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This study explores the verbal engagement strategies that EFL instructors adopt when teaching English over Instagram. These instructors create videos where they teach English and share them on Instagram. Twenty-five highly engaging English teaching videos on Instagram were used as the data of this study. To discover the engagement strategies that the instructors used, a combination of Hyland's Engagement Model and Martin and White's Appraisal Model, was applied to the teachers' talk. The results indicated a slight difference in the frequency of engagement resources between the two models. Moreover, the results related to Hyland's framework revealed that listener pronouns (second person pronouns) had considerably higher frequency than other engagement devices in the instructors' speech. Nevertheless, personal aside and appeals to shared knowledge were used to a limited extent. Regarding the model of Martin and White, the result indicated that the overall engagement resources of heterogloss were about twice those of the monogloss. Moreover, between two broad categories of heterogloss, the resources of the contract category were significantly more common than those of the expand category in the teachers' talk. The findings of this study have fruitful pedagogical implications. As the results suggest, teachers can bring the learners to discourse using listener pronouns, and in this way increase learner engagement in lessons. Moreover, the heterogloss resources, specifically the contract ones, can assist teachers in engaging learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationship between L2 motivation and engagement in academic reading skill from the lenses of L2 motivational self-system and transformative experience. More specifically, following the transformative experience (TE) framework, we investigated the level of students’ engagement in academic reading skills inside and outside English classes. We also explored what motivational factors act as strong predictors of transformative experience and whether L2 motivation and engagement of students differ across different disciplines. Stratified purposive sampling was followed to recruit 419 undergraduate English for academic purposes (EAP) students studying in different majors. As such, we developed a questionnaire for measuring TE and utilized a pre-established questionnaire to operationalize L2 motivational self-system. We found that L2 motivation significantly covaried with students’ level of engagement in English academic reading skill. Furthermore, the results of multiple regression analysis revealed that L2 learning experience and ideal L2 self were strong predictors of transformative engagement; ought-to L2 self played a marginal role in the occurrence of TE. Discipline-wise, Life Sciences students were considerably more motivated than those in Arts and Humanities. However, no significant difference was observed in the extent of transformative engagement among students across disciplinary groups. Implications for EAP instructors, educational authorities, and material and curricula developers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationship between English language learners' Instagram engagement and second language (L2) motivation. It also aimed to determine engagement types (behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement) as predictors of L2 motivation. Through stratified sampling, we recruited 102 Iranian users engaged in learning English via the Instagram platform as an informal learning context. The participants were Persian native speakers learning English as a foreign language. They were 81 males and 21 females at different levels of English proficiency whose ages ranged from 16 to 62. A multimethod approach, with a quantitative/qualitative design, was adopted to conduct the study. The quantitative phase had a correlational design in which two questionnaires were administered to measure English learners' engagement in language learning on Instagram and their L2 motivation. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was conducted in the qualitative phase. Results revealed a positive and significant relationship between the English language learners' engagement on Instagram and their L2 motivation. Moreover, cognitive engagement was the sole predictor of learners' L2 motivation. The findings have pedagogical implications for both English instructors and L2 learners, which are discussed in light of the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]