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.

The current study investigated the relationship between students’ perceived teacher–student relationship (SPTSR) and their performance in English via multiple mediation effects of resilience and autonomous learning in the Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The participants were 15,184 eighth-graders from China. Results of the multilevel mediation model revealed that after controlling for students’ gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and school type, the positive association between SPTSR and students’ academic outcomes in English was partially and serially mediated by the resilience and autonomous learning. The current study sheds new light on the crucial mediating roles of resilience and autonomous learning in improving EFL learners’ English proficiency. We recommend that English language teachers establish a friendly and equal classroom climate, which may enhance students’ resilience to cope with learning setbacks. Such positive beliefs help stimulate students’ autonomy in English language learning, which in turn promotes performance in learning English.