Effects of Teacher Engagement on Students' Achievement in an Online English as a Foreign Language Classroom: The Mediating Role of Autonomous Motivation and Positive Emotions

The role of teacher empathy and immediacy in Chinese EFL students' affective learning outcomes: unveiling the associations

Introduction

The positive influences of teacher-student interpersonal communication skills on second language (L2) students have been considerably endorsed in the literature. However, the contribution of teacher empathy and immediacy behaviors, as realizations of such skills, to students' affective learning outcomes is unaddressed in L2 research.

Methods

To fill this gap, three scales were distributed among a sample of 350 Chinese EFL students to see if teachers' empathy and immediacy correlate with and predict students' affective learning outcomes.

Results

The results of correlation analysis revealed strong and positive relationships among teacher empathy, teacher immediacy, and learners' affective learning outcomes. Moreover, the results of multiple regression indicated that Chinese EFL teachers' empathy and immediacy could predict about 65 and 60% of changes in the learners' affective learning outcomes, respectively.

Discussion

Implications of the study for EFL teachers' interpersonal communication skills development and emotional literacy are discussed. Future research trends are also presented at the end of the article.

What I know, what I want to know, what I learned: Activating EFL college students' cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement through structured feedback in an online environment

Given the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, online classes have received special attention worldwide. Since teachers have a lasting effect on the students, the teacher-student relationship is a pivotal factor in language learning classes. Students will not be engaged in class activities if they are not sufficiently challenged by them or if they do not find them interesting, especially in online classes. From this point of view, motivating, engaging, and testing techniques in online classes are highly important. The present study attempts to demonstrate a correlation between structured feedback and three types of engagement in an online class: cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement. The structured feedback, which is used at the end of each lesson lets the students express what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned. The sample of the study consists of 114 EFL third-year college students. The study's findings reveal positive and significant correlations between the three types of engagement; cognitive, behavioral, and emotional, and the use of structured feedback in online classes. In a nutshell, some academic implications and recommendations are provided.

Positive Influence of Cooperative Learning and Emotion Regulation on EFL Learners' Foreign Language Enjoyment

This study approaches foreign language enjoyment (FLE) through the lenses of positive psychology, and in particular, examines how enjoyment is affected by emotion regulation (ER) and two factors concerning cooperative learning (CL) in a classroom climate, namely positive goal interdependence (PGI) and peer personal support (PPS). To achieve this goal, 115 Chinese university freshmen (male 47; female 68) aged between 18 to 20 (M = 18.69; SD = 0.65) were invited to complete a questionnaire. Regression analyses revealed a clear three-factor structure determining the FLE of students learning English as a foreign language (EFL), which are ER, PGI that highlights cooperation, and PPS that emphasizes the interpersonal relationship between peers. It also showed that PGI and PPS significantly influence each other while positively and jointly shaping FLE. The findings suggest that university EFL students with higher ER abilities are more likely to obtain enjoyment in the learning process and that positive interdependence and interpersonal support during CL also play an effective role in deciding students' FLE. The study not only confirms the importance of ER and CL which may lead to high-level learning enjoyment, but also provides practical implications for the realization of an enjoyable second language acquisition (SLA) experience.

Examining the relationship between perceived teacher support and students' academic engagement in foreign language learning: Enjoyment and boredom as mediators

As an important contextual factor influencing various aspects of students' learning, teacher support has been widely explored in general education but largely overlooked in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Given its potential positive role in students' academic performance, the present study intended to investigate the relationship between perceived teacher support, enjoyment, boredom, and academic engagement in the EFL context. In so doing, 1094 Chinese high school students were recruited to complete the online questionnaire of the four variables. SPSS and PROCESS macro were used for descriptive, correlational, and mediation analyses. The results showed that students had moderate levels of perceived teacher support, enjoyment, and academic engagement and a low level of boredom. Further correlation analyses indicated medium to large correlations between perceived teacher support, enjoyment, boredom, and academic engagement. Enjoyment and boredom collectively mediated the relationship between perceived teacher support and academic engagement. Directions for future research and implications for researchers and educators are presented at the end.