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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Positive Psychology
Volume 14 - 2023 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1292772
This article is part of the Research Topic

Positive Psychology and Language Education: Promoting Well-being in the Classroom

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An Investigation into Academic Burnout, Enjoyment and Engagement in EFL Learning Among Chinese Junior High School Students

Zhang X. hong1 Wang Jian2* Ke X. li3
  • 1Panzhihua University, China
  • 2Geely University of China, China
  • 3Hope College, Southwest Jiaotong University, China

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With the booming of Positive Psychology, a growing scholarly interest has emerged in language learners' psychological well-being. However, limited research has been conducted on the emotions of Chinese EFL learners. Therefore, this study aimed to quantitatively examine the burnout, enjoyment, and engagement levels among 387 junior high school EFL learners. The findings revealed that the students experienced low levels of burnout but high levels of enjoyment and engagement in learning. Furthermore, significant gender and grade differences were observed in these variables. The study also found strong negative associations between burnout and both enjoyment and engagement, along with significant positive correlations between enjoyment and engagement. Additionally, it was discovered that enjoyment, rather than burnout, significantly predicted English learning engagement. Interestingly, the study also revealed that enjoyment fully mediated the relationship between engagement and burnout. These findings highlight the importance of promoting enjoyment in order to reduce burnout and foster increased engagement among language learners. This article concludes with the theoretical and pedagogical implications for EFL instruction.

Keywords: Learning engagement, burnout, Foreign language enjoyment, junior high school students, EFL learning

Received: 12 Sep 2023; Accepted: 22 Nov 2023.

Copyright: © 2023 hong, Jian and li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mr. Wang Jian, Geely University of China, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China