The Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition (TAPSLA) proudly introduces "The Minds Behind SLA: Insights from Leading Scholars," a new section designed to highlight the intellectual journeys of prominent Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers. While academic journals typically focus on research findings, they rarely explore the processes behind these discoveries. This section addresses this gap through interviews with influential scholars, offering valuable content for both experienced and early-career researchers. We begin this series with Jean-Marc Dewaele, whose work on emotions in language learning has significantly shaped the field.

The following quantitative study investigates the impact of institutional practices at the State University of Applied Sciences in Przemyśl on the language education of Generation Z students. By examining their educational preferences and characteristics, the research explores how these practices foster positive language learning experiences. A questionnaire was used to assess key aspects, including student motivation, learning environments and alignment of study programs with personal and career goals. Findings indicate that supportive institutional practices, personalised teaching methods and an appreciation for diversity enhance the effectiveness of English language classes. The study also highlights significant differences in satisfaction levels between undergraduate and graduate students. The research offers insights into the interplay between institutional practices and student needs. The study underscores the necessity for a dynamic and responsive educational environment that aligns with contemporary student expectations. Future research should aim to validate these findings across diverse student populations and further investigate the factors influencing language education outcomes.

Emotionality plays a significant role in teaching and learning a foreign language. Emotions are always present in a foreign language classroom, and teachers and learners aim to determine how to regulate them (Bielak & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2020). In the literature on applied linguistics and psycholinguistics, the importance of emotions has been subject to considerable discussion (Dewaele, 2010; Pavlenko, 2006; Wierzbicka, 1999). We already know that students’ and teachers’ emotional needs should be discussed, understood, and met to develop (Aron, 2013; Mercer & Gregersen, 2020). Despite the importance of emotionality, there remains a paucity of evidence on language learners’ perceptions of emotions and emotionality. Researching perception seems to be an essential strategy for understanding any element influencing the affective dimension of a foreign language classroom, especially when we consider the psychological state of teachers and students due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the generally poor mental health that characterises young people from Generation Z. Thus, the primary aim of the following study was to analyse spoken definitions of emotionality, provided by Generation Z university students (N = 70). The analysis was conducted at the intersection of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics. It employed qualitative content analysis. The results show an informative picture of how GenZers talk about such personal issues as emotions, which will certainly be helpful for educators and researchers in the context of psycholinguistics and well-being research.

The Action Research report describes the carrying out of an exploration of student wellbeing combined with an intervention of personal development activities that were employed to enhance the mental and emotional wellbeing of 27 student teachers at an Ecuadorian teacher training university. While there are many studies exploring the factors that contribute to heightened levels of stress and anxiety among university students, looking for a better understanding of life in the classroom and improving it through introducing self-help methods is scarce. The findings of the report corroborate other accounts that wellbeing is an issue for tertiary level students in many contexts, and their challenges in the Global South are often multiplied. The researchers used pre- and post-intervention survey questionnaires as well as end-of-intervention and delayed student feedback to gauge changes in the participants’ wellbeing. The findings show that the students’ wellbeing has improved as a result of the personal development activities employed by the teacher researcher. The authors conclude that student wellbeing needs to be an institutional priority but individual teachers using a range of innovative and engaging activities can potentially achieve transformative and lasting effect when they treat their students as active practitioners of learning.

The study employed a mixed-methods approach to investigate the relationship between English language teachers’ teaching efficacy, emotional experiences, and situation and task-related procrastination. It aimed to explore both self-reported teaching self-efficacy beliefs and the factors influencing language teachers’ procrastination behaviors and emotions during task delay. A total of 305 Croatian EFL teachers participated in this study. Descriptive, correlation, and directed content analyses were carried out. According to the findings, the Croatian language teachers viewed themselves as highly effective in the classroom and they also reported engaging in procrastination infrequently. When inquired about language proficiency-related anxiety, they admitted having experienced it sporadically. Those confident in utilizing instructional strategies and implementing classroom management strategies procrastinated less and reported lower anxiety levels. Qualitative analysis revealed that demotivating or fatiguing tasks, especially administrative and testing-related ones, instigated procrastination, among others. When procrastinating, the teachers reported primarily unpleasant emotions, such as anxiety, nervousness, frustration, and guilt.

Teachers’ beliefs shape their pedagogical strategies, yet many language teachers remain unaware of their educational philosophies and how these beliefs are manifested in their teaching practices. This issue becomes more significant regarding pre-service teachers’ beliefs, which affect their performance during the practicum when they start university programs with pre-established beliefs about teaching. The present qualitative study aims to investigate five Ecuadorian EFL pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching speaking skills. Data were collected through written and visual narratives, focus group interviews, and reflective journals. The analysis was done following grounded theory. Findings show three different core beliefs: (a) the importance of English, (b) speaking error correction, and (c) methodologies to teach speaking skills. Research into teachers’ beliefs is critical, as it may offer insights into teachers’
thought processes and classroom planning strategies. Further research is necessary to see how these beliefs affect their teaching practices.

This study explicates the lexico-semantic features of the discourses constructed by EFL student teachers regarding language teaching approaches and methods. Utilizing corpus linguistics methods, the research explores a specialized corpus comprised of reflective essays produced by forty-one EFL student teachers in the context of Ukrainian teacher education. Techniques such as keyword analysis, n-grams, collocations, and KWIK (key word in context) were sequentially applied to complement the data. The keyword profile of the corpus enabled the extraction of the main semantic fields, including approaches and methods, education and instructional processes, agents, linguistic aspects, language skills, and techniques. The n-grams analysis further detailed that the participants were familiar with a repertoire of approaches and methods. Evidence garnered from collocations and concordance analyses substantiated that the respondents self-identified with current language teaching approaches and believed in the utility of principled eclecticism. Nevertheless, a minor segment of respondents gave precedence to traditional language teaching. Despite a lexically rich representation of the semantic field of EFL approaches and methods, the related semantic field of techniques was underrepresented in the corpus, indicating challenges associated with the procedures underlying specific approaches in the instructional process. This highlights the need for guided training in the application of contemporary language teaching principles.

This study explores the use of English emotion vocabulary by learners of English with L11 Moroccan Arabic (MA). Just as with color terms, languages carve up the emotional spectrum differently. Cross-linguistic comparison of emotion lexicons may, therefore, reveal varying degrees of lexical equivalence. In addition to this lexical anisomorphism, the study investigates the effects of word frequency and L2 proficiency on the use of English emotion vocabulary. To examine these factors, intermediate and advanced learners of English, as well as a group of native English speakers, watched two concise films and described the actors’ emotions during specific scenes. The data was analyzed listing the most frequently used emotion terms for each group. Chi-square tests were then performed to compare the significance of the lexical choices made by native speakers to those provided by each learner group. The results indicate that advanced learners managed to describe the suggested scenes using nearly the same emotion words as native speakers. However, some culture-specific emotion terms posed problems for them. L2 proficiency demonstrated a strong effect, as intermediate learners often deviated from native usage. The implications drawn from these results suggest that culturally specific emotion terms, which lead to lexical inequivalence, should be considered alongside factors, namely word type and word frequency, that can challenge learners in acquiring L2 vocabulary. The study also highlights the importance of context-rich instruction of L2 emotion vocabulary and opens avenues for further research that would contribute to the understanding of the intersection between second language acquisition, culture, and emotions.

Phonetic input is considered one of the main factors determining the perception and production of sounds in second language (L2) sound acquisition. The learner’s accurate perception and intelligible oral production are claimed to depend on the quality and quantity of the received input. This study presents a mediation program that enriches phonetic input in an early bilingual education context by working with L2 acoustic cues through games. The program was applied to twelve 3- to 4-year-old children in a Brazilian school to observe its effects on the participants’ perception of L2 sounds throughout a school year. Perception values were collected with a pre-test at the beginning of the year and a post-test after the program at the end of the year. The collected data showed the participants’ difficulty in perceiving the distinction between voiced and unvoiced English plosives and the /ɛ-æ, i-ɪ, u-ʊ/ vowel contrasts. The results also indicated that the program positively impacted children’s L2 perception. Moreover, the participants’ engagement with the mediation program demonstrated how L2 sound perception through acoustic cues can be developed in bilingual schools from a very young age.

Effective vocabulary learning strategies play a fundamental role in the area of language learning and increase the vocabulary range and knowledge of students across various proficiency levels. Nowadays, students are eager to employ learning strategies which promote self-directed learning. Among the recommended vocabulary learning strategies, mnemonic strategies emerge as helpful and effective techniques for enlarging vocabulary. In this regard, the present study aims to examine the impacts of three mnemonic strategies, including the peg word, keyword, and loci techniques, on vocabulary comprehension among primary students. For this purpose, a total of 104 male elementary students in Iran participated in the study. The three experimental groups learned new words following the instructions of the chosen techniques, while the control group employed the memorization technique. A vocabulary comprehension post-test was administered, and the outcomes were assessed through a one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that the loci technique participants surpassed the performance of the remaining groups in the vocabulary comprehension test. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for syllabus designers, curriculum developers, institutions, and schools.

This study critically analysed the content of the Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbook series, Prospect, to examine the representation of Islamic and Iranian ideologies and the potential implications for the development of intercultural competence among Iranian learners. Using a combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis, the study investigated the frequency and categories of Islamic and Iranian ideological content in the textual and visual components of the textbooks. The findings indicated a strong emphasis on the inclusion of Islamic values, traditions, and cultural elements throughout the Prospect series, accounting for 54% of the overall textual content compared to 46% for Iranian elements. The visual representation exhibited the same imbalanced distribution, with Islamic imagery continuing to dominate the visual representations. The qualitative analysis further revealed that the textbook content reflects a concerted effort to incorporate Islamic ideologies, including religious beliefs, practices, and moral teachings, across various categories such as content, language, visuals, cultural references, and values. While the textbooks did include some Iranian cultural elements, the overall approach suggests an aim to align the materials with the ideological priorities of the Iranian government and educational system. These results raise concerns about the Prospect series’ ability to foster true intercultural competence among learners, as the limited inclusion of international or target culture elements may hinder their preparation for effective cross-cultural communication. The study calls for a more balanced and inclusive approach to cultural representation in Iranian EFL textbooks, one that integrates both local and global perspectives to better meet the needs of language learners in a globalized world.

Currently, very few studies have discussed representations of a national image in textbooks of English as a foreign language (EFL) from the multimodal critical cognitive perspective. To address this issue, this study, based on conceptual blending theory, critical discourse analysis, and multimodality, aims to qualitatively examine the co-instantiation of texts, images, and tasks that represent the national image in two Chinese EFL textbook series, People’s Education Press (PEP) and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP). The study explores the text-image-task semiotic relationship in constructing social-cultural meanings in textbooks. Content analysis of the selected textbooks suggests that the indexical relationship between the text, image, and task matters in the representation of the national image. The findings reveal how the text-image-task co-instantiation helps EFL learners develop cultural awareness of national image cognitively. The study makes comparisons between PEP and FLTRP and suggests that teachers’ pedagogical strategies, textbook design, and learners’ learning approach be improved in the development of cultural awareness.

As AI technology becomes more available and accessible to students, there has been a surge of research investigating its impact on how students learn a target language. However, a comprehensive understanding of how these technologies influence the motivational aspects of language learning remains limited. Addressing this gap, this study explores the broader relationship between individual engagement with various AI-based tools and their motivational impact on English learning, moving beyond the focus on specific AI tools. To achieve the research objectives, engagement with AI-based programs was examined in relation to awareness, experience, and interest in the future use of AI-based programs. Then, the relationships between these AI-related elements and motivational variables (such as self-efficacy and ideal L2 self) in language learning were investigated. Finally, the influence of adaptability was explored in these specific relationships. For this study, convenience sampling was employed to collect data from 180 Korean students who were enrolled in an English course at a university in South Korea. Hierarchical regression and mediation analyses revealed that students’ awareness and experience significantly influenced their interest in the future use of AI-based applications. Among the three AI-related elements, awareness and interest in future use were related to language learning motivation, specifically, self-efficacy and ideal L2 self. Notably, adaptability was identified as a mediating factor in the relationship between awareness of AI and the motivational variables. These findings contribute to our understanding of effective language learning in conjunction with AI-based tools.