Exploring task engagement strategies in DDL-enhanced tasks: Insights from EFL learners

The growing recognition of the concept of task engagement over the last two decades has made it a popular topic for research in second language acquisition (SLA). Yet, the field of SLA is still in its infancy in understanding engagement. Given its dynamic and malleable nature, investigating what strategies lead to more engagement provides grounds for developing interventions that promote learners’ task engagement and better capturing its essence. To this end, the present study set out to explore what strategies English as a foreign language (EFL) learners use to promote their engagement in data-driven learning (DDL)-enhanced tasks, tasks that require learners to explore authentic examples of particular language forms to discover how they work. Participants of the study were 308 EFL learners. The data were collected through an online open-ended task engagement strategies questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that learners use a wide range of strategies, including agentive, behavioral, metacognitive, cognitive, metaemotional, and social engagement, to maintain their engagement in DDL-enhanced tasks. The findings may be used to inform English language teaching and learning by developing interventions that promote learners’ task engagement.