Examining the educational connection and psychological wellness of Chinese EFL students: The functions of productive scaffolding provided by language teachers

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The core element of successful language acquisition lies in the active participation of students. When exploring factors that enhance the academic performance of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, teacher emotional support has always been a focal point of academic research. With the application of positive psychology, researchers are increasingly focusing on emotions, especially positive emotions, as a central role in the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) field. Over the past decade, researchers have particularly focused on the academic engagement and psychological well-being of language learners, considering them as key factors in improving educational quality. However, specific data on how EFL teachers can enhance students’ psychosocial health and academic engagement through emotional support is still insufficient. Therefore, this study used a questionnaire survey to deeply analyze the data of 1968 Chinese EFL students. Specifically, the research results show that the emotional support provided by teachers can explain up to about 74% and 63% of the differences in EFL students’ educational engagement and mental health, respectively. At the same time, this study also constructed a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) model, concluding that the CMIN/DF ratio is less than 4. In addition, the research results further reveal the potential important mediating role of Chinese English teachers’ self-efficacy in their resilience, emotional management skills, and mental health. In summary, these findings highlight the importance of establishing positive teacher-student relationships to promote the comprehensive psychological development of students.