Learner Agency and Engagement: Believing You Can, Wanting To, And Knowing How To
Sarah Mercer, Austria
Sarah Mercer teaches at the University of Graz, Austria, where she has been working since 1996. Her research interests include all aspects of the psychology surrounding the foreign language learning experience, focusing in particular on self. She is the author, co-author and co-editor of several books in this area. E-mail: sarah.mercer@uni-graz.at
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Introduction
Learner agency and engagement
Agency
Engagement
Mindset beliefs in SLA
Emotions and motivation in language learning
Strategies in SLA
Conclusions
References
Language teaching involves a host of competences and skills in the areas of language, culture, didactics and pedagogy, amongst others. It is a complex and highly skilled job which requires an understanding of the many components that come together to lead to effective learning. Whilst the teacher has a central role to play in this process, it is ultimately the learner who must be the active agent in learning. In this article, I suggest that understanding the psychology of our learners is a vital skill in our toolkit as language teachers, which can help us to support learners in becoming engaged, agentic and empowered individuals. Fundamentally, I propose that learners’ success in embracing language learning opportunities within and beyond the classroom depends primarily on their agency and engagement, which stem from what they think, feel and do. I will explain my line of thinking and suggest ways in which we as teachers can help our learners to get in the ‘right frame of mind’ for successful language learning.
Learner-centred approaches to teaching, the communicative language teaching approach and the autonomy movement have all seen the learner positioned as an active agent in their learning processes. Teachers are conceived of as facilitators who seek to create an environment in which learners can flourish and take a degree of control over their language learning, depending also on the particularities of their diverse socio-cultural settings. However, ultimately, whether a learner fully engages with the opportunities generated by their teacher in class or the increasing number of opportunities present beyond the classroom depends largely on their own personal sense of agency and levels of engagement.
Agency can be defined in multiple ways depending on the theoretical perspective taken (e.g., Ahearn, 2001; Gao, 2010; van Lier, 2008). Essentially, it refers to a combination of the learner’s will, intent and capacity to act in order to achieve specific goals and outcomes within particular social settings and contexts. I have argued elsewhere (Mercer, 2011, 2012) that agency is a vital characteristic of successful learners and is central to appreciating their engagement, motivation, autonomy, and self-regulatory behaviours. An individual’s sense of agency emerges from the interaction between their psychology and the way they interpret and interact with the perceived opportunities in their surroundings. Naturally, the social context in which learners find themselves determines to a large degree how agentic they can be and what resources are available to them, but it is how the learners interpret those affordances that can make the crucial difference. For example, three learners in the same setting may all have access to the same resource, such as to a series of ‘ted talks’. One learner may believe the videos to be too difficult and therefore may not engage with them at all. Another learner may watch the videos simply for pleasure with no language learning intent in mind. The third learner may watch the videos together with the transcripts making notes and highlighting language in the transcripts. The resource is the same for each learner, but it affords each learner different things depending on how they view themselves, their goals, how they feel about the videos and what they believe they can gain from them, if anything.
The starting point for any kind of learner-initiated action and goal-directed behaviour is their sense of agency. It is whether they feel willing and able to take action that they believe will make a difference to their learning. Their sense of agency is complex and emerges from the interplay of a combination of psychological and social variables. However, although simplifying somewhat, there are three main facets that contribute to a learner’s agency – what the learner believes, feels and does (cf. Mercer, 2011). Fundamentally, a learner needs to believe they can improve and to feel competent in the face of the task ahead. They also need to feel willing and interested enough to invest in the learning process and take action. Then they also need to have the skills and strategies to manage and organise their own learning. Together their cognition, affect and strategy knowledge interact to generate their sense of agency, which then mediates the learner’s interpretation of the contextual constraints and opportunities available to them leading ultimately to action or, indeed, deliberate non-action in respect to the goal of learning (Mercer, 2011a).
A second component of learner psychology that goes hand in hand with agency is engagement, which is another action-oriented concept (cf. Reschly & Christenson, 2012). Most teachers recognise engagement amongst their learners in those moments when their students are deeply involved in tasks and enjoying them. As with agency, learner engagement emerges from the interaction of various cognitive, affective and behavioural elements. Learners can also be differently engaged to different degrees in terms of the three dimensions (Trowler, 2010). In other words, a learner can be cognitively engaged when they feel sufficiently challenged, mentally focused on the task at hand and willing and able to invest effort at understanding and mastering the task. A learner can be affectively engaged when they are interested, enjoying the work and feel positively towards the task and those working with them. Finally, a learner can be behaviourally engaged when they are taking part actively and effectively focused on task, cooperating with group members and respecting behavioural norms (see, e.g., Fredericks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Ideally, we want our learners to be engaged on all three levels both within our classes but also when using and learning the language beyond the classroom. Further, we want our learners not only to be engaged in tasks in the short-term but also engaged and committed in the long-term to their language learning endeavour. From what positive psychology has shown, we could expect that engaged learners may enter a ‘positive virtuous cycle’ (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002) in which the positive emotions associated with engagement enable the individual to broaden their repertoire of thought and action by being open to alternative ways of thinking and doing. This in turn creates further positive resources to draw upon in the future, generating a positive upward spiral, which Fredrickson (2001, 2011) has referred to as the ‘broaden-and-build’ theory of positive emotions.
Given the complexity of human beings, language learning processes, and the vast range of social and cultural contexts in which people learn and teach, it would be naive to imagine that there are easy solutions to engendering a sense of agency and fostering learner engagement. However, one important step is for us to reflect on what we know about the key areas which contribute to both learner agency and engagement - cognition, affect and behaviour - in the hope that a better understanding of these can make us more sensitive to ways of promoting these aspects of learner psychology.
Learners can hold a variety of beliefs about the nature of language learning and research has shown how influential these can be for achievement, motivation, strategy use, self-regulation etc (see, e.g., Aragao, 2011; Kalaja & Barcelos, 2003; Magogwe & Oliver, 2007; Navarro & Thornton, 2011). Consider, for example, a learner who believes that it is important to have accurate grammar first before you can speak and that you should only work on fluency once you have accurate grammar control. With such beliefs, this learner is likely to struggle in strongly communicative classrooms with an emphasis on fluency and speaking, they may have a preference for more focused-on-form type exercises and may desire detailed feedback on grammatical aspects of the accuracy of their language use. In other words, what learners believe affects how they interpret, evaluate and approach their language learning experiences and processes. To understand all the kinds of beliefs our learners may have, it can be useful to hold explicit discussions of beliefs using example statements in order to reveal any inhibitive beliefs or potential areas of conflict and misunderstanding.
One particular set of beliefs I wish to consider here are concerned with what a learner believes about the malleability and controllability of human characteristics and aptitudes necessary for language learning. These particular beliefs are called ‘mindsets’ and refer to the degree to which learners believe that their traits, competences, abilities and intelligences as language learners can be developed through conscious effort and hard work (a growth mindset) or whether they believe that these are fixed, immutable, unchangeable characteristics (a fixed mindset) (cf. Dweck, 2006). In reality, it is perhaps more useful to conceive of mindsets as representing points on a continuum and people are likely to lie somewhere in between tending more to one or the other, rather than these being absolute either/or categories (Mercer & Ryan, 2010; Ryan & Mercer, 2012). Another term used for mindsets in the literature is ‘implicit theories’ (see, e.g., Dweck, Chui, & Hong, 1995). An important characteristic of this term that it is important to understand is the use of the word ‘implicit’. This foregrounds the extent to which such beliefs can be less conscious, ‘implicit’, and thus often difficult to articulate. In other words, our learners may hold certain mindset beliefs and not be conscious of them or even able to talk about them explicitly when asked. These deep-rooted beliefs may need conscious reflection and metacognitive attention for learners to become aware of them and be able to discuss them and potentially work at changing them if need be.
A further key characteristic of mindsets is that they can be domain specific. This means that people can hold different mindsets for different areas of their lives. In other words, they may have a fixed mindset about musical intelligence and abilities but a more growth mindset about sporting abilities. In the field of language learning, this implies that a person can potentially have a different mindset about language learning to the one they hold about maths or art, but it also suggests they can potentially hold different mindsets about different skill areas such as having a growth mindset about writing but a fixed mindset about speaking (Mercer & Ryan, 2010).
In education, a person’s mindset affects strongly how they approach their learning and the sense of agency they have. Firstly, holding a mindset affects a person’s attitudes to investing time and effort. If a learner has a fixed mindset, they will not see any good reason for expending any effort in learning. In effect, they feel helpless and see no point in working hard as they believe that no matter what they do, they cannot improve their abilities. Similarly, when faced with difficulties, learners with a fixed mindset are likely to give up more easily believing that there is little they can do to change things. Instead, they believe that experiencing difficulties or failures reflects a lack of immutable ability. Another consequence of such thinking is that these types of learners are likely to avoid challenges viewing them as a risk posing a possible chance of failure.
To be agentic and to engage with language learning opportunities, a learner has to believe that their competence and abilities in a foreign language are something that can be developed and that they have a degree of control and influence over them. If learners do not feel and believe that they can change their abilities and their competences in the language, no matter how engaging a teacher’s materials and tasks may be, the learner may see all effort and investment in learning as pointless. This means as teachers we must begin by setting the foundations for successful language learning, by aiming to have learners tend towards a growth mindset. This does not mean we should encourage learners to hold unrealistic beliefs about themselves or others and their potential to become highly proficient polyglots (Mercer, 2012). Instead, they should understand that everyone has the potential to improve on their current level of abilities. Such thinking represents a fundamental attitude of optimism. It gives people the potential for growth and offers a perspective, which encourages forward-looking, goal-directed behaviours.
The question now arises as to what we can do as teachers to try to engender growth mindsets in our learners, mindful of the fact that these beliefs can be deeply rooted and difficult to change. As with any set of beliefs, we can begin by discussing mindsets explicitly, by explaining what they are and by discussing statements from mindset questionnaires or literature. Such direct discussions are valuable for unearthing deeply held mindsets so we can consider as a group the possible consequences of thinking this way. As some learners may need convincing that a growth mindset is justifiable, it is worth dispelling myths about so-called natural-born linguists (see Mercer, 2012). Teaching learners about concepts such as neuroplasticity and the way the brain grows through practice can be done by looking at youtube clips and online resources. This can help learners to appreciate that the brain is a muscle in need of training and exercise (see, for example:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpfYCZa87g). Learners can also search for role models in history or sport or in literature and films exploring how individuals persevered in the face of challenges, overcame difficulties and had to work hard to achieve their successes (see, e.g., Michael Jordan; The young adult novel – ‘The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian’; the film – ‘Educating Rita’ etc.). Students can be asked to do a project to discover examples of mindsets in their everyday lives such as in the way people talk about language learning (innate fixed talent or hard work and strategic effort) or keep a diary about the examples they see of mindsets in action in the classroom and beyond. Role play scenarios and decision dilemmas can also be useful in prompting learners to see that we have choices and options in how we respond to challenges and difficulties, reflecting on the different ways a person can respond and the implications of that in the long- and short-term. In addition, there has gradually been an increase in materials specifically for use in schools and these can offer useful further ideas that can be adapted for the second or foreign language classroom (see, e.g., Adams, 2013; Hymer & Gershon, 2014; Ricci, 2013, 2015).
So, perhaps the first step in the journey towards feeling agentic and engaging with language learning opportunities is the learner’s belief that doing this is something that is worthwhile and can make a difference to their learning outcomes. However, these beliefs alone will not drive the learner into action although they facilitate that. The next set of vital ingredients is their emotions and motivation.
Our emotions colour every aspect of our waking lives and as many have pointed out, our cognition cannot meaningfully be separated from our emotions. Our “minds have thoughts as well as emotions and the study of either without the other will never be fully satisfying” (LeDoux, 1998, p. 39). It depends on the types of emotions we experience and when and in what context we experience them as to whether they can help or hinder learning processes. Indeed, rather than viewing emotions as being exclusively either positive or negative, it is perhaps more useful to think of the function of an emotion for an individual for a particular purpose in a specific context (see, e.g., Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014). If we consider learner anxiety, the instinctive reaction is to reflect on its debilitative effect. Indeed, a considerable body of research in SLA has shown how foreign language anxiety can cause learners difficulties in understanding and communicating in the language. In light of this, it is important for us to strive to create a low-anxiety classroom for learners to feel safe, at ease, confident and comfortable and thus willing to use the language. However, it is important to consider that there is another sort of anxiety called facilitative anxiety. This is anxiety that can actually enhance learners’ performance by motivating them as they get energised to give their best possible performance. The two types of anxiety serve different functions and have a different quality, and, of course, a particular level of anxiety may be facilitative for one learner but debilitative for another.
Therefore, we must be cautious not to generalise too much about emotions and their function for all learners in all contexts and for all purposes. However, there are general patterns to emotions and their effects on learning that we can be guided by in our teaching. Essentially, we want learners to feel comfortable and engaged in our classes. It is important that learners feel safe to use and try out the language, that they feel interested in what is going on in the class and that they feel the work is personally meaningful and relevant to them. Here, work in positive psychology might also offer some useful insights to ensure that our learners ‘flourish’ in our language classes (Seligman, 2001). The aim of positive psychology is to understand successes, instances of where things work well and people are happy and content. Research in this area has shown that positive emotions and attitudes can help people to cope better with anxiety, be more resilient in the face of criticisms or problems, have better general health and more overall well-being (Frederickson, 2011; Seligman, 2001).
Within SLA, little has been done yet working explicitly with interventions from positive psychology although interest is growing in this area (see, e.g., Gregersen, MacIntyre, & Mercer, forthcoming; MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2014). The general acceptance is that despite some genetic predispositions towards happiness, people can increase their overall levels of positivity by some considerable degree (Lyubomirsky, 2010). One teacher (Fresacher, forthcoming), who has been working with positive psychology tools in the language classroom, reports on her successes and suggests practical ideas adapted from the interventions in other fields, such as keeping a gratitude journal or portfolio of successes and positive experiences in language learning, reflecting on one’s strengths as a language learner, using positive visualisation techniques to combat speaking or test anxiety, and learning to work on active constructive listening skills and empathy in communication (for empathy, see also Mercer, forthcoming).
In addition, much work has been done in the past on concentrating on positive emotions such as in the humanist approaches. Oxford (1990, p. 140) has also suggested three categories of affective strategies that teachers and learners can use to manage their emotions. She centres them around the acronym ‘LET’ – for Lowering anxiety, Encouraging oneself, Taking one’s emotional temperature. She explains, “affective strategies help language learners to LET their hair down!”. The first two are perhaps self-evident but the third one is concerned with supporting learners in becoming aware of their emotions such as by keeping a diary, discussing their feelings with a suitable partner, or working through questionnaires or checklists of feelings, emotions and motivations, reflecting on how and why they are experiencing a certain emotion. Only then can learners recognise what they are feeling and perhaps understand why they are in a better position to manage and control their emotions in a way that is facilitative for their learning processes and purposes.
A construct with a strong emotional dimension is that of motivation, which has been the focus of much research in SLA with good reason. Teachers and learners alike intuitively recognise the importance of motivation as being the driving force behind what we do and, indeed, whether we do anything at all. Over time, there have been multiple ways of conceptualising motivation in SLA starting in earnest with the social-psychological views proposed by Gardner (1985), which proposed that learners could be oriented towards more integrative or instrumental goals, in other words, more in terms of positive emotions towards the target language community or in terms of more pragmatic goals such as a better job or improved salary. Naturally, the two need not be mutually exclusive and what may begin as an instrumental orientation may well change over time and become more integrative. The dynamic nature of motivation was foregrounded in work by Dörnyei and Ottó (1998) who suggested a process model of motivation which concentrated on motivation in the classroom and considered the various influences on motivation prior to, during and post-task. More recently, the field has started to examine motivation from a socio-dynamic perspective in which the focus is on socially situated and dynamic views of motivation. Perhaps the dominant current model of motivation is the L2 self system of motivation (Dörnyei, 2005). Here the motivational drive emerges from a possible discrepancy between how the learner currently sees themselves as a language learner and a ‘possible future self’ or combination of possible selves. These could be expressed in terms of how the learner would like to see themselves in the future (ideal self), how they think they should become in the future (ought self), and how they fear becoming in the future (feared self). The model is based on understanding a learner’s current sense of self. Self-concept involves our beliefs about ourselves, what we think we are like as well as our emotional evaluation of that (see Mercer, 2011b). In other words, it represents our mental understanding of how we believe ourselves to be and how we feel about that self-image. Our self-concept comprises both these cognitive and affective components (see also Rubio, 2014). Ideally, we want learners to have a positive but realistic self-concept. This cannot easily or artificially be shaped but ensuring credible, authentic experiences of success through well-scaffolded tasks is important, as is learning to focus on one’s strengths in a range of areas, reducing class competition and focusing on one’s own sense of progress, and, of course, having a growth mindset and believing in the potential of improvement (see Mercer 2011b; Williams, Mercer, & Ryan, 2015).
One way of working with the L2 self system of motivation model (Dörnyei, 2005) is to support learners in engaging with their future visions of themselves. Learners can be asked to create positive, desirable visions of their future selves, making them as realistic, multisensory and concrete as possible (see, e.g., Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014; Hadfield & Dörnyei, 2013). They then need to envisage concrete pathways to achieving that vision reflecting on how to make their vision become their reality. Once again, a sense of agency as well as positive beliefs and emotions would be vital here. If a learner feels helpless in the face of the challenges of language learning, it is clear that their motivation will be lower. To work on the vision, teachers can get learners to write and talk about their future visions, potentially using multimedia and images to strengthen the vision, or imagining being that person in the future enacting their future lives in role plays and writing.
Another often overlooked component of the L2 self system of motivation model is the L2 learning experience. This suggests the possibility of also affecting learner motivation by attending to the quality and characteristics of their current L2 learning experience as well as the influence of their past experiences. In the present, earlier work by Dörnyei (2001) offers a range of motivational strategies that we as teachers can use to enhance learner motivation such as by attending to positive group dynamics and the emotional climate of the classroom, particularly through the rapport we build with learners, how we deal with their mistakes, and how we relate on an interpersonal level with them. We can also attend to the relevance, interest, attractiveness and variety of the materials and tasks we use as suitable for the specific profile of our learner group. Dörnyei (ibid) also emphasises the importance of using goals, setting measurable deadlines that are realistic to give direction. However, the vital ingredient in achieving goals and striving towards future visions is knowing how to do this and what concrete steps to take.
Basically, it is no use having a growth mindset, facilitative emotions and high levels of motivation if these are not accompanied by effective learning actions. Sheer blind persistence will not achieve goals, unless it is accompanied by an effective use of appropriate strategies. Whilst strategies are also not a guarantee of success, they do empower the learner to take control and explore alternative pathways of learning, giving them confidence and direction in language learning tasks.
To date, there has been a considerable body of research examining learner strategies, with work in the 1970s looking at the ‘good language learner’ and their strategic behaviour (Rubin, 1975). The focus on teaching learners ‘how to learn’ has been a central concept of learner-centred and autonomy approaches. The rationale is that learners need to have the skills and knowledge about how to organise and approach their learning if they are to make the most of the opportunities they encounter. It means that if learners are to be empowered to be active agents taking control of their own learning, they need to know what options for learning are available to them, how they learn best as individuals and how best to evaluate the demands of a task and match that to their repertoire of strategies, learning also to ‘stretch’ themselves to find new ways of approaching challenges (Cohen, 2012).
Strategies are notoriously difficult to define. One solution offered by Griffiths (2013) has been to consider the core characteristics of strategies, which she defines as being active behaviours (actions), which are conscious, purposeful, regulatory and learning-focused. In other words, “language learning strategies are activities consciously chosen by learners for the purpose of regulating their own learning” (Griffiths, 2013, p. 15). Strategies can cover various dimensions of language learning such as memory strategies (ways of remembering language), cognitive strategies (ways of processing and practising the language mentally), compensation strategies (ways of overcoming difficulties in communicative situations), metacognitive strategies (ways of organising, thinking about, planning and evaluating learning), affective strategies (ways of managing one’s emotions in learning), and social strategies (ways of working or interacting with others in the processes of learning a language) (Oxford, 1990).
To support learners in their use of strategies, many authors have suggested an experiential approach which varies to certain degrees in its exact sequence and wording of stages but which in principle all revolve around three (or more) key stages (see, e.g., Gregersen & MacIntyre, 2014; Griffiths, 2013; Mercer, 2005; Oxford, 2012). The first stage involves learners reflecting on their current strategy use, becoming aware of what they do through the use of questionnaires, scenarios or diaries as reflective tools. Typically, this initial work is done individually and then discussed collectively by the class through teacher-led discussions or focus groups. In the second stage, learners examine the range of strategies available. These can be presented by the teacher or may emerge from the discussions with peers or can stem from discussions of other learners talking about their strategies. This would also be an ideal opportunity to stress to learners that there are no inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ strategies, but rather every individual has to find the strategy that suits their particular needs, purpose, and personal style preferences. The next stage is a practice and evaluation stage in which learners are actively encouraged to try out new or alternative strategies and evaluate their use. This can be a more formally structured phase with specific tasks to do and strategies to experiment with, recording experiences in diaries or in evaluation forms. Learners can then again discuss their experience of using a strategy and whether it met their needs with peers in class or in an online blog. Further possible stages include deliberately transferring strategies to new tasks and continuing to evaluate and monitor their strategy use over time (Gregersen & MacIntyre, 2014).
Successful language learning depends on the activity and initiative of the learner (van Lier, 2008), and all learner action necessitates their agency and engagement. However, learners and their language learning process are highly complex, often unique constellations embedded in specific settings and contexts. Although I have addressed the three overarching areas (cognition, affect and behaviour) in separate sections, in reality, language learner psychology is much more complex with all three highly interconnected and reciprocally related (see Mercer, Ryan, & Williams, 2012; Williams, Mercer, & Ryan, 2015). Additionally, all learners are situated within multiple levels of cultures and within a web of social relationships; all of which also influence their psychologies and perceptions of affordances. Everything that we think, feel and do takes place in constant interaction with our perceptions of our environments and social interpersonal relations with others. This means that there can be no magic, one-size-fits-all recipes or guarantees for engendering a sense of agency in our learners or for enhancing their engagement in the language classroom and beyond. However, I hope that reflecting consciously on these three key components – their beliefs, emotions, including motivation, and their strategic behaviours – can support us in creating a fertile environment to promote learner agency and engagement amongst our language learners.
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Trowler, V. (2010). Student engagement literature review. Lancaster: Lancaster University.
van Lier, L. (2008). Agency in the classroom. In J. P. Lantolf & M. E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 163-186). London: Equinox.
Williams, M., Mercer, S., & Ryan, S. (2015). Exploring psychology in language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Please check the Pilgrims courses at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English Language Improvement for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teachers as Leaders course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
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