Emotional and Social Engagement in the English Language Classroom for Higher Education Students in the COVID-19 Online Context
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript seems to have been written well, considering what is expected of an academic paper which focuses on research. However, there are several issues that the authors need to address. I have briefly outlined them below:
(1) The limitations of the study and the implications must be clearly stated.
(2) Pedagogical implications can be discussed separately, before the conclusion.
(3) Suggestions for further research should just go beyond the limitations of the study.
(4) References must be carefully checked against the journal requirements and the style used.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your time to review our paper and your recommendations. All the suggestions were highly appreciated and helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript. All changes were made using Track Changes. As it can be observed from the corrections made, the English language has once again been reviewed and corrections were made.
(1) The limitations of the study and the implications must be clearly stated.
Response: Thank you for the comment. The implications have been more clearly outlined in the first 2 paragraphs of the Conclusion part, whereas the limitations are included in the third paragraph.
(2) Pedagogical implications can be discussed separately, before the conclusion.
Response: Thank you for the recommendation. Some additional implications of a pedagogical nature have been included in the last paragraph of the Results and Discussions part, as well as throughout the entire Results and Discussions part. They were also briefly revisited in the conclusion.
(3) Suggestions for further research should just go beyond the limitations of the study.
Response: Thank you. As recommended, further research ideas represent the last (4th paragraph) of the Conclusions part
(4) References must be carefully checked against the journal requirements and the style used.
Response: Thank you. References have been thoroughly checked.
Thank you again for all your help.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Congratulations on the topical research issue, and on the way in which you have conducted and presented the entire research. The article is coherently written and the results are relevant and point to the limitations of the study, future research paths, solutions and explanations to students' behaviour in terms of engagement during language classes.
Keep up the good work!
Kind regards,
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to read and evaluate our work.
Kind regards,
The authors
Reviewer 3 Report
The study investigates the online EFL classroom engagement in a university context in Romania. This is a popular topic in EFL teaching and learning that might be of interest to researchers in second language learning and teaching. The manuscript has several merits, but there are some issues that need to be addressed before it can be considered for publication.
Firstly, the title might need to be revised to more accurately reflect the content of the paper.
Secondly, the literature review needs to be reframed to review more relevant studies to the topic in question. Accordingly, the general introduction of learning and learning theories may need to be deleted or minimized. Similarly, the overview of the student variable section does not make many contributions to the paper. Instead, relevant studies on learner engagement in L2 classrooms, and in an online context in particular, needs to be reviewed and elaborated on. Also, studies looking at learner beliefs about whether and how they would like to receive feedback from teachers might be helpful for your 'learner engagement' study, see e.g., Ha, X. V., Murray, J. C., & Riazi, A. M. (2021). High school EFL students’ beliefs about oral corrective feedback: The role of gender, motivation and extraversion. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 11(2), 235-264.
Thirdly, the method section needs to be revised. Specifically, as a reader, I would like to learn more about your contexts, your students' profiles (age, English proficiency, EFL exposure, etc). Also, there is a strong need to describe the instruments in more detail, especially the six added questions (developed for this study).
Once the literature review is revised, the discussion section needs to be revised accordingly.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your time to review our paper and your recommendations. All the suggestions were highly appreciated and help us to improve the quality of the manuscript. Editing and language were checked in the entire manuscript. All changes were made using Track Changes.
Firstly, the title might need to be revised to more accurately reflect the content of the paper
Response: Thank you for the suggestion. The title has been changed in order to reflect the predominance of emotional and social engagement reflected from the interpretation of the questionnaire applied.
Secondly, the literature review needs to be reframed to review more relevant studies to the topic in question. Accordingly, the general introduction of learning and learning theories may need to be deleted or minimized. Similarly, the overview of the student variable section does not make many contributions to the paper. Instead, relevant studies on learner engagement in L2 classrooms, and in an online context in particular, needs to be reviewed and elaborated on. Also, studies looking at learner beliefs about whether and how they would like to receive feedback from teachers might be helpful for your 'learner engagement' study, see e.g., Ha, X. V., Murray, J. C., & Riazi, A. M. (2021). High school EFL students’ beliefs about oral corrective feedback: The role of gender, motivation and extraversion. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 11(2), 235-264.
Once the literature review is revised, the discussion section needs to be revised accordingly.
Response: Thank you for the recommendation. The part covering the literature on learning theories and student related variables has been thoroughly revised and minimized. What was preserved were such elements that are relevant for the discussions at hand (in terms of learning theories- the chief ones that converge towards behaviour, cognitive and social engagement in the following part, the importance of considering learner beliefs and personality traits in the language learning process and the traits of adult learning, as this is a study focused on higher-education students and in terms of student-related variables, enjoyment and anxiety, engagement and environment, teacher-student-peers dynamics, for instance, which were briefly approached and then revisited through the scale and questions in our survey).
Certainly, the reviewer’s recommendations on task engagement and corrective feedback have been considered and added to the literature review, as they cover particular examples of behavioral engagement that were not tackled in the literature part. The discussions section was adapted in accordance.
Thirdly, the method section needs to be revised. Specifically, as a reader, I would like to learn more about your contexts, your students' profiles (age, English proficiency, EFL exposure, etc). Also, there is a strong need to describe the instruments in more detail, especially the six added questions (developed for this study).
Response: Thank you for the comment. As recommended, information on the 6 questions added on the online has been included in the Method section, with a short description. Also, student socio-demographic and EFL related information is briefly described in the Results part (Sample characteristics) and Table 1.
Thank you again for all your help.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Congratulations! Your manuscript is now ready for publication!
