METHODS: Using a sample of 369 first-year non-English-major undergraduates in eastern China, structural equation modeling (SEM) alongside 5,000 bootstrap resamples was conducted to analyze the structural relationships among social support sources, academic buoyancy, and L2 WTC.
RESULTS: Results indicated that all three forms of social support were positively associated with both academic buoyancy and WTC. Among these, teacher support showed the strongest standardized association with WTC, followed by peer and parent support. Academic buoyancy was found to partially mediate the associations between each source of social support and WTC, with teacher support showing the largest indirect effect (15.32%).
DISCUSSION: These findings contribute to WTC literature by positioning academic buoyancy as an important adaptive psychological factor that links contextual support to communicative readiness. The results further highlight the differentiated functions of teacher, peer, and parent support within Chinese EFL contexts. Corresponding pedagogical implications are proposed to establish supportive, resilience-oriented language learning environments.