Relating EFL university students' mindfulness and resilience to self-fulfilment and motivation in learning

Afsaneh Ghanizadeh
Imam Reza International University, Iran
Hossein Makiabadi and Samaneh Abdi Navokhi
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

Given the prominence of mindfulness in educational settings and the fact that little attention has been given to this concept in foreign language learning, the present study sets out to explore the influence of mindfulness and L2 resilience on Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' self-fulfilment, and L2 motivation. To meet this objective, 221 EFL learners were recruited to participate in this study. They were asked to respond to the Langer mindfulness scale (LMS), L2 resilience inventory, measurement of actualisation of potential (MAP), and motivation scale. Afterwards, structural equation modeling (SEM) utilising the LISREL 8.50 statistical package was exploited to shed light on probable relationships. The findings demonstrated that mindfulness is a positive and consistent predictor of self-fulfilment and resilience and also exerts positive influence on L2 motivation both directly and indirectly via its effect on self-fulfilment. Resilience was positively and significantly associated with self-fulfilment. Resilience has a positive relationship with L2 motivation, both directly and indirectly via self-fulfilment. In addition, it was found that L2 motivation was predicted by self-fulfilment positively and significantly. Taken together, the pivotal role of mindfulness in language learning was demonstrated, and according to the findings, some suggestions are put forward regarding the implications of the study.
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Authors: Dr Afsaneh Ghanizadeh (corresponding author) is an assistant professor of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) at Imam Reza International University, Mashhad, Iran. She has published over 80 papers in research scientific journals and about 30 papers in ISI or Scopus-indexed journals. Her research interests include psychology of language teaching and learning, and teacher education. Email: a.ghanizadeh@imamreza.ac.ir, ghanizadeafsane@yahoo.com Hossein Makiabadi is a PhD candidate in TEFL at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. His Masters thesis was on individual differences and emotioncy. His research interests lie mainly in the interface of second language acquisition and second language instruction, with particular emphasis on the role of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics in L2 development. Email: hossein.makiabadi@mail.um.ac.ir Samaneh Abdi Navokhi is an MA student in General Linguistics at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. She is also an EFL tutor, mostly working with adult and juvenile learners of English. She is interested in cognitive sciences, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, computational linguistics, and their applications in TEFL. Email: abdi.samaneh@mail.um.ac.ir Please cite as: Ghanizadeh, A., Makiabadi, H. & Abdi Navokhi, S. (2019). Relating EFL university students' mindfulness and resilience to self-fulfilment and motivation in learning. Issues in Educational Research, 29(3), 695-714. http://www.iier.org.au/iier29/ghanizadeh.pdf