at the same time ensuring that these additional sources were relevant to the assigned text.” Zee - Interview, 7 th March 2018] IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 303 This finding acknowledged the appropriateness of BLC to the teaching of high literacy in that it scaffolds the ability to use language, content, and cognitive processes in ways relevant to particular disciplines (Applebee et al., 2003). This discursive endeavor triggers discipline-related cognitive discourse functioning as students hold the liberty to negotiate and navigate a wide range of texts, giving rise to both conceptual and disciplinary discourse development, which are interrelated as theorized in the pluriliteracies model (Meyer, 2014; Meyer et al., 2015) contend that in a learning process laden with discipline-specific discourse learners’ progress in the subject-literacy pathway comprising of doing, organizing, explaining, and arguing. Also, BLC encouraged the students to behave scientifically as they research relevant texts by pondering the rhetorical properties of scientific texts. In the realm of organizing science, the shared reading and collaborative inquiry fostered them to describe, compare, and present scientific phenomenon related to the teaching of Physics. The negative emotion occurred because of several technical constraints. Students were confused as they were required to create the mind map, poster, and video project after the literature circles since they were unfamiliar with the task. Since they had to work both inside and outside the class extensively, manage their time for extra discussion was a bit of a challenge. The following comments portrayed these issues. “To me, working in BLC was so much exciting. Nevertheless, I was confused with my tasks especially when the internet was slow and my battery was low. Moreover, creating the video was very time-consuming. The other challenge was that I found it hard composing the summary because I was required to cover the other details from my friends’ works, but fortunately, I was able to collaborate with friends to discuss the solution.” Nea - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] “Because the group work needed quite an extensive discussion, I found it rather difficult to manage the right schedule for my group discussion. [Ivy - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] Students’ vignettes on social emotion The vignettes acknowledged that the students gained learning autonomy when engaged in collaborative tasks. The following opinions evinced that mastery goal was the driving factor behind their active engagement. The sense of social goal, particularly social concern, enthused the students to accomplish the task. “I tried to complete my tasks as assigned by my roles and everyone in the team helped one another when problems arose. I liked the interaction in the class which seemed borderless between students and lecturers.” [Eve - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] “I have always been encouraged to complete my role-based assignment, despite the difficulties I experienced, but luckily I could work with my team when problems arose. The interaction in the class was very encouraging as students were motivated to IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 304 work in tandem and there seemed to be no gap between the students and lecturer.” [Zee - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] These findings confirm previous works (Bao & Lam, 2008; Imai, 2010), revealing that even negative emotions within group work can support language learning. BLC serves as the catalyst to developing students’ motivation and through negotiation students reflect on strategy use. This was indicative of two previous comments made by Students, Nea and Sally, as described in the following responses. “To my eyes, learning through BLC was really supportive as we could share and discuss the lesson with our team. This helped me to figure out meanings in the texts by asking for help from my partners.” Nea - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] “I found it hard to create the mind map, so I resorted to my group discussion to figure it out.” Sally - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] The role assignment and task structure foment positively activating emotion, rather than the opposite, that is relaxation. This was expressed by two aforementioned students. Sally mentioned, “The interaction was positive and fun, which thus helped us to accomplish the tasks”. Similarly, Eve made the following comment “I liked the interaction in the class which seemed borderless between students and lecturers”. Regardless of the extensive work, most of the participants had full support by involving technology, so collective self-efficacy was evident. This points out that group engagement not only increases students’ control but also sparks positive values of the tasks. Sally and Zack made the following comments concerning the dialogic space in BLC. “I was always committed to my roles in the group discussion because I was motivated to achieve the best result. The inclusion of online discussion helped the team to share and discuss the roles along with any difficulties during the discussion. The interaction was positive and exciting, which therefore supported us to accomplish the literature discussion and extension project.” [Sally - Questionnaire, 2 nd February 2018] “We collaborated to accomplish the extension project according to the role assigned to each of us, so it was good because everyone had different responsibilities to contribute to the group work.” [Zack - Interview, 7 th March 2018] The social space develops stronger learning ownership and more active engagement. Accruing autonomy to choose and shift roles in literature circles is crucial, and changing roles among peers is required so that learners can experience different learning. Positively triggering emotions, BLC has therefore been proven to generate enjoyment, pride, and hope which are positively linked to effort, motivation, elaboration of learning resources, and learners’ self-regulated learning. Hereunder are the emotional themes resulting from the analysis. IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 305 Table 1. Profiles of Students’ Academic Emotions The cognitive quality of tasks which involve assigned roles, goals, and blended learning aids in envisaging values of learning and control over task accomplishment. BLC has created shared positive emotions and social goals, mediated by observational learning and emotional contagion (Pekrun & Stephens, 2010). The cooperative goal structures and meaning-making objective afforded in BLC has led to achievement goals and social goals as well as enhanced subjective control (Johnson & Johnson, 1974). The struggling readers voiced both personalized and joint reading when engaged in discipline-related shared reading. BLC encouraged each reader in both intra-mental and inter-mental processes. The former is manifest in the dialogic process between texts and readers, giving rise to self-regulated reading and knowledge construction based on students’ prior knowledge. Within the arena of inter-mental processes, BLC sustained enduring shared reading coupled with online research and digital project, despite initial technical difficulties. Technology integration propelled collective analysis on the texts and collaborative inquiry grounded within an Types of Emotions Valences and Activation Themes Achievement Emotion Positively activating (hope and joy) 1. BLC helps students to excel their vocabulary knowledge. 2. BLC develops their language competencies and discipline-related knowledge through discursive collaboration. 3. BLC fosters students’ collaboration on problem-solving and meaning-making processes. Topic Emotion Positively activating (hope and joy) 1. The reading topics are interesting because they are linked to students’ discipline, motivating them to probe into their discipline knowledge deeper. 2. The topics expose students to numerous learning resources and bridge what they have learned and what they will encounter in their future teaching career. Epistemic Emotion Positively activating (hope and joy) 1. BLC stimulates the students to work in tandem for shared understanding and completing the digital projects. 2. BLC empowers a deeper understanding of subject-specific knowledge 3. The integration of technology, by digital research, aids in dealing with difficult vocabularies and affords myriads of resources for better understanding 4. BLC helps students to hone their critical thinking on negotiating multimodal discourse Negatively activating (frustration) 1. The tasks are rather difficult because students are unfamiliar with BLC task structures. 2. Managing the schedule for extra discussion resulting from extensive group work is exhaustive. Social Emotion Positively activating (hope and joy) 1. BLC creates positive collaboration among students and student-teacher interaction. 2. The emergence of the reading community encourages the students to shoulder full ownership over their meaning-making process. IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 306 authentic topic. This collaborative inquiry leads to more extensive discussion and deeper learning enabled through the use of multimodal texts. Conclusion and Recommendations The study has garnered three pedagogical implications from the findings. First, BLC can be integrated into content learning that emphasizes building discipline knowledge and language repertoires. BLC can engage students in the meaning-making endeavor and dialogic reading which propel their language repertoire, social development, reading ability, subject-specific discourse functioning, and technological literacy. Third, teachers can deploy hypermedia to encourage students in discussing different facets of texts, such as discourse-semantic meanings, lexico-grammatical repertoires, and text genres. BLC helps English learners and teachers to transform negatively activating emotion to strengthening learning responsibility and motivation for transactional reading. Students need to be armed with critical digital literacy to navigate authentic information when exposed to abundant multimodal resources. We acknowledge that further study is required to gain a more complete picture of BLC on reading proficiency and multidimensional learning, which is evident through the students-initiated readings and projects. 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Engaging students in literature circles: Vocational English reading programs. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 25(2), 347–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-015-0269-7 Worthy, J., & Invernizzi, M. A. (1995). Linking reading with meaning: A case study of a hyperlexic reader. Journal of Reading Behavior, 27(4), 585–603. https://doi.org/10.1080/10862969509547900 Biographical notes DAVID IMAMYARTHA is a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. He is currently teaching English Skills and some content-related subjects at the very department and English for Specific Purposes at several faculties. His research interest includes teaching methodology, technology-enhanced language learning, and teacher professional development. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2018.1465069 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131725.2011.576804 https://doi.org/10.1080/00405848209543018 https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v5i2.192 https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.77.2.125-146 https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688215589886 https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.55.1.2 https://doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2018.1483788 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-013-0678-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-015-0269-7 IRJE |Indonesian Research Journal in Education| |Vol. 5| No. 1|June|Year 2021| |E-ISSN: 2580-5711|https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/irje/index| 310 EKA WAHJUNINGSIH is working in Jember University. ARETA PUSPA is a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. She is currently teaching ESP classes at several faculties and some content-related subjects at the very department. She has been grappling with several research foci including technology-enhanced language learning, extensive reading, and teaching methodology. MITASARI is a graduate from the Department of English Education of Jember University. She has begun her teaching career at junior high school, with substantial interest in the instruction of reading and speaking. SITI MASRIFATUL FITRIYAH is a senior full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. She has been teaching numerous subjects concerned with educational policy and language proficiency, such as Language Policy and Planning, Microteaching, Drama and Creative and Writing, and English for Professional Purposes. She has been grappling with several research foci including teacher professional development, teaching methodology, and educational policy. RIZKI FEBRI ANDIKA HUDORI is a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. He is currently teaching ESP classes at several faculties and some content-related subjects. RIKA ANDAYANI is a full-time lecturer at the department of English Education of State University of Jakarta. ZAKIYAH TASNIM is a senior lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. AAN ERLYANA FARDHANI is a senior lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. SITI SUNDARI is a senior lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University. BAMBANG ARYA WIJAPUTRA is a senior lecturer at the department of English Education of Jember University.