Speaker
Description
Speaking confidence remains one of the most persistent affective challenges for Asian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), particularly women, who struggle with cultural expectations of accuracy, silence, and self-restraint. To address this, the study proposes a new theoretical framework—the Affective–Cognitive–Intercultural Spiral (ACIS)—which conceptualises confidence growth not as a linear linguistic outcome but as an upward interaction between emotional readiness, cognitive engagement, and intercultural meaning-making. ACIS is applied to analyze two low-stakes virtual exchange sessions involving female university students from Japan, India, and Malaysia. Using a mixed-methods design, pre- and post-exchange questionnaires and written reflections traced shifts in willingness to communicate (WTC), foreign language anxiety, and identity positioning. Findings reveal a clear ACIS trajectory: initially hesitant Japanese participants moved from avoidance and fear toward communicative risk-taking, cultural explanation, and relational identity construction, while Indian and Malaysian peers scaffolded discourse through multilingual repertoires and shared negotiation of meaning. Results show that confidence emerges through iterative affective and intercultural feedback cycles rather than linguistic mastery alone. ACIS offers a novel lens for understanding confidence development in Asian EFL contexts and highlights the pedagogical value of structured virtual exchanges in fostering communicative agency, emotional security, and globalidentity formation among women learners.
| Presentation location | Online |
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