This study was designed to validate a multidimensional structure of writing self-efficacy in English as a foreign language contexts, conceptualized in self-regulated learning theory and social cognitive theory. The Second Language Writer Self-Efficacy Scale was developed and evaluated through a series of rigorous validation procedures. The researchers collected data from 609 university students in China. Confirmatory factory analyses through structural equation modeling validated the proposed three-dimensional structure of writing self-efficacy, including linguistic self-efficacy, self-regulatory efficacy, and performance self-efficacy. Model comparisons confirmed the hypothesis that writing self-efficacy is a multidimensional construct, in which the three factors are conceptually related. Internal and composite reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were examined, suggesting satisfactory psychometric properties of the scale. The concurrent validity and predictive validity were checked by examining correlations of writing self-efficacy with motivational beliefs and writing performance. Findings revealed that the three dimensions of self-efficacy had small to moderate correlations with writing performance. Significant correlations were also found between writing self-efficacy and motivational beliefs (e.g., task value, intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation).

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To date, research has been undertaken to reveal factors contributing to learners' second/foreign language (L2) speaking and/or learning at particular points in time in separate studies from cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural perspectives as individual variables. Nonetheless, little research has concurrently investigated L2 speaking with the same cohort of learners as participants from these perspectives in a single study, to obtain comprehensive and systematic understandings of how the three dimensions of factors work together in influencing individuals' L2 speaking. This study, utilizing Segalowitz's (2010) L2 speech production framework as the theoretical lens, examined a group of L2 Chinese multilinguals' perceptions toward their speech performance and production ability development, attempting to comprehensively and systematically uncover the factors influencing L2 speaking from the three perspectives mentioned above. We collected data through focus groups and semi-structured interviews from 17 advanced level L2 Chinese multilinguals. The findings of the study revealed that factors that influenced the L2 Chinese multilinguals' speech performance and their development of such an ability included the following: (1) age of acquisition, cognitive fluency, learning styles, and speaking strategies; (2) motivation, anxiety, speaking selfefficacy, and willingness-to-communicate; (3) L2 cultural interest, L2 communities, and L2 classes; and (4) multilingualism. We conclude that the development of L2 Chinese speech production ability could be the result of the synergies gained from the cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural dimensions of L2 learning and use. Insights into L2 Chinese teachers and learners in terms of how to support and sustain the improvement of L2 Chinese speech production ability are also discussed.

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To sustain students’ continuous learning in a Covid-19 pandemic context, schools and universities have shifted traditional classroom teaching to synchronous online teaching. However, there is limited understanding of acceptance and adoption of synchronous online teaching by university teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL). This study, therefore, examined EFL university teachers’ synchronous online teaching beliefs before and after the outbreak of Covid-19 in China drawing on Davis’s technology acceptance model. A total of 257 EFL university teachers participated in this study. Data were collected through a questionnaire which was designed to measure participants’ actual use (AU), attitudes toward use (ATU), perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), facilitating conditions (FC), social norms (SN), and self-efficacy (SE) in two synchronous online teaching conditions: before and after the Covid-19. The study showed that in-service EFL university teachers’ actual use of synchronous online teaching was subject to social (i.e. social norms), institutional (i.e. facilitating conditions), and individual (i.e. perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward use) levels. The main change of teachers’ synchronous online teaching beliefs, due to the Covid-19, was that perceived usefulness became a significant predictor of teachers’ actual use of synchronous online teaching, whereas perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness changed to be insignificant predictors of teachers’ attitudes toward use of synchronous online teaching. Implications for teacher training and service were discussed to better support EFL university teachers’ synchronous online teaching in the future.