Secondary school students' engagement in english language classes

The present study aims to explore a group of secondary school students' engagement level in English language classes in relation to different variables in a state secondary school in the Central Anatolia region by means of a mixed method research model. The engagement levels of students were investigated according to the three aspects of engagement: cognitive engagement, social engagement and affective engagement. The study also sought an answer to the question as to whether there are significant differences in the secondary school EFL students' engagement levels depending on gender, grade level and English language course achievement score. Another objective of the study is to reveal English language teachers' opinions about their students' engagement. The quantitative data were collected from 649 secondary school students by using the Language Learner Engagement Scale developed by Oruç and Demirci (2020), and the qualitative data were collected from five volunteer English teachers via semi-structured interview questions designed by the researcher in line with the scale. SPSS was used to analyse students' responses to the scale, and content analysis was utilised to examine teacher responses to the interview questions. The quantitative results demonstrated that the secondary school students' engagement level ranged from moderate to high level. The level of the affective engagement was found to be higher than the other dimension levels. Additionally, 5th graders and female students were found to be the most engaged groups. It was also uncovered that engagement level predicted the English language course achievement score. On the other hand, teacher interviews revealed some problems that may hinder student engagement. Some suggestions were made by the teachers to raise students' engagement in English language classes. These suggestions were discussed with the support of the literature.