LEARNING LEARNING ÙŲ(ÙŲVolume 24 Issue 2 Summer 2017

Emotion and Communicative Competence in English
Discussion Class
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Nicole Gallagher NysxInqGy
Rikkyo University şĘÑÙEmail: gallag01@rikkyo.ac.jp

Every day we experience a range of emotions in our interactions with different
people and from the stories we see in the news. We all implicitly understand tosome degree that these emotions can affect our moods, motivation, and actions.
When it comes to the language-learning classroom, however, not much attention has been
paid to how emotions may affect classroom learning (Benesch, 2012). At Creating
Community: Learning Together 3 (CCLT3), I had an opportunity to reflect on the emotional
dimension of classroom learning and its connection to interactive oral communication.
While my classroom experiences have informed my belief that an emotional dimension tocommunication is always present and plays a role in how learners were communicating in
my classes, I was unsure of how to frame my own practice-derived ideas of emotion andcommunication to wider understandings in the English language teaching (ELT) field. In
my poster presentation at CCLT3, I talked about my own classroom experiences withlearner emotion and the approach I have taken to incorporating my own understanding of
it in my teaching practices. I was especially interested to hear what other participants
thought about the following puzzling questions: “How is emotion connected to oral communicationin an English language learning context?” and “Is being empathetic a good way to frame an emotional
communicative competence?”
In this short paper, I describe my own classroom observations of learner emotion andhow it has altered my approach to teaching in my current context. I then present theframework of communicative competence and empathy that I looked at in the poster
presentation. I also discuss some of the ideas that other participants put forward at CCLT3.
Observing Emotion in Classroom Learning
My recent interest in the relationship between emotion and communication originatedwhile teaching a university course dedicated to developing English discussion skills for L2
learners in Tokyo, Japan. The curriculum of this English discussion class aims for students
to be able to share their beliefs with others in English (Hurling, 2012). Each class lesson isorganized around a given discussion topic and communication skill, with the course
emphasizing output and interaction to encourage fluency and communication skill
development. The course has a unified curriculum, and so each weekly discussion topic is
determined by the syllabus described in the in-house textbook. While instructors canmodify discussion questions, and learners have some choice as to which questions theywant to discuss, each lesson is expected to adhere to the topics established by the course
curriculum.
After a year of teaching the course, however, I recognized that in some classes, students
were better able to manage certain topics over others, and that discussion topics evoked arange of emotional responses from students. I have observed learners looking happy,
interested, and excited to discuss a particular topic, while other times they seemed reticent,unhappy, and sometimes even annoyed, frustrated, or dismissive. In other words, learners
sometimes displayed emotions that suggested they were comfortable, and at other times,

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they displayed feelings of discomfort. It seemed that less controversial topics such asuniversity life, or university entrance examinations typically evoked the former emotions
listed, while more challenging topics, such as those that intersected with identity, social
position, and power, would sometimes evoke the latter. For example, several of the morechallenging discussion topics focus on marginalized individuals in society, such as
hikikomori (reclusive individuals who withdraw from social life), or the homeless. In a few
sections of the course this year, some learners reacted by being dismissive or annoyed when
discussing these topics, while others showed discomfort or frustration with theirclassmates’ dismissive attitudes or ideas. These expressions of emotion were importantbecause however students felt in a given lesson affected class interaction and environment.
Learner emotion interacted in the class to create many different kinds of atmosphere andinteraction patterns, and would colour ensuing discussions, affecting class dynamics. Afterobserving various kinds of emotion displayed in learner interaction, I wanted to deepen
my understanding about how learners can manage these scenarios better, and what I can
do to facilitate a more meaningful exchange of ideas between learners.
Incorporating an Emotional Understanding in my own Teaching
Hargreaves (2000) argued that teaching and learning are “always irretrievably emotional
in character, in a good way or bad way” (p. 812). Therefore, it seems vital to have aconsideration of emotion reflected in our teaching practices. From my perspective, there
are several reasons to consider learner emotion in my teaching, the most obvious one beingthat the classroom should be a comfortable space for learners. Second, by trying to grasp
learner emotion, teachers will be better able to perceive learner experiences and develop
the background information required to aid them in their learning goals. Piccardo andAden (2014) suggested that emotion “helps us understand the depth of personal andcultural implication involved in language use and in the process of language learning” (p.
240). By reflecting on learner emotion in my own teaching context, I can learn from mystudents how to acquire a more robust understanding of language learning in my classroom,
which in turn can inform a more nuanced approach to teaching. Third, incorporating an
understanding of emotion in the classroom can help to further the stated aims of the course
by creating more meaningful, rich discussions, and helping learners develop theircommunication abilities in English.
Recently, I have been adapting two aspects of my teaching practice based on myobservations of emotion in the classroom: discussion topic presentation and materials, andlearner skills development. In order to encourage learners to engage in a more criticalanalysis about a topic, I try to expose them to relevant information that can help learners
develop balanced opinions. For instance, if I predict that some learners may not be awareof some knowledge on a given topic, like homelessness in Japan, I provide somebackground information as scaffolding. As well, I usually brainstorm with my colleagues
about how to present topics in ways that encourage learners to have a more holistic
understanding of social issues. The classroom materials might include information in theform of evocative images, short fictional narratives, or pertinent facts and statistics. The
end goal of this scaffolding is that learners can reach well-informed opinions and achievea better understanding of a range of positions possible on various issues. Presenting
adequate scaffolding can reduce anxiety towards unfamiliar topics, and will give learners
the tools to discuss a range of perspectives more effectively. Emotionally, this would likely
reduce discomfort and make some learners less dismissive of unfamiliar perspectives.
Learners also need opportunities to improve their ability to manage difficult discussions
effectively. I often try to encourage learners to understand opinions that differ from theirown. In class, we talk about the importance of clarifying ideas by using follow-up questions
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LEARNING LEARNING ÙŲ(ÙŲVolume 24 Issue 2 Summer 2017as a means to understand each other’s ideas more deeply. We also exchange views on why
it is useful in discussions to demonstrate active listening through reactions and bodylanguage. Sometimes everyone in the class will share ideas about what makes for a good
discussion, and usually they find it easy to distinguish between good and bad discussions.
Another useful activity is to have learners consider various points of view on an issue. For
example, in a class on crime and punishment, we discuss what is the appropriate
punishment for murder. In that case, I will have the students brainstorm different
perspectives that would be important to consider in the discussion. Sometimes I will
suggest viewpoints that I think are missing, such as the executioner’s point of perspective,or the innocent person’s point of view. By implementing activities that focus on building
communication skills in a discussion context, I can guide learners on how to manage theirown feelings towards different ideas or behaviours in class through providing tools tonavigate discussion more effectively.
The Emotional Dimension of Communication Skills
Reflecting on the students in my classes, I have often thought that there is an elementof emotional awareness inherent in good communication. While it is clear that there arecertain learners who are quite skillful at expressing their opinions on challenging topics,
there may be other learners who demonstrate a strong interpersonal awareness, exhibiting
an ability to communicate well in group communication settings like discussions. For
example, some learners exhibit a willingness to try to understand others’ ideas, are open to
considering different perspectives, or are good at listening to others. Considering thoselearners who are especially skillful in interactive communication and discussion, it often
seemed that their actions reflected an emotional awareness of others. While I have foundthis challenging to explain theoretically, I am interested in understanding how a learner’s
emotional awareness may be connected to communicative competence in an ELT context.
This is what I was interested in discussing at the CCLT conference, which I outline in thenext section.
Theorizing Emotion’s RelationshipCommunicative CompetencetoCommunication:

EmpathyandDuring the poster presentation, I spent a lot of time discussing the idea ofcommunicative competence and how it connected to emotion. I asked other participants,“In what ways might emotion interface with communicative competence?” Some participants hadinteresting comments about alternative ways of framing communicative competence toinclude an aspect of emotional awareness. A couple of suggestions included strategiccompetence, or sociolinguistic competence as aspects of learning a second language.
Another idea that emerged was that emotional awareness could be better framed as partof a general academic literacy. In other words, the idea that emotion may not only interface
with language learning itself, but may be part of a larger cognitive skill that is both included
in and transcends the second language learning context. I find this idea particularlycompelling because it suggests that such a definition of communicative competence could
be developed by drawing on other related fields, such as psychology or education studies,
which examine relationships between communication and emotion in the classroom. It
may also be useful to isolate differences between second language learning and otheracademic subjects, where student interaction and communication is emphasized. While I
have not arrived at any conclusions about how emotion informs communicative ability inlanguage learning, my poster presentation suggested ways to explore these notions moredeeply.

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One idea that has intrigued me since I started to think about emotional awareness andcommunication is the idea of empathy. When I reflected on learners who were adept at
handling a range of topics and worked well with others, I often thought that their successcould partly be attributed to empathy. They were empathetic listeners and communicatorsand could tolerate a variety of opinions. Despite this, one puzzle I have faced is how toteach empathy and whether it can necessarily be taught. It is also unclear how it connects
to a learner’s communicative competence.
During the presentation, I provided two ideas about empathy from Piccardo and Aden
(2014). These ideas were interesting to me because the authors conceive of empathy asboth an attitude and an ability, which could potentially connect empathy with the idea ofa communicative competence. They describe empathy as an attitude that can be taken
when there is a breakdown in communication. By being empathetic, “one must put oneself
in the place of the other, essentially taking control of one’s emotions” (Piccardo & Aden,
2014, p. 247). This suggests that empathizing involves a conscious decision to foregroundthe experience of the other, and so the “empathetic learner” is enacting a kind of selfcontrol. In other words, empathy may help learners to manage their emotional reactions
in order to communicate more effectively. Piccardo and Aden (2014) also describe
empathy as an “ability to analyze a situation by accepting another’s point of view, at the
moment when this point of view is experienced or considered, which in turn may change
one’s reaction to the situation” (p. 247). The ability to accept another’s point of viewsuggests a willingness to be open to changing one’s opinion. Both of these ideas suggestthat empathy requires learners to make decisions about how they will react to difficult
situations and opinions that differ from theirs.
During the poster presentation, other participants agreed that empathy perhaps played
a role in good communication in the language-learning classroom. It seemed that everyone
could imagine this relationship between being a good communicator and being empathetic.
However, there were no strong arguments about whether empathy would be theappropriate way to frame an emotional communicative competence. In discussion withseveral participants, I expressed my frustration with the difficulties of defining learneremotion and empathy in concise, concrete ways that connect it to other ideas in the fieldof ELT. One participant commented that he thought this is the nature of emotion in theclassroom; it is inherently difficult to pin down. This comment was useful for me in that it
reminded me that the difficulties of emotional description, including deciding on
appropriate terminology or definitions, reflect the complex nature of emotion itself and its
relationship with language and learner experience. While I need to do a more in-depth
literature review on emotion, empathy, and communication in the classroom, it seems
possible that empathy could be one aspect of a more global communicative competencethat attends to emotion and the emotional dimension of learning.
Looking Forward: Future Classroom Research on Emotion
Presenting at CCLT3 provided a valuable opportunity to hear different opinions fromother conference participants on how to connect emotion to communication. The
experience has encouraged me to think about the relationship between learner emotion
and communication more deeply. Next, I intend to explore the ideas of empathy andemotion in the communicative language-learning context through conducting in-classresearch. To deepen my understanding of this dynamic, it would be fruitful to gain a richer
description of learner emotion, which I intend to research by looking at reflective in-classwriting. Following an action research model, students will have a chance to write
reflections on their feelings and experiences at the beginning and end of every class as areflection paper. I have called this in-class activity “The Before and After Paper.” I will
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collect the student papers every class and provide them again at the end of the semester
for students to reflect on their progress. By examining student self-reflections on theirclassroom experiences, I hope to improve my understanding of the complexity ofemotional experience in the language-learning classroom. I also hope that the activity
provides opportunities for students to become more aware of their emotional states bygiving them an opportunity to reflect on their feelings on classroom involvement. I lookforward to sharing my classroom research and engaging in an exchange of ideas about
emotion and communication with other members of the Learner Development SIG in the
future.

References
Benesch, S. (2012). Considering emotions in critical English language teaching. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Hargreaves, A. (2000). Mixed emotions: teachers’ perceptions of their interactions withstudents. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 811-826.
Hurling, S. (2012). Introduction to EDC. New Directions in Teaching and Learning English
Discussion, 1(1), 1-10.
Piccardo, E., & Aden, J. (2014). Plurilingualism and empathy. In J. Conteh & G. Meier(Eds.), The multilingual turn in languages education (pp. 234-257). Bristol, UK: Multilingual
Matters.

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Reader Response to “Emotion and Communicative Competence inEnglish Discussion Class”
Lee Arnold, Daito Bunka UniversityT

his was interesting to read as you’re raising some crucial questions that go
beyond language learning and into psychological areas of maturationand the impact such areas have on communication. It chimes in withmuch of my interest—the subjective side of language learning and acquisition.
In my response, I’d like to focus on two points you focus on in your shortreflective article—the development of communicative competence, andempathy.
In relation to observing emotion in the classroom, you noticed how topics
that center around questions of identity, social position, and power may makesome learners uncomfortable. I’m wondering if this is because such topics may
be hitting too close to home about their emerging identities and particularsocial positions. The discomfort may come from a sense of powerlessness given
the array of socio-economic forces affecting them and their futures. They are
doubtlessly aware of these realities but perhaps are not yet able to articulate
or fully grasp them.
These realities impact learners’ lives and will have a bearing on how muchthey are willing to engage in discussion, perhaps in the L1 as much as the L2.
But is all this together the only answer? Is it also possible that students mightwant to avoid dealing with the discomfort of others about these issues? Somelearners may be ready to face these “heavy” issues, but are also aware thatsome of their classmates may not be.
If this is the case, what you are seeing may be the growing pains ofcommunicative competence as a whole in the L2 and possibly the L1 as well.
You seem to intuit this where you say “the idea that emotion may not onlyinterface with language learning itself, but may be part of a larger cognitive
skill that is both included in and transcends the second language learning
context.” So, in broader terms, you may also be seeing how the emergence of
these communicative competences is tied into a larger ontological framework,in which learner language development is one part of a scheme of maturationthat is transforming them as whole beings with nascent adult selves. Perhaps
the resistance to certain topics in discussion is evidence of a conflict within thatchange, a realization of a departure from adolescence into an “adult” life
condition that does not necessarily confer power in dealing with harder socialand economic realities.
This reaches to the point of empathy. Is it possible that what you’re observing
in your learners is an empathetic emergence out of concern towards theirmore sensitive classmates? They perceive that some are not ready to grapple
with these issues, and where you discuss emotional understanding in your own
teaching, you seem to touch on the possibility of an empathetic pedagogy.
This term might be a useful way to characterize an approach to matureclassroom learner engagement that reviews content that some learners may
be uncomfortable with. It could also include broaching difficult issues andengaging with learners who may not seem to be ready for engagement, but
who also may break through to such topics within an empathetic peer-andteacher environment.

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I would be very interested in what you explore further and what approaches
you decide on, which, as you show, will require nuance and a gentle
persistence.

Reader Response to “Emotion and Communicative Competence inEnglish Discussion Class”
Blair Barr, Tamagawa University

H

aving had a chance to talk with Nicole during her poster presentation, I
really felt that I could empathize with her motivation as a teacher trying
to facilitate discussions on complex topics that trigger emotional
restrictions to speaking. Several years ago, in an adult discussion course basedon events in the news and media, I had issues engaging learners with topics
such as hikikomori, the homeless, and other political and social topics. However,I felt that I was successfully able to change the teaching approach to help
learners discuss these complicated issues of identity, society, and power withgreater engagement by giving them more time to prepare with guided tasks.
In this reader response, I will attempt to summarize the changes that I madewhile also considering Nicole’s use of empathy as a part of communicativecompetence.
Regarding the students’ feelings of annoyance and frustration whenapproaching complex topical discussions in real time, there are at least threereasons why university-aged English language learners might experience these
emotions. For one, they must deal with a cognitive load that is difficult to discuss
for any speaker, regardless of their first language. In fact, learners may havenever even considered some of these topics in the past, so their lack ofknowledge prevents them from carrying on a discussion with a peer even in
their first language. Second, as language learners, they may also lack thelexical knowledge to express their thoughts on the topic. Thus, they would need
to be primed with some of the language required to carry out the task. Finally,
there may also be social or empathetic barriers to discussing complex topics
about society and power with peers. Outside of class, these learners may
typically discuss softer topics such as holidays and popular culture. Expressing
strong views on society and politics could potentially affect relationships
outside of the class as well, so learners may ultimately choose to remain neutral
or disinterested. Although this last issue may be more complicated to resolve, I
have found that we can successfully help learners with the cognitive andlinguistic restrictions.
For myself, my own motivation to change the approach to complex
discussion topics came from Willis and Willis’s (2007) approach to what theyclassified as problem-solving tasks (pp. 93-99). For them, they suggested that
there is a need for an extended priming stage to manage complex discussions.
Nicole certainly makes a great effort to prime learners with images, narratives,and facts; however, learners also need the benefit of time, and some directed
priming work to help them deeply engage with the topics independently
before they can confidently carry on discussions. Much in the same way ateacher will often research their topics more deeply before presenting

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materials in the class. My own approach involves research tasks assigned forhomework that are often based on targeted yes-no questions that force
learners to consider supported reasoning for opposing viewpoints. Once
learners complete the homework, they generally return to class with a great
deal of content to discuss, and they have primed not only their language, butalso their opinions regarding the topics. In the end, the learners have improved
their competence to deal with the subject matter and language. However,Nicole’s concern still stands as not all learners come to empathize entirely with
their peers or participate in discussions.
The approach is not a magic solution for all learners, as the social barriers to
discussing certain issues may remain for some people. Despite the increased
engagement and interest from many learners after an extended priming stage,
I still find that some learners are reluctant to participate or do research. This
may relate to Nicole’s concern about an inability for some learners toempathize as a part of communicative competence. For these learners,
perhaps the experience is crucial for true empathy. Lacking the personal
experience to empathize, they would rather express disinterest in complex
topics, and generally prefer to stay silent. This disinterest and silence may result
from a cognitive and linguistic barrier, but it could also be a defence
mechanism to avoid social and political conflict in their own real worlds.
However, from my own experience teaching adults, a few people evenblamed their inability to engage with topics on a lack of time, thereby
reinforcing my belief that time is a crucial factor needed for learners to reflect
on and engage with complex discussion questions. In the end, I have foundthat the majority of learners can alleviate their cognitive and linguistic
frustrations with these topics when they have been given the time toinvestigate the topics independently, but certainly more work needs to bedone to understand the emotions of those who continue to resist.
Reference
Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task-based teaching: A practical guide to taskbased teaching for ELT training courses and practising teachers. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

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