The Effect of Positive Psychology Intervention on EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension

This study applies positive psychology to improve EFL learners’ listening comprehension ability. To this aim, two groups of EFL learners (N = 45) participated in the study. The learners in the experimental group received the positive psychology intervention based on four components of positive psychology including hope, gratitude, emotion regulation, and empathy and those in the control group received the usual listening comprehension activities. The results including listening comprehension scores along with the analysis of the semi-structured interviews and class observations showed the effectiveness of the intervention, highlighting an increase in the students' listening comprehension scores. It was found that the experimental group experienced a range of positive and negative emotions, with positive emotions more than twice as frequent as negative emotions. The findings also showed that the intervention informed the instructor regarding specific areas where the learners encountered difficulty and in so doing, it allowed for applying appropriate strategies to help them overcome such problems. Finally, the theoretical and pedagogical implications of integrating positive emotions in foreign language teaching are discussed.