Increasing Chinese EFL Learners' Grit: The Role of Teacher Respect and Support

Teacher support, grit and L2 willingness to communicate: the mediating effect of foreign language enjoyment

Informed by some relevant theories of positive psychology, the current study examined the interrelations among teacher support, grit, and L2 willingness to communicate (WTC), focusing mainly on the mediating role of foreign language enjoyment (FLE). A sample of 619 university students in China participated in this cross-sectional survey. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the gathered data. The results showed that grit could directly and positively predict L2 WTC. Furthermore, teacher support and grit could affect L2 WTC via the mediating role of FLE. These findings served as empirical evidence from the second language acquisition (SLA) domain for positive psychology, revealing the influential mechanism shaping the interconnectedness among all the constructs. The study concluded with a discussion of pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research.

Towards the implications of positive teacher interpersonal behaviors for Spanish learners' academic engagement: Voices from Chinese SFL learners

With the advent of positive psychology in the area of language education, more focus has been placed on the consequences of favorable teacher communication behaviors in language classes. Nonetheless, the function of language instructors' interpersonal behaviors in raising learners' engagement is somehow unknown. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, no research study has been carried out in Spanish language classes to explore the function of teacher communication behaviors in learners' engagement. To fill this lacuna, the current inquiry looked into the role of teachers' positive interpersonal factors in Chinese SFL learners' behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement. For this purpose, a random sample of 32 SFL learners was chosen to participate in our online interview sessions. The answers of SFL learners to the interview questions were thematically analyzed via MAXQDA software. The thematic analysis findings pointed to the value of teacher communication behaviors in improving SFL learners' engagement. The analysis outcomes also demonstrated the potential of 11 positive interpersonal behaviors (rapport, care, clarity, credibility, confirmation, immediacy, closeness, praise, feedback, respect, and stroke) in increasing Spanish language learners' academic engagement. The practical implications that may emerge from the present study's outcomes are finally discussed.

Enhancing Chinese students' academic engagement: the effect of teacher support and teacher-student rapport

Academic engagement plays an undeniable role in students' leaning outcome. Therefore, identifying the influential antecedents of promoting students' academic engagement is extremely crucial. Despite previous empirical studies have delved into the part played by several student-related and teacher-related factors in triggering Chinese students' academic engagement, the exploration on the roles of teacher support and teacher-student rapport is still scant. Thus, this study attempts to concentrate on the influence of teacher support and teacher-student rapport on undergraduate students' academic engagement in China. Three scales of the questionnaire-one each for teacher's support, student-teacher rapport, and the level of academic engagement-were completed by a total of 298 undergraduate students. Spearman Rho test was adopted to detect the correlations between the variables. Following that, multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the predictive power of the dependent variables. The result found that teacher support and teacher-student rapport exert a tremendous influence on boosting Chinese students' academic engagement. The leading implications and future directions are also presented.

Examining the effects of stroke on students' L2-grit levels in an EFL context: A case of Northern Iraq

This article investigates the effects of stroke on students' L2-grit levels in an EFL context in Northern Iraq. A model was created to find how various components such as verbal, non-verbal, valuing, and activities that determine stroke levels affect students' grit. This study adopted the L2- Grit scale and a language domain-specific grit scale to measure the learners' L2-grit levels. Also, the Students' Stroke Scale (SSS) was used to measure the participants' stroke levels. The study's sample consisted of 199 participants from various academic levels, undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate at several Northern Iraq universities. The results reveal a positive and statistically significant association between the score on the L2-Grit scale and the score on the Stroke scale; more specifically, as the scores on the L2-grit scale rise, so do the scores on the Stroke scale. The mean of low stroke is lower than the means of medium stroke and high stroke indicating that as people's stroke levels grow, so does their L2-grit status. The regression coefficients estimated within the framework of the regression model structured with the logit, the link function, are the same in each category of the dependent variable, satisfying the parallel curves assumption. The overall results show that positive stroke helps learners' L2-grit levels to arise and lead to a better learning process.

Social relationships and grit in English as a foreign language learning among high school students: A three-wave longitudinal study

This study examined the longitudinal reciprocal relations between students' grit and their perceptions of social relationships (teacher-student and peer relationships) in studying English as a foreign language (EFL). A total of 2,435 students from Grades 10-11 in China (Mage = 16.40 years old, 54.2% female) participated in the study on three occasions across 1 year. The three-wave cross-lagged analytic model results indicated that (a) peer relationship and grit reciprocally enhanced each other across both intervals; (b) the teacher-student relationship at Time 2 was influenced by Time 1 grit, but not vice versa. Nevertheless, the teacher-student relationship transactionally facilitated each other during the second interval (from Time 2 to Time 3). The multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) results indicated that such relations remained stable across gender. The study's findings contribute to ongoing research delineating the dynamic system between social relationships and grit in EFL learning. It also reveals that males and females benefit similarly during social communications with peers and their English language teachers. Implications for educational practices were discussed.