MILE5000 Chap.5 Future L2 Selves and Emotion in Speech Development
Future L2 Selves and Emotion in Speech Development
Why longitudinal studies matter here
Most motivation research in the set readings is measured once. Two articles instead follow the same learners over time and ask whether motivation or emotion predicts how their speech changes.
That design supports claims about order and prediction that a single survey cannot, but only if the timing of each measure allows them, so the first task in reading either study is to draw its timeline.
Future selves and speech in one semester
The first study followed 83 first-year undergraduates in China through a twelve-week speaking programme with an English-only rule.
Listeners rated comprehensibility and accentedness before and after. Comprehensibility improved and accentedness decreased, both with medium effect sizes. After controlling for the pre-test and background, only the learner's own ideal L2 self predicted comprehensibility, and the ideal self held by important others predicted lower accentedness.
The authors acknowledge that without a comparison group they cannot rule out maturation or practice outside class.
Motivation, emotion and speech over eighteen months
The second study followed 121 Japanese high school students across four speaking tests over a year and a half. Speech improved steadily while motivation and emotion stayed statistically stable.
Comparing three models at each later wave, the authors found that at six months speech gains predicted enjoyment, at ten months only a correlational model fitted, and at eighteen months the ideal L2 self predicted classroom practice, which predicted gains.
Anxiety was never a significant predictor of practice or development.
What to watch in both
Check the scale direction for accentedness, where lower means less accented; check that the questionnaire in the second study was not given at the first wave; and note the authors' warning that the anxiety scale did not measure the same thing across waves.
What this chapter covers
- 01
What a longitudinal design can and cannot show
- 02
Comprehensibility and accentedness as separate outcomes
- 03
Four self-guides and speech development in one semester
- 04
Controlling for starting level
- 05
Four waves over eighteen months
- 06
Three competing models of direction
- 07
Measurement invariance and the anxiety scale
Worked example · free
Match a conclusion to its time scale
- 2State what the study found at the earliest comparison.
- 2State what it found at the latest comparison.
- 1Write the corrected one-sentence summary.
Key terms
- Comprehensibility
- How easy a listener finds it to understand what a speaker says, rated separately from accent.
- Accentedness
- How far pronunciation noticeably departs from native norms; in the set study a lower rating means less accented speech.
- Residualised Gain
- A later score adjusted for the earlier score, used to study change rather than level.
- Measurement Invariance
- Evidence that a scale measures the same construct in the same way on every occasion, required before comparing scores over time.
Future L2 Selves and Emotion in Speech Development FAQ
Does a stronger ideal L2 self improve pronunciation?
In the one-semester study, learners with a stronger ideal L2 self of their own improved more in comprehensibility, and those whose ideal self reflected important others' hopes became less accented. Both effects were small beside the pre-test, and the design had no comparison group, so the finding is an association with change rather than proof of cause.
Why did motivation stay stable while speech improved?
The eighteen-month study found no significant change in motivation or emotion scores across waves while speaking scores rose. The authors suggest that stable motivation and enjoyment support practice, which produces gains, and they caution that group averages may hide fluctuations within individual learners.
Why is the anxiety result in the eighteen-month study hard to interpret?
The authors tested whether each questionnaire measured the same construct at every wave, and the anxiety scale failed at every level of that test. Any apparent change in anxiety could therefore reflect the items being understood differently over time rather than a real change in how anxious learners were.
Assessment move
For each of the two studies, draw the timeline from memory, marking every measure at every wave, then write the one conclusion each design supports best. If you can do this without the article, you are ready to use either as a model when writing the design paragraph of your critique.
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