Content of review 1, reviewed on July 23, 2021

This study reports on the relationship between interactions and course outcome regarding EFL learners’ anxiety and self-efficacy beliefs. The study concludes that learner-instructor interactions and learner-learner interactions increase communication anxiety, resulting in decreasing expected learning outcomes. While the study seems to contribute to the related field, several revisions should be made, as noted below.

  1. Several linguistic and punctuation mistakes throughout the paper should be corrected (e.g., Learnerinteractions, apprehension. further). For this, careful proofreading would be beneficial.

  2. The abstract should be reorganized in the order of problem statement, the aim of the study, method, and main conclusions reached. It seems too long; thus, it should be structured considering the mentioned elements. Keywords can be reduced. Abbreviations can be avoided.

  3. Rather than overgeneralizations on videoconferencing, interaction and anxiety, the study should first discuss the importance of the issues listed first. Then, the problem (or background) should be contextualized in the Korena EFL context. This would strengthen the background of the study.

  4. Hypotheses should be given at the end of the introduction section after rationalizing the study and providing links among the variables listed. Language learning anxiety should be typed as foreign language learning anxiety due to contextual differences regarding language, second language, or foreign language.

  5. In the literature review section, the theoretical background and research synthesis should be given under separate sub-sections.

  6. The method section first should clarify the research context. That is, the rationale behind the research design preferred should be clearly presented. More info on participants’ demografics seem necessary. Means for age and percentages for gender and department distributions should be added. The tools and procedure of the study should be separately given. Table 1 can be given as an appendix. The translation process should also be detailed. The time limitation for responding to the questionnaire should be clarified.

  7. The discussion and conclusions section can be combined. The section can be organized in the order of conclusions, implications, recommendations for target groups, limitations, and recommendations for further research.

Source

    © 2021 the Reviewer.

Content of review 2, reviewed on October 02, 2021

The author(s) addressed the revisions accordingly. I think they need some more revisions, as noted below.

  1. The shortened title should be added to the main text.

  2. Abbreviations in the keyword list can be avoided.

  3. “Section” can be preferred instead of “chapter”.

  4. The word “zoom” in the hypotheses can be typed as “learning environment”.

  5. English levels of the participants should be clarified. Beginner, advanced? A1, B1? The numbers given do not correspond to the actual levels of the participants.

  6. Info about the reliability and validity of Horwitz et al.’s survey should be given under the title of the Questionnaire.

  7. “Procedures” can be typed as “Procedure”.

  8. Values regarding reliability and validity in the current study should be given.

  9. Full statements in the tables can be given instead of abbreviations.

Source

    © 2021 the Reviewer.

References

    Daniel, B., Norah, A. 2022. Calm down: A mediation model on the mitigating effect anxiety has on learner interactions and learning outcome. International Journal of Applied Linguistics.