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Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study

Influenced by the flowering of positive psychology in the field of foreign language acquisition research in recent years, the present study aimed to explore the perceived functions of playfulness, as a personality construct, among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this aim, an initial...

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Autores principales: Barabadi, Elyas, Elahi Shirvan, Majid, Shahnama, Mojdeh, Proyer, René T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8818999/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35140669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.823123
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author Barabadi, Elyas
Elahi Shirvan, Majid
Shahnama, Mojdeh
Proyer, René T.
author_facet Barabadi, Elyas
Elahi Shirvan, Majid
Shahnama, Mojdeh
Proyer, René T.
author_sort Barabadi, Elyas
collection PubMed
description Influenced by the flowering of positive psychology in the field of foreign language acquisition research in recent years, the present study aimed to explore the perceived functions of playfulness, as a personality construct, among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this aim, an initial sample of 38 EFL learners were selected randomly from the private language institutes of Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran. They were interviewed about any perceived functions of playfulness in the EFL learning context. A qualitative content analysis of the collected data led to the extraction of four categories: Fun and laughter, creativity, mastery orientation, and cultivating relationships. A further in-depth analysis of the categories and comparison with the functions of adult playfulness in psychology (primarily Proyer’s 2014 and 2017 works of research) revealed that these four categories can be subsumed under two of the four structural components of adult playfulness; namely, other-directed playfulness and intellectual playfulness. The ability of EFL learners to turn language learning situations, tasks, and environment into enjoyable ones via their playfulness can have implications for the quality of their interpersonal interactions in class and eventually their language proficiency. The findings of this study can pave the way for the translation of the adult playfulness construct from developmental and personality psychology and family relations into the second language acquisition (SLA) domain and its conceptualization in future research in this domain.
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spelling pubmed-88189992022-02-08 Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study Barabadi, Elyas Elahi Shirvan, Majid Shahnama, Mojdeh Proyer, René T. Front Psychol Psychology Influenced by the flowering of positive psychology in the field of foreign language acquisition research in recent years, the present study aimed to explore the perceived functions of playfulness, as a personality construct, among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this aim, an initial sample of 38 EFL learners were selected randomly from the private language institutes of Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran. They were interviewed about any perceived functions of playfulness in the EFL learning context. A qualitative content analysis of the collected data led to the extraction of four categories: Fun and laughter, creativity, mastery orientation, and cultivating relationships. A further in-depth analysis of the categories and comparison with the functions of adult playfulness in psychology (primarily Proyer’s 2014 and 2017 works of research) revealed that these four categories can be subsumed under two of the four structural components of adult playfulness; namely, other-directed playfulness and intellectual playfulness. The ability of EFL learners to turn language learning situations, tasks, and environment into enjoyable ones via their playfulness can have implications for the quality of their interpersonal interactions in class and eventually their language proficiency. The findings of this study can pave the way for the translation of the adult playfulness construct from developmental and personality psychology and family relations into the second language acquisition (SLA) domain and its conceptualization in future research in this domain. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8818999/ /pubmed/35140669 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.823123 Text en Copyright © 2022 Barabadi, Elahi Shirvan, Shahnama and Proyer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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) and the copyright owner(s) 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.
spellingShingle Psychology
Barabadi, Elyas
Elahi Shirvan, Majid
Shahnama, Mojdeh
Proyer, René T.
Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study
title Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study
title_full Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study
title_fullStr Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study
title_full_unstemmed Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study
title_short Perceived Functions of Playfulness in Adult English as a Foreign Language Learners: An Exploratory Study
title_sort perceived functions of playfulness in adult english as a foreign language learners: an exploratory study
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8818999/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35140669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.823123
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