Standard Presentation (25-minute) Group Emotions - What are they and why do they matter? more

Sat, Sep 16, 16:00-16:25 Asia/Tokyo

While research on emotions has been a prominent area in applied linguistics research, especially at the tertiary level, only recently has inquiry into emotions taken a social turn. With the recently growing emphasis on positive psychology and teacher well-being, understanding how emotions are shared within a class is an important endeavor. Group emotions have been studied in organizational science, sociology, and psychology, but have been largely ignored in SLA research (Menges & Kilduff, 2015). Group emotion, or group affect, is represented by both the characteristics of the group acting upon emotions of individuals, and from individuals' emotional states and how they affect the overall group (Barsade & Gibson, 1998). This presentation will synthesize the literature related to the social context of emotions, group interactions, and group emotions as they may pertain to language classrooms. In addition, the presenter will introduce how understanding group emotions may lead to success in the language classroom, as well as when learners enter the workforce. Implications will be made as to how these may affect teacher well-being as well as directions for future research on this topic.