An exploration of EFL students’ emotional geographies in learning English Syntax

The students’ emotional dimension is rarely acknowledged as an educational policy strategy for improving teaching and learning standards. However, emotions are integral and foundational part of learning. The emotional geography of students addresses distance and/or closeness motives of their interactions and relationship configure feelings and emotions they experience on themselves, each other, and the world. English syntax course equips students with the knowledge of syntactic theory and analysis so that they are able to comprehend the concept of syntax as sentence patterns. Through this class, the students experience emotional geography which is generated from the learning process since the classroom is an emotional space. This present study aims to scrutinize undergraduate students’ emotional geography spatially and experientially based on Hargreaves’ framework (2001). It is further to disclose how the students’ emotional geographies influence their learning English syntax. A descriptive case study was employed in this research. The participants were six students of the English Education Department academic year 2019 at the State Islamic University of Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung. The data was collected through interviews, then qualitatively analysed by using thematic analysis and document analysis. The results show that the students experienced a variety of emotional struggles on the socio-cultural, physical, moral, professional, and political. It is thus calculated from the five components of emotional geography, that in learning English syntax, the EFL students encountered the physical emotional geography significantly and unequivocally occurred. It then emerged both positive and negative emotions in learning. On the whole, in learning English syntax the students encountered all five emotional geographies. Coupled with this, they experienced more the negative emotions than the positive ones in learning English syntax. Hence, they experienced unenjoyment of learning and few students gained the highest classroom grade level based on their English syntax grade. Despite, in the students’ learning process, they basically were interested and motivated attending English syntax class since by the rules applied in the classroom, along with this the learners became discipline and serious during learning as well as satisfied with their learning outcomes. This study gives implications for both students and educators to have consciousness regarding emotional experiences in learning English syntax so that it is intended to create an enjoyment learning that can afford increasing students’ learning performance and achievement