Increasing L2 learners’ well-being: An EMPATHICS intervention study

Oct 15, 2026

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This article reports on an intervention targeting L2 learner well-being through Oxford’s (2016) EMPATHICS theoretical framework. Conducted at a women’s university in Tokyo across three first-year compulsory four-skills English classes, the study involved 46 learners. The author operationalized the framework using related literature on grit, trait-EI, self-efficacy, L2 motivation, learner autonomy, mindsets, and strategies, supported by multiple assessment and reflection instruments.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages25

Reading Time1 h 3 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Literature Review

Positive psychology and well-being

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| OPEN ACCESS
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics
ISSN 2209-0959
[https://www.castledown.com/journals/ajal/](https://www.castledown.com/journals/ajal/)
| | | --- | --- | --- | | Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 15–39 (2023) [https://doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v6n1.816](https://doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v6n1.816) | | | | Increasing L2 learners’ well-being: An EMPATHICS intervention study | | | | GLEN STEWART a
a Bunkyo University, Adachi Campus, JAPAN [glenandrewstewart@gmail.com](glenandrewstewart@gmail.com) | | | Abstract This article reports on an intervention related to L2 learner well-being based on Oxford ’s (2016) EMPATHICS theoretical framework. The intervention was conducted at a women ’s university in Tokyo in three of the researcher ’s own first-year, compulsory, four-skills English-language classes. Forty-six learners agreed to take part in the study. To operationalize Oxford ’s (2016) framework, the author drew on several areas of the literature, including grit, trait-EI, self-efficacy, L2 motivation, L2 learner autonomy, mindsets, and language-learning strategies. Data collection instruments used consisted of a forty-five item self-assessment tool, a six-item mini-survey to indicate learners ’ preexisting levels of L2 well-being, a self-report homework handout to facilitate learners ’ overall reflective process, and an End-of-intervention Evaluation Report. The ten-week intervention consisted of: (1) having the learners self-assess their use of strategy-related tactics in class one and completing the L2 well-being mini-survey; (2) learners providing a written reflection and/or taking action and providing a written report about their actions after class five times across the term related to tactics in the self-assessment with the help of written advice from the researcher; and (3) the researcher providing guidance about multiple tactics in class and having the learners focus on those tactics when completing relevant activities in class. It was hoped that the overall intervention would encourage positive change in learners ’ L2 well-being. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed, and avenues for future research are suggested. Keywords: positive psychology, well-being, EMPATHICS, language-learning strategies Introduction Research to date regarding Positive Psychology (PP)-inspired interventions has shown that they can be effective (Abdolrezapour & Ghanbari, 2021; Gregersen et al., 2014; Gregersen, 2016; Rad & Jafapour, 2022; Li & Xu, 2019), and there have been calls for more PP-inspired interventions in EFL courses (Dewaele et al., 2019; Mercer, 2021; Wang et al., 2021) . L2 learner well-being is an under- Copyright: © 2023 Glen Stewart. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are in this paper. investigated area of the PP literature (Wang et al., 2021) . However, it is essential to the languagelearning process (MacIntyre et al., 2019; Mercer, 2021) . Therefore, there is a need for more intervention studies that demonstrate how teachers can help learners to maximize their well-being and their learning (MacIntyre et al., 2019; Mercer, 2021) . Further, research has shown such interventions maybe most effective when they are individualized (Gregersen et al., 2016; Gregersen et al., 2021), with Gregersen et al. (2021) stating that “we need to examine in detail the fit between the individual and the PP activity, and document the process by which it exerts its effect”(p. 11) . Rebecca Oxford has proposed the EMPATHICS theoretical framework (Oxford, 2016) . It consists of twenty-one components, with the goal of the framework being to “help learners achieve high well-being and progress

FAQs

What theoretical framework guides the intervention study?

The study is based on Oxford’s (2016) EMPATHICS theoretical framework, aimed at helping learners achieve high well-being and rapid progress.

Where and how was the intervention implemented?

The intervention was conducted at a women’s university in Tokyo across three of the researcher’s own first-year compulsory four-skills English-language classes.

How did the study operationalize and measure L2 well-being?

The author used literature areas such as grit, trait-EI, self-efficacy, motivation, autonomy, mindsets, and strategies, alongside a 45-item self-assessment tool, a six-item mini-survey, reflective homework, and an end-of-intervention evaluation report.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Franzy