The Role of Chinese EFL Teachers' Immediacy and Rapport in Students' Engagement in the Context of AI-Mediated Education

The crucial role of teachers' interpersonal communication skills in diverse aspects of second language (L2) education has been endorsed by prior scholarship. Such significance multiplies in artificial intelligence (AI)–mediated education in which interaction fosters understanding and using content and feedback. Nevertheless, the literature has neglected the direct impact of teachers' interpersonal behaviours on learners' emotions and behaviours in AI-mediated L2 classes. To fill this gap, the current quantitative study examined the relationship and predictive power of teachers' immediacy and rapport with students' engagement in classes powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. A sample including 513 Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners electronically completed three questionnaires. The results of Pearson correlation analysis indicated that teacher immediacy and rapport had respectively formed a significant and positive correlation with EFL students' engagement (r = 0.57, 0.65, p < 0.01). Additionally, the outcomes of structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis suggest both direct and indirect contributions of teacher immediacy (β = 0.30, p < 0.001) and rapport (β = 0.35, p < 0.001) to student engagement in AI-mediated learning contexts. Moreover, regression analysis demonstrated that teachers' immediacy and rapport could explain 53% of the variance in student engagement. The results are discussed and implications regarding the use of teacher interpersonal communication behaviours as regulatory techniques of learner emotions in AI-mediated L2 education are provided.