This book highlights the roles of several individual difference (ID) variables on the language learning process, exploring them from both the students’ and the teachers’ perspectives. It presents the results of a large-scale, mixed-methods investigation which was conducted with secondary school pupils and their teachers in Hungary. The quantitative questionnaire data is used to analyze the English language learners’ motivation, autonomy and self-efficacy beliefs, and to examine the relationships between these and a wide range of positive and negative emotions. The qualitative data, consisting of interviews with teachers, gives voice not only to an understanding of student-related ID variables but also to teachers’ reflections on their own cognitive, affective and behavioral processes. Taken together, the contrastive analysis of these two datasets yields interactional results that provide fresh insights into the language learning process and practical classroom applications.

This book presents a large-scale rigorously designed and executed mixed-methods project, giving insights into hitherto unexplored areas of individual differences. Based on the intriguing results of the survey and the teacher interview data, the authors offer hands-on pedagogical suggestions that are relevant far beyond the Hungarian context. The volume is a must-have for research students, scholars and practitioners interested in individual differences and the methods that can be applied to study them.

This exemplary large-scale study is a mixed-methods research gem. Readers interested in motivation and emotions will discover a series of interrelated findings presented with clarity, in detailed and nuanced ways. This book inspires thoughtful consideration of similarities and differences between teacher and learner psychology and how they change over time.

The volume stands out for its systematic examination of motivation, autonomy, emotions, and self-efficacy within a less commonly researched EFL context [and] arrives at a timely moment when educational systems worldwide are grappling with the effects of digital transformation and the need to understand learner profiles in increasingly diverse and challenging contexts.

Kata Csizér is Professor at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research focuses on foreign language learning motivation, and she is Associate Editor of the Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching journal and Co-Editor of the monograph series Applied Linguistics in the 21st Century, published by Akadémiai Kiadó.

Dávid Smid is Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Graz, Austria. His research interests include language learner psychology, teacher psychology and positive psychology, and he is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning.

Anna Zólyomi is Assistant Professor at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research explores individual differences, implicit and explicit learning and differentiated instruction, and she is Section Editor at GiLE Journal of Skills Development.

Ágnes Albert is Assistant Professor at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research focuses on task-based language learning, foreign language learning-related emotions and flow, and she is Associate Editor of the Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching journal.