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This paper explores pedagogical practices which can support the role of imagination in foreign language learning. Over the past decade, work on self and identity in motivation research--most notably Norton's (2001) imagined communities and Dörnyei's (2009) L2 motivational self system--has suggested that teachers might foster students' motivation by helping them imagine themselves as L2 speakers and envisage contexts or communities in which they might use the target language. If teachers are to help students create and sustain visions of L2 identities, they need to employ a pedagogy which incorporates and facilitates the work of the imagination. In order to provide guidelines for pedagogical practice, this paper examines the experiences of Japanese university students studying English as a foreign language in a self-directed learning course. Prior analysis of the data revealed several affordances which supported the participants' metacognitive development and the role of imagination in their learning. Using these affordances as a conceptual framework, this paper builds on previous work by identifying elements in the learning environment which appear to support the role of imagination in the students' language learning. The paper concludes by suggesting guidelines for pedagogical practice and considering the implications for further inquiry.

While perennial in the research landscape, empirical work investigating second language (L2) study emotions has proliferated in the past ten years (Dewaele, 2019). Nevertheless, this article argues there is space for more holistic yet detailed, social yet individual perspectives when conducting such research. As one avenue, the paper explores the potential of a "small lens" approach (Ushioda, 2016) to delve into particular emotional events "in situ" from learner-internal and learner-external points of view. It details an example of such an approach put into practice, in which the author examined the emergence of emotionally significant episodes for English as a foreign language undergraduates in Japan during short conversation sessions. The research explored data from discursive (video-recordings and transcripts of short conversations) and introspective (learner journals) angles. As a result, it was possible to observe the ways in which students' emotional moves were both afforded by and acted on those of the other through their social interactions, and through interactions with additional aspects of their ongoing psychologies and relationships. The article thus aims to promote further situated L2 emotion research examining the dynamic interplay between various aspects of learners' psychologies and the co-formed social context.

This paper is about four Japanese university students majoring in international studies, who participated in a two-year study examining changes in their motivation. Using monthly interviews and a 29-item questionnaire on Dörnyei's (2005) L2 motivational self system that was administered alongside each interview, the trajectories of learner motivation were investigated, based on both quantitative and qualitative data. First, changes in the participants' motivation were identified using quantitative data. Next, a variety of motivators and demotivators that learners experienced both inside and outside of their classrooms were analyzed using the qualitative data. With the data obtained, this study focuses on how four learners' language learning motivation and contexts adapt to each other, and how the dynamics of the four learners' motivation changes due to their learning experiences. Each learner was different in their trajectory of motivation and the kinds of motivators and demotivators that they experienced in their particular contexts. The four learners underwent unique motivators and demotivators, and reacted differently. While participants identified their ideal L2 selves, or ought-to L2 selves, these self-guides were not strengthened by their L2 experiences over time. Based on these findings, the importance of studying the rich experiences of language learners in motivation research is discussed.

This paper examines how fleeting experiences exert a disproportionately powerful effect on the language learning motivation and behavior of university students. A thematic analysis of interview data is used to show how "significant incidents" have two principal consequences. The first, "anagnorisis," is an immediate, revelatory change in beliefs about language learning. The second, "narrative incorporation," is a process through which the memory of the incident and/or its anagnorisis becomes a constituent of self-narratives. It is argued that the significant incident is best understood not as an external influence on motivation, but as a component of the learner's worldview.

This paper presents an exploratory case study of the classroom motivational dynamics of an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher at a Japanese technology college. The article examines how motivation evolved in-context over various timescales through interactions with affect and identity. An introspective research journal generated rich, qualitative data concerning fluctuations in teacher motivation over one academic year. The analysis also drew on student journal data to provide a different perspective on teacher reflections. The study applied a thematic analysis, with "theoretical comparison" (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) to understand teacher motivation from a "person-in-context relational view" (Ushioda, 2009). The article utilises the properties of complex systems to render insight to the evolution of teacher motivation as open to influences "external" to the classroom, yet fundamentally tied to adaptive experiences with a particular class group. A variety of diagrammatic tools are also employed to illuminate the relational development of teacher motivation, affect and identity constantly occurring over interacting timescales.

This paper argues for the incorporation of bottom-up activities for English as a foreign language (EFL) listening. It discusses theoretical concepts and pedagogic options for addressing bottom-up aural processing in the EFL classroom as well as how and why teachers may wish to include such activities in lessons. This discussion is augmented by a small-scale classroom-based research project that investigated six activities targeting learners' bottom-up listening abilities. Learners studying at the lower-intermediate level of a compulsory EFL university course were divided into a treatment group (n = 21) and a contrast group (n = 32). Each group listened to the same audio material and completed listening activities from an assigned textbook. The treatment group also engaged in a set of six bottom-up listening activities using the same material. This quasi-experimental study used dictation and listening proficiency tests before and after the course. Between-group comparisons of t-test results of dictation and listening proficiency tests indicated that improvements for the treatment group were probably due to the BU intervention. In addition, results from a posttreatment survey suggested that learners value explicit bottom-up listening instruction.