The present study explores fluctuations in behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement over the course of four intact L2 lessons spread over the course of one academic year, and examines the interrelationships between these dimensions and timescales under a situated, dynamic perspective.
While second language (L2) engagement has gained increasing attention in recent years, most empirical research to date has examined this construct in the context of single tasks and under laboratory conditions. Given the ecologically situated and dynamic nature of engagement, there has been a growing call for research investigating this construct beyond isolated tasks and in the real-world language classroom (Hiver et al., 2021). To fill this gap, this study examines fluctuations in behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement over the course of four intact L2 lessons spread across one academic year, and explores the interrelationships between these dimensions and timescales. A stimulated recall design was developed where 26 students from five classes of French and Spanish at a British university noted their levels of engagement on a chart at 2.5 minute-intervals while watching the video replay of the lesson. This procedure was followed by semi-structured interviews in which learners were asked to comment on variations in engagement during the lesson. Findings revealed how engagement can be understood as an ongoing, dynamic process unfolding over multiple timescales. They have also shown that engagement can pursue different trajectories depending on the level of analysis and granularity chosen to examine the construct.
