Although self-efficacy is a construct born originally out of and into the field of psychology, its importance and relevance extend de facto outside its original field of research to span multiple closely related disciplines including, but in no way limited to, applied linguistics and educational psychology mainly for its demonstrably strong association to a vast range of language-related educational phenomena. In the present study, we set out to examine, by means of the Spearman correlational test and through the construction of a direct effect model, the relationship between general self-efficacy beliefs and academic achievement. For this, we used responses of one hundred and thirty-eight (N = 138) EFL students of undergraduate and graduate levels from numerous universities across different regions in Morocco. Findings show a very moderate significant correlation between self-efficacy and academic achievement as measured by GPA. Further, a constructed direct-effect path model showed a significant positive impact of self-efficacy on academic achievement, substantiating further the existing link between the two constructs. In addition, a gender-based comparison in terms of self-efficacy using an independent sample t-test revealed that females reported higher self-efficacy beliefs than their male counterparts. Finally, we conclude with a summary of the study and some recommendations for future research.

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced havoc in the world and Nepal is no exception. A transition from an in-person classroom to online classroom has been daunting for the students and teachers motivation level. The impact of teacher morale is often neglected by policymakers and all the stakeholders themselves, which may lead to teachers’ lack of motivation or "demotivation". Teachers’ demotivation is an emotional, cognitive, socio-cultural and psychological state that leads to exhaustion, depersonalization, burnout, decreased teacher achievement and self-worth stress. This study aimed to investigate the factors that supported and hindered Nepalese EFL teachers' motivation levels in their classrooms. A qualitative case study was employed as a research design. Four EFL secondary level teachers teaching at private schools in Kathmandu Valley were selected for this study. The teacher participants were chosen via a systematic random sampling procedure. The data was analyzed and interpreted using a thematic approach, employing survey questionnaires, teachers' interviews, and classroom observation as data collection instruments. The results of this study revealed that EFL teachers in private schools are intrinsically and extrinsically demotivated. The factors that demotivate these teachers include low wages, lack of continuing professional development, students' disruptive behaviors, job insecurity, and fewer holidays.

Over the recent decades, there has been a growing research interest in placing learners at the heart of any enterprise pertaining to foreign language learning and teaching. Alongside the growth of new perspectives and theories in cognitive psychology and foreign language learning and teaching, research has shifted its focus from the teacher and learning outcomes to the learners and the learning processes. Correspondingly, researchers emphasize the significance of making the learning and teaching paradigms more supportive and responsive to learners’ needs and interests to fully play more active and participatory roles. Drawing on researchers’ contributions in the area of good language learner studies, this paper sets out to examine the relationship between the characteristics of GLLs and language achievement. For this purpose, a sample of (N = 98) senior Moroccan high school students took an EFL achievement test and responded to the GLL questionnaire as designed and developed by Constantinides (2013). Using a Spearman correlational coefficient test and regression analysis, results show that GLLs’ scores significantly correlate (r = .81) and reliably predict the respondents’ achievement test scores. The paper ends with a conclusion and some pedagogical implications to promote EFL learning and teaching.

The aim of the following study is to explore the interrelatedness between second/foreign language attainment and the learner’s age. The interest in this study grew for two fundamental reasons. First of all, although there have been many investigations dealing with the link between the learners’ age and their second/foreign language attainment, the findings from the research continue to be inconsistent and inconclusive (Pfenninger & Polz, 2018; Kroll & De Groot, 2009). Additionally, the equivocal nature of the findings is related in part, to the failure of most of these studies to examine this relationship under adequately controlled conditions (Nikolov & Djigunović, 2006). This paper attempts to undertake the central question at multiple levels of analysis among Moroccan learners of different age groups being subject to the same teaching and learning conditions. More interesting perhaps is that although much research has been undertaken to explore the significance of the age factor in language learning, this topic is still an uncharted area of research in the Moroccan educational context, and very little is known about it. Our concern here is to disclose the interrelatedness between the learners’ age and their success or failure in language attainment. Drawing on data comparing young and older learners’ attainment levels in English as a foreign language, the results prove very convincingly that young language learners tend to surpass their older classmates, though not significantly at different levels of analysis, but more substantially at one particular level pertaining to the language skill of reading. Another more central objective of this paper is to draw the attention of language teachers and educationalists in general to the importance of the young-adult difference in language learning and to delineate some of the pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning of languages in Moroccan elementary schools.

Language is an indispensable instrument whereby we organize and build our social ties in our communities, and society at large. Human language is critically interwoven into the processes whereby human beings communicate, build knowledge, transmit information, and determine the identity of both the addresser and the addressee in any communicational exchange. We could hypothetically assert that if there is unmistakably one thing without which man as a species can hardly live in the social realm, it is language par excellence. In an admittedly multi-layered and inherently complex sociolinguistic configuration, the individual speaker’s linguistic choice, the different roles he or she plays, be they in a position of addresser or addressee, and the various situations where the speech takes place do serve as markers reflecting one’s identity and communication styles. In this respect, factors such as sex, age, level of education, occupation, race, and geographical origin can virtually be reflected via one’s speech. This article sets out to analyze (1) the influential role of speech, (2) gender and identity, (3) dominance/difference, and (4) cross-gender oral communication in the Moroccan context using a homogenous convenience sample of Moroccan participants. This study falls within the scope of gender studies. Its major aim is to demonstrate the roles that mixed-gendered interlocutors can play in order to maintain effective communication. Therefore, their perceptions regarding interruptions, conversation dominance, turn-taking and choice of topics in conversations are analyzed. Different research instruments have been implemented to collect data including recordings of real-life conversational speech, classroom observation, and interviews. The findings indicate that gender-based differences permeate the conversational styles of both men and women across cultures and with divergent degrees of strength and expression. It has also been shown that although communication breakdown is a source of frustration, it remains a common phenomenon in social interactions. Therefore, overcoming difficulties in maintaining effective communication between members of different genders is dependent on the interlocutors’ belief that accepting difference in language and communication styles can make cross-gender communication a satisfactory social experience. This study is expected to raise awareness regarding the socialization processes the two sex groups have gone through which shape in substantial ways the way they speak, behave and interact among each other.