Multilingual Matters Complexity in Classroom Foreign Language Learning Motivation: A Practitioner Perspective from Japan (Second Language Acquisition): 101

This book explores how complex systems theory can contribute to the understanding of classroom language learner motivation through an extended examination of one particular, situated research project. Working from the lived experience of the participants, the study describes how action research methods were used to explore the dynamic conditions operating in a foreign language classroom in Japan. The book draws attention to the highly personalised and individual, yet equally co-formed nature of classroom foreign language learning motivation and to the importance of agency and emotions in language learning. It presents an extended illustration of the applicability of complex systems theory for research design and process in SLA and its narrative approach shines light upon the evolving nature of research and role of the researcher. The study will be a valuable resource for practitioners, researchers and postgraduate students interested in classroom language teaching and learning, especially those with a focus on motivation among learners. Review Sampson courageously opens up his classroom to explore how the students and their teacher develop from their emerging eclectic identities and how they socially influence each other. A whole-class awakening through iterations of possible-selves interventions, near-peer interactions, imaginings, self-reflections and mutual understandings, this landmark book establishes practitioner action research as a consequential inquiry in applied linguistics. --Joseph Falout, Nihon University, Japan This is a deeply engaging and thought-provoking book that brings together action research, complexity thinking and self-and-identity perspectives to the analysis of language learning motivation as it evolved among persons-in-context in a particular classroom group over one year. Its reflexive insights will resonate with all of us interested in motivation as language teachers, researchers or teacher-researchers. --Ema Ushioda, University of Warwick, UK This is an ambitious and highly original book, exploring language learning motivation through a novel combination of complexity theory and action research. In his well-informed and insightful work, Richard Sampson has succeeded in integrating these two, seemingly incompatible fields. The outcome is an intriguing diary of a personal academic journey that covers an impressive range of ideas, from future self-images and transportable identities to classroom dynamics and directed motivational currents. --Zoltán Dörnyei, University of Nottingham, UK About the Author Richard J. Sampson is a Lecturer in the University Education Center at Gunma University, Japan. His research interests concern situated exploration of the contextualized nature of the learning and teaching of foreign languages, the interrelations between language-learner self ideas, past, present and future learning experiences, and motivation. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Complexity in Classroom Foreign Language Learning Motivation A Practitioner Perspective from Japan By Richard J. Sampson Multilingual Matters Copyright © 2016 Richard J. Sampson All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78309-588-9 Contents Tables and Figures, Acknowledgements, 1 Introduction, Part 1: Growth: A Research Narrative, 2 Groundings from Foreign Language Learning Motivation Research in Japan, 3 A Move to Socio-dynamic Motivation, 4 Research Design, 5 Action Research Narrative, Part 2: Re-viewing, 6 Revisiting Complex Systems Theory, 7 Class Group as Open System, 8 Co-adaptation Between Self and Environment, 9 Motivational Phase-shifts and Self-organisation Across the Class Group, 10 Novel Motivational Emergence in the Class Group, Part 3: Reciprocity, 11 The Landscape of Classroom Motivation, 12 Conclusion and Iteration, Appendix A: Overview of English Course, Appendix B: Learning Journal Instructions, Appendix C: Outline of Sessions