Positive Psychology Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning and Teaching

This book introduces readers to the principles of a fairlynew branch of psychology – positive psychology – and demonstrates how they canbe applied in the context of second language acquisition in a naturalenvironment and in instructed foreign language (FL) learning. It focuses bothon the well-being and success of the learner and the professional and personalwell-being of the teacher. Further, the book stresses the importance of thepositive emotions and character strengths of those involved in the process oflanguage learning and teaching, as well as the significant role played byenabling institutions such as school and, at the micro-level, individual FLclasses.

Danuta Gabrys-Barker is Professor of English at theUniversity of Silesia, Katowice, Poland, where she lectures and supervises M.A.and Ph.D. theses in applied linguistics, psycholinguistics and especially insecond language acquisition. She also works as a teacher trainer. Her mainareas of interest are multilingualism (especially at the level of mentallexicon and syntax) and applied psycholinguistics (modalities, learner profilesand affectivity). As a teacher trainer she lectures on research methods insecond language acquisition and TEFL projects. Her major concern is the role ofaction research in teacher development. Prof. Gabrys-Barker has published overa hundred articles nationally as well as internationally and a book Aspects ofmultilingual storage, processing and retrieval, Katowice: University of SilesiaPress, 2005 and Reflectivity in pre-service teacher education which came out in2012. She has edited nine volumes, amongothers a volume Morphosyntactic Issues in Second Language Acquisition(Multilingual Matters, 2008), Topics in Applied Psycholinguistics (Universityof Silesia Press, 2015) and co-edited The Affective Dimension in SecondLanguage Acquisition (Multilingual Matters, 2013). She is the Vice-president ofthe Polish Association for the Study of English (PASE) and a Board member ofInternational Association of Multilingualism. She is the editor-in-chief(together with Eva Vetter) of the International Journal of Multilingualism(Taylor & Francis/Routledge).

Dagmara Galajda received her Ph.D. degree in linguisticsfrom the University of Silesia, where she works as assistant professor. Theresearch area of her doctoral thesis concentrated on willingness to communicate(WTC) in L1 and L2 and on other related communication variables likecommunication apprehension (CA) and self-perceived communicative competence.Apart from communication studies, her research interests focus on teacher'saction zone in facilitating group dynamics, affect in language learning, individuallearner differences in SLA / FLL and reflective teaching. Recent publicationsinclude: Teacher's Action Zone inFacilitating Group Dynamics in M. Pinto (ed.) (2012) Linguarum Arena Vol. 3, Anxiety and perceived communicationcompetence as predictors of willingness to communicate in ESL/FL classroom inD. Gabrys-Barker, J. Bielska (eds) (2013) The Affective Dimension in SecondLanguage Acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, Communicationapprehension and self-perceived communication competence as variablesunderlying willingness to communicate in K. Piatkowska, E.Koscialkowska-Okonska (eds) (2013) Correspondences and Contrasts in ForeignLanguage Pedagogy and Translation Studies. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Currentlyshe is co-editing Young Scholars onTheoretical and Applied Linguistics: Research Projects Oficyna Wydawnicza –Wyzsza Szkola Humanitas (together with Maria Wysocka, Artur Kijak and PawelZakrajewski).