Enhancing Chinese EFL Students' Grit: The Impact of Teacher Stroke and Teacher-Student Rapport

Abstract

Due to the important role that students' grit plays in the effectiveness of their success in the educational system in which they are engaged, the current study scrutinized whether some factors regarding teachers such as their stroke and rapport can affect the learners' grit in one hand and on the other hand whether these factors can predict the learners' grit or not. To this end, a group of 316 Chinese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners from more than 30 cities from nine provinces of China were asked to fill out the three scales, namely, teacher stroke, student rapport, and students' grit questionnaires. The foremost findings of the study, gained through running regression, indicate that there are positive relations between these variables as they affect learners' grit and also both variables were the predictors of grit, while teacher stroke was a better predictor, uniquely clarifying 45.5% of the grit's variance and teacher-student rapport similarly showed to be a predictor of grit, distinctively clarifying 4.6% of its variance. Accordingly, based on these findings, it can be concluded that both of these factors, as instances of positive teacher interpersonal behaviors, develop learners' grit in language learning. In addition, this study can provide further implications and recommendations for language teaching team members in academic circumstances.

A Theoretical Analysis of Approaches to Enhance Students’ Grit and Academic Engagement

“…Fourth, students' grit and engagement can be enhanced through a wise juxtaposition with other positive constructs such as stroke, rapport, social support, and interpersonal communication skills (credibility, clarity, confirmation, and immediacy). This is well-substantiated by a recent study conducted by Yuan (2022) who examined the role of teacher stroke and rapport with students in developing Chinese EFL students' grit. Despite these insightful approaches, depending on teachers' experience and context, many more approaches can be proposed to enhance EFL students' grit and engagement that is obtainable by running complementary studies.…”

“…The construct of grit has been identified to cause academic success, interest, and efficiency in both general education and L2 education ( Keegan, 2017 ). Moreover, this positive psychological trait has been approved beneficial in psychology, medicine, and professional performance ( Sudina et al, 2021 ; Yuan, 2022 ). Owing to its prominent role in PP and SLA research, several correlational studies, in the past decade, have been carried out in different contexts showing that grit can predict students’ involvement and academic performance ( Hodge et al, 2018 ), wellbeing ( Jin and Kim, 2017 ), burnout ( Moen and Olsen, 2020 ), academic success ( Strayhorn, 2014 ; Reed and Jeremiah, 2017 ), resilience ( Shakir et al, 2020 ), achievement ( Steinmayr et al, 2018 ) and so forth.…”

Increasing Chinese EFL Learners’ Grit: The Role of Teacher Respect and Support

“…Notwithstanding, the personal, interpersonal, and situational sources of learner grit have remained elusive. Moreover, compared to other potential sources, interpersonal factors have gained far less attention ( Yuan, 2022 ). This inquiry sought to narrow the existing lacuna in the literature by inspecting the impact of two interpersonal factors, namely teacher respect and teacher support, on Chinese EFL learners’ grit.…”

“…Nevertheless, the predictors of language learners’ grit have remained elusive. Put simply, factors leading language learners to become gritty have been rarely explored [e.g., Gyamfi and Lai (2020) , Yang (2021) , and Yuan (2022) ].…”

The Role of Teachers’ Interpersonal Behaviors in Learners’ Academic Achievements

“…Regarding grit, Yuan (2022), in his study, revealed that teachers' communication behavior, such as teacher stroke and teacher-student rapport significantly affect learners' grit. He argued that teacher-student rapport and teacher stroke is related to students' grit.…”