From indoor to outdoor: English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ perception on the implementation of STORE learning strategy to improve writing skills

This study aimed to identify associations and predictors of willingness to communicate (WTC) of adult foreign language (FL) learners and whether they are contingent upon the FL being learned. To this end, our research investigated learner variables associated with WTC in adult FL learners of English and of French in an under-researched field of WTC studies in Spain. More specifically, the following variables were studied: gender, age, level of multilingualism, perceived relative standing in the class, language proficiency, teacher’s use of the FL in class, out-of-class foreign language use (OCFLU) and the two emotions of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA). Of the 9 independent variables examined, FLCA and language proficiency were found to be predictors of the WTC of both English and French language learners; additionally, enjoyment was found to be a predictor of WTC of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and OCFLU, of learners of French as a foreign language (FFL). Our findings indicate that the construct of WTC needs to be further studied as research may produce dissimilar results depending on the instructional setting, population and foreign language. Pedagogical implications for language teaching practices seeking to enhance adult FL learners’ WTC were also drawn from the study results.

This study investigates the psychological impact of corrective feedback on English as a Second Language (ESL) students' language anxiety using a quantitative research approach. Conducted among 80 intermediate-level ESL learners in Lahore and Karachi, Pakistan, the research examines how different types and frequencies of corrective feedback, explicit correction, metalinguistic feedback, recasts, clarification requests, and elicitation, affect learners’ emotional responses. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire incorporating items from the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and were analysed using descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and Pearson correlation coefficients. The findings reveal that explicit correction and metalinguistic feedback are most strongly associated with elevated levels of language anxiety, while recasts result in significantly lower anxiety responses. A moderate positive correlation was also found between feedback frequency and anxiety levels, indicating that more frequent corrective input can exacerbate learners' emotional discomfort. These results highlight the need for pedagogical practices that balance effective error correction with emotional sensitivity. The study underscores the importance of using indirect feedback strategies and fostering a psychologically supportive classroom environment to enhance ESL learners' confidence and communicative engagement. References Aljasser, A. (2025). Investigating EFL students’ perceptions of feedback: A comparative study of instructor and ChatGPT-generated responses in academic writing. Education and Information Technologies, 1-22. Biju, N., Abdelrasheed, N. S. G., Bakiyeva, K., Prasad, K. D. V., & Jember, B. (2024). Which one? AI-assisted language assessment or paper format: An exploration of the impacts on foreign language anxiety, learning attitudes, motivation, and writing performance. Language Testing in Asia, 14(1), 45. Charalampous, A., & Darra, M. (2025). The effect of teacher's feedback on student academic achievement: A literature review. Journal of Education and Learning, 14(1), 42–53. Chen, H., Rasool, U., Hu, T., & Bhattacharyya, E. (2025). Examining the beliefs of non-native English-speaking teachers and EFL students about WCF in enhancing writing skills. Acta Psychologica, 256, 105064. Cheng, X., & Xu, J. (2025). Engaging second language (L2) students with synchronous written corrective feedback in technology-enhanced learning contexts: A mixed-methods study. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12(1), 1–13. Darazi, M. A., Khoso, A. K., & Mahesar, K. A. (2023). Investigating the effects of ESL teachers’ feedback on ESL undergraduate students’ level of motivation, academic performance, and satisfaction: Mediating role of students’ motivation. Pakistan Journal of Educational Research, 6(2). Ebadijalal, M., & Yousofi, N. (2023). The impact of mobile-assisted peer feedback on EFL learners’ speaking performance and anxiety: Does language make a difference? The Language Learning Journal, 51(1), 112–130. Gregersen, T. (2023). Feedback matters: Thwarting the negative impact of language anxiety. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 43, 56–63. Hajiyeva, B. (2024). Language anxiety in ESL learners: Causes, effects, and mitigation strategies. EuroGlobal Journal of Linguistics and Language Education, 1(1), 119–133. Liu, C. C., Hwang, G. J., Yu, P., Tu, Y. F., & Wang, Y. (2025). Effects of an automated corrective feedback-based peer assessment approach on students’ learning achievement, motivation, and self-regulated learning conceptions in foreign language pronunciation. Educational Technology Research and Development, 1-22. Mao, Z., Lee, I., & Li, S. (2024). Written corrective feedback in second language writing: A synthesis of naturalistic classroom studies. Language Teaching, 1-29. Patra, I., Alazemi, A., Al-Jamal, D., & Gheisari, A. (2022). The effectiveness of teachers’ written and verbal corrective feedback (CF) during formative assessment (FA) on male language learners’ academic anxiety (AA), academic performance (AP), and attitude toward learning (ATL). Language Testing in Asia, 12(1), 19. Rassaei, E. (2023). The interplay between corrective feedback timing and foreign language anxiety in L2 development. Language Teaching Research, 13621688231195141. Sari, E., & Han, T. (2024). The impact of automated writing evaluation on English as a foreign language learners' writing self-efficacy, self-regulation, anxiety, and performance. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 40(5), 2065–2080. Shahid, N., Asif, M., & Pasha, D. A. (2022). Effect of Internet Addiction on School Going Children. Inverge Journal of Social Sciences, 1(1), 13–55. https://doi.org/10.63544/ijss.v1i1.3 Wang, D. (2024). Teacher-versus AI-generated (Poe application) corrective feedback and language learners’ writing anxiety, complexity, fluency, and accuracy. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 25(3), 37–56. Wang, J., Zhou, T., & Fan, C. (2025). Impact of communication anxiety on L2 WTC of middle school students: Mediating effects of growth language mindset and language learning motivation. PLoS ONE, 20(1), e0304750. Watcharapol, W., Phornrat, T., Teavakorn, K., Tidarat, N., Kanokpan, W., Somkiat, K., & Nattawut, J. (2023). Preferences for oral corrective feedback: Are language proficiency, first language, foreign language classroom anxiety, and enjoyment involved? Journal of Language and Education, 9(1), 172–184. Xiong, Y., Zhang, Q., Zhao, L., Liu, S., Guan, H., Sui, Y., ... & Lee, K. M. R. (2024). A meta-analysis and systematic review of foreign language anxiety interventions among students. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 43(5-6), 620–650.

Underpinned by [Bhabha, H. K. (2004). The location of culture (2nd ed). Routledge.] conceptualizations of the “third space,” this study is a qualitative exploration of an attempt to create an intervening telecollaborative “third space” for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in a Taiwan university. Students were engaged in language exchange with foreign language learning peers in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) and critical reflection on their own cultural norms and values. Data consisted of summative and formative assessments documented in E-portfolios and reflective essays by EFL learners who participated in the telecollaboration. Findings showed that 97% of the EFL learners agreed that telecollaboration should be part of language exchange programs. Through the affordance of the “third space,” EFL learners were able not only to practice the target language through interaction, but also to build their confidence by critically engaging with individuals from different linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds and expressing their thoughts and idea. The telecollaboration also enhanced EFL learners’ intercultural knowledge beyond generic understandings attached to particular countries and nations. Implications for practice and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

Do Good EFL and CSL Learners Learn Words in Different Ways? Chin Min Lin Introduction Foreign language teachers might be interested in the effectiveness of vocabulary learning strategies among different foreign language learners. Furthermore, they might want to know whether different second language learners adopt different language learning strategies. English and Chinese are truly distinct in their basic linguistic characters. There are many major differences between English and Chinese. These make foreign language learners face a serious challenge. Chinese does not have an alphabet and that is why CSL learners have huge difficulty in learning Chinese logographic system. On the contrary, Chinese learners may have a hard time reading English and spelling words correctly (Swan, 1997). Research has shown English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners used different language learning strategies when learning vocabulary (Lin, Wu, & Chen, 2014). The current study aims to discover the effectiveness of language learning strategies used by EFL and CSL learners. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/imjcr.v3n2a7

The potential role of ChatGPT in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and teaching has not yet been fully elucidated. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted using Web of Science to identify the effectiveness of ChatGPT in promoting EFL learning and teaching. The database was searched until May 2024. The review summarizes findings from twenty-one studies extracted from the Web of Science database to get a better insight into the advantages and drawbacks of using ChatGPT in the field of EFL education. The review results showed that ChatGPT significantly improved students’ EFL learning experiences and teachers’ teaching practices. The main advantages of ChatGPT in EFL education are that it can improve learners’ language proficiency and basic language skills of speaking, listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and especially the writing skill in addition to its ability to increase motivation and engagement, enhance learner autonomy, and provide individualized learning opportunities. Despite these beneficial effects, students and teachers approach ChatGPT with caution mostly because of its limitations and ethical issues. This systematic review research contributes to the understanding the key benefits and drawbacks of ChatGPT in the specific area of EFL teaching and learning.

The article focuses on the development of learning strategies during the process of foreign language learning. With the obvious implementation of cognitive learning strategies, the development of other types of strategies, metacognitive and socio-affective, remains an urgent issue. Very often these latter strategies are either disregarded or dismissed during the language learning process. However, recent studies have pointed out the necessity for the development of all types of learning strategies and their implementation at an early stage of learning. Therefore, the aim of this research is to determine the scope of the development of metacognitive and socio-affective learning strategies during the process of foreign language learning. Quantitative and qualitative methods have been used to determine the frequency and mode of the above-mentioned types of learning strategies during the process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Two hypotheses have been raised: (1) Metacognitive strategies are often disregarded in the process of language learning in the classes for adolescents; (2) The potential of implementation of socio-affective strategies in EFL classes is underestimated in the process of language learning in the classes for adolescents. The object of the research consists of 12 selected EFL textbooks and activities included in them. The research results prove the fact that much more attention to metacognitive learning strategy development is needed during EFL classes, as these strategies strongly benefit the overall process of language acquisition. To compare, socio-affective learning strategies are more often implemented during EFL classes; however, their development is rather unsystematic.

Silence is a common phenomenon in language learning where students stay silent, and it is potentially frustrating to instructors and not conducive to the foreign language input and output necessary for ongoing classroom-based language learning. Silence has been investigated initially in the face-to-face classroom and discussed thoroughly over the years. Most studies emphasized the role of verbal interaction in language learning, while silence exists in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts as a part of the interaction. Rare research investigates silence in face-to-face EFL learning contexts using phenomenography to understand students ways of experiencing silence. Therefore, this study aims to explore how Vietnamese undergraduates experience silence in face-to-face EFL learning using phenomenography at a Vietnamese university. Data were conducted through semi-structured interviews with 15 Vietnamese undergraduates analyzed following the phenomenographic principles to identify each conception s referential and structural aspects. Eleven categories were found following five main conceptions of silence, namely, sociocultural dimension, affective dimension, psycho-linguistic dimension, interactive dimension, and individual dimension. The findings illustrate the multilayers and complexities of students silence in face-to-face EFL context and point out new findings to discover potentially in EFL. It implies that silence can be a powerful tool for students learning, so understanding multifaceted students silence will enhance educators pedagogical practices in foreign language teaching and learning. This study also implies that educators should understand students social self and self to create a learning atmosphere for individual differences.

Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in the mediating role of critical thinking abilities (CTA) in the relationship between language learning strategies and the intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ writing performance. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was run to homogenize the participants, and 100 intermediate learners out of 235 were selected. Then, two valid questionnaires of Ricketts’ Critical Thinking Disposition and Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning were administered. Having administered the questionnaires, the researchers asked the participants to sit for a writing test. The data collected from the questionnaires and as well as the scores of their writing performances were analyzed through SPSS (25.00). The results showed a significant relationship between (a) learning strategies and learners’ writing performances, (b) the sub-sets of learning strategies and learners’ writing performances, and (c) CTA and learners’ learning strategies. However, CTA did not play a mediating role in the relationship between intermediate EFL learners’ learning strategies and writing performance. Based on the results of the study, one might also conclude that strategies seemed to play a more important role in the performance of learners especially their writing performances. Therefore, this study had useful contributions for students, teachers, and curriculum designers. Findings of this research could assist teachers to be aware of learners’ strategies in learning writing and help their students to be responsive to using learning strategies in their learning process and create a satisfactory learning context for using learning strategies. Therefore, learners were able to become independent and feel responsibility for their own learning. Secondly, curriculum developers could take advantage of the findings to include learning strategies training into the curriculum. As a result, students were able to use strategies in their learning process more easily and finally, the results might pave the way for improving the research findings.

Influenced by the flowering of positive psychology in the field of foreign language acquisition research in recent years, the present study aimed to explore the perceived functions of playfulness, as a personality construct, among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this aim, an initial sample of 38 EFL learners were selected randomly from the private language institutes of Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran. They were interviewed about any perceived functions of playfulness in the EFL learning context. A qualitative content analysis of the collected data led to the extraction of four categories: Fun and laughter, creativity, mastery orientation, and cultivating relationships. A further in-depth analysis of the categories and comparison with the functions of adult playfulness in psychology (primarily Proyer’s 2014 and 2017 works of research) revealed that these four categories can be subsumed under two of the four structural components of adult playfulness; namely, other-directed playfulness and intellectual playfulness. The ability of EFL learners to turn language learning situations, tasks, and environment into enjoyable ones via their playfulness can have implications for the quality of their interpersonal interactions in class and eventually their language proficiency. The findings of this study can pave the way for the translation of the adult playfulness construct from developmental and personality psychology and family relations into the second language acquisition (SLA) domain and its conceptualization in future research in this domain.

This study investigated Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners' attitudes toward Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) at the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) in Saudi Arabia. Five research questions were developed: (1) What are the Saudi EFL learners' general attitudes toward CALL at the IPA? (2) What are Saudi EFL learners' attitudes toward the CALL software used at the IPA? (3) What are the differences between IPA Saudi EFL learners' attitudes toward CALL based on their years of English learning? (4) What are the differences between IPA Saudi EFL learners' attitudes toward CALL based on their current computer knowledge? (5) What are the differences between IPA Saudi EFL learners' attitudes toward CALL based on their gender? The research questionnaire was administered to a total of 578 participants, including students from several levels of English language proficiency, major areas of study, and three distinct locations. Statistical methods including standard deviation, mean, regression analysis, and t-test were used to analyze data. The findings indicated that the Saudi EFL learners' attitudes toward CALL and the software were positive. The results of the regression analysis showed that computer knowledge and gender served as the best predictors of learners' attitudes toward CALL. The t-test findings showed that Saudi female EFL learners had more positive attitudes toward CALL than their male counterparts. The findings of this study will help to improve the use of CALL at the IPA and other college-level institutions in Saudi Arabia.

Motivation has been demonstrated to be an important affective factor in language learning process and its importance has led to the emergence of diverse research perspectives in both foreign and second language learning contexts. In addition to the research studies investigating language learning motivation of learners, review studies presenting the picture of how and in what ways this phenomenon has been studied as a research focus make a significant contribution to the understanding of it. Based on this, this study aims to scrutinize how English as a foreign language (EFL) motivation has been studied as a research matter in Turkish context. Aims of the studies, the participant groups and contexts, research methodologies, motivational frameworks followed and major findings were examined to find out the general trends in EFL motivation research. For these purposes, 14 research studies and nine master’s thesis and doctoral dissertations in the last 10-year period were selected based on certain criteria, and they were systematically analyzed in the light of the research questions. The findings showed that motivational research in Turkish EFL context mainly concentrate on university context, and some of the findings related to motivational orientations of Turkish EFL learners are inconsistent and need more investigation.

Foreign language learning plays a prominent role in the world today not only for communication across borders, but also for the potential benefits of other learning skills. The main objective of this research is to examine and explore the relationship between first-year full-time undergraduate students’ (N = 1,257) English as a foreign language (EFL) reading and listening achievement and learning strategy preferences in relation to knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. Our results show that students achieved significantly better on listening tasks than on reading tasks and that their knowledge acquisition performance was higher than their knowledge application achievement. The majority of the participants reported that they usually or always employ learning strategies, with the most preferred strategy type being the control strategy. The structural model shows that language learning, and knowledge acquisition and application are strongly interrelated; moreover, the level of use of memorization and elaboration strategies directly affects both knowledge acquisition and application skills. This suggests that EFL learning significantly influences the development of knowledge acquisition and knowledge application, which are essential in a range of areas in education and society today.

Ouyang and Jiang (2018) measured the second language proficiency of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners based on the probability distribution of dependency distance. However, the typological features of the native language (Chinese) and the target language (English) they adopted are generally considered similar in word order and dependency direction. In addition, their method of classifying the learners’ proficiency levels is based on the learners’ grades, which might weaken the validity of the results. These results are strengthened and verified further in the current research by analysing a treebank of Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage since their native language and the target language are typologically distinctive. Moreover, the TOEIC score was used as a benchmark to classify the second language proficiency levels of the learners. We found that (1) the mean dependency distance can measure the syntactic complexity of Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage; (2) constrained by human working memory, the probability distribution of dependency distance based on Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage follows certain distribution patterns as unveiled in other natural human languages; (3) the parameters of the right truncated modified Zipf-Alekseev distribution can well reflect the changes of the Japanese EFL learners’ second language proficiency, indicating the development of interlanguage.

This case study is about the primary school teachers’ prior knowledge that influence their beliefs about English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learning Strategies reflected in their actual classroom practices. There were two senior Indonesian teachers who has more than 10 years teaching experience participated in this research. One of the teacher was teaching in state primary school and the other was teaching in an international primary school in Jakarta. The result of the analysis from participants’ responses to the questionnaire, video-recorded classroom observations and interviews were presented qualitatively in the findings section. The results showed that primary teachers beliefs about EFL Learning strategies were uniquely reflected in their classroom practices suitable to their experience in acquiring and applying Language Learning Strategies (LLSs) in learning English.

The integration of computer in the service of FL (Foreign Language) learning is expected to be inevitable in the future. It is seemingly due to (a) its considerable affordances for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners, (b) the characteristics of today�s learners as the Generation Z (Gonz�lez-Lloret & Ortega, 2014), and (c) the widespread use of the internet in the 21st century. This situation then leads to transforming CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) into WFLL (Web-Facilitated Language Learning) as an alternative paradigm for EFL teachers and learners. Furthermore, TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) is likely to serve as a pedagogical framework in designing the Web for the purpose of FL learning. The present study was therefore mainly aimed at (a) developing a particularly teacher-designed learning website, namely I Love Indonesia, and (b) investigating high school learners of English in Indonesia with different attitudes towards CALL (positive/moderate/negative) in correlation with how they perceive WFLL (agree/disagree) and perform web-based activities. Descriptive Statistics, IF Function in Excel, Correlation Analysis, and Independent-samples t-test were employed in the study. Finally, the findings of the study showed that (a) the website seems to benefit EFL learners in some certain aspects, and (b) positive attitude learners are likely to perceive more positively (agree) than moderate and negative attitude learners (disagree) on the use of the website for the purpose of language learning. A greater number of learners over a longer period of time should be taken into account when conducting further studies on the effectiveness of the website for EFL learners in order to be able to shed some light on learners� language development.�Keyword: attitude, perception, task-based language teaching, web-facilitated language learning