If the learners do not think and feel whilst experiencing the language they are unlikely
to acquire any elements of it (Arnold 1999). Thinking whilst experiencing language in
use helps to achieve the deep processing required for effective and durable learning
and it helps learners to transfer high level skills such as predicting, connecting,
interpreting and evaluating to second language use. If the learners do not feel any
emotion whilst exposed to language in use they are unlikely to acquire anything from
their experience. Feeling enjoyment, pleasure and happiness, feeling empathy, being
amused, being excited and being stimulated are most likely to influence acquisition
positively but feeling annoyance, anger, fear, opposition and sadness is more useful
than feeling nothing at all. Ideally though the learner should be experiencing positive
affect in the sense of being confident, motivated and willingly engaged even when
experiencing ‘negative’ emotions. There is a substantial literature on the value of
affective and cognitive engagement whilst engaged in responding to language in use,
with much of it focusing on research into the role of emotion in language learning
and use or reporting research on cognitive engagement during language lessons..
Principles of Materials Development
1 Prioritise the potential for engagement by, for example, basing a unit on a text or a
task which is likely to achieve affective and cognitive engagement rather than on a
teaching point selected from a syllabus.
2 Make use of activities which get the learners to think about what they are reading or
listening to and to respond to it personally.
3 Make use of activities which get learners to think and feel before during and after
using the target language for communication.
Examples of Materials
I use a text-driven approach in which the starting point for developing each unit is a
potentially engaging spoken or written text. I first of all devise readiness activities
which help the learners to activate their minds prior to experiencing the text, I give the
learners an holistic focus to think about when experiencing the text and I invite them
to articulate their personal responses to the text before going on to use it to stimulate
their own language production