The role of intellectual humility in foreign language enjoyment and foreign language classroom anxiety

Abstract

Intellectual humility (IH) involves a certain degree of selflessness and an accurate view of one’s ownworth and abilities. To date, IH has not been explicitly researched as a variable in the study of foreignlanguage (FL) learning. The present mixed-methods study aims to explore possible links between FLlearners’ IH and their foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and foreign language classroom anxiety(FLCA). The survey was administered online entirely in Spanish and respondents were 163 adultSpanish L1 speakers enrolled in an EFL course at any level of proficiency. The research instrument wasadapted from three established constructs: the CIHS (Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale)(Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016), the FLE Short Form (Botes, Dewaele & Greiff, 2020) and the FLCAShort form scale (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014). Feedback on three open-ended questions providedqualitative data. Results show that IH has a mixed and complex relationship with FLE and FLCA, withsome IH domains negatively predicting FLE and both positively and negatively predicting FLCA. Thecurrent research is an attempt to widen the range of psychological factors that might affect FL classroomemotions.