Reflecting on Confidence, Motivation, and Learning Awareness among

Pakistani ESL Learners Studying Abroad

This introductory section locates this study within ongoing debates about second language
acquisition, study abroad and applied linguistics. The section will argue that the three factors
mentioned above — i.e. learner confidence, motivation and awareness of one's learning process
— should be considered as interconnected aspects of the development of the learner. These
aspects are influenced significantly by changes occurring at an individual level (educational and
linguistic levels), or collectively (social environment) when learners move through different
environments. Although it has been demonstrated that studying abroad may lead to increased
desire to speak, reduced anxiety and greater learner identity with respect to English (i.e. the
learner feels a greater sense of "ownership" over English), these results vary widely among
participants, and do so as a result of many contextual influences including student interactions,
the student's motivational orientation, and/or the ecological conditions of English usage (Yue et
al., 2022; Lee, 2018; Köylü and Tracy-Ventura, 2022; Heinzmann, Köylü & Ehrsam, 2024;
Moore, Torgerson and Beckmann, 2021).

The reasons why the study is relevant in particular to Pakistan are well supported. For
example, there have been studies that demonstrate Pakistani learners perceive high status
potential for English in relation to achieving higher education opportunities, employment
possibilities, etc. However, due to inequality in accessing English classes, lack of motivation to
continue learning English after completing their formal schooling, anxiety related to speaking
English outside of class settings, and variations in access to English-based resources based upon
student educational backgrounds, as well as school ecologies (Pathan et al., 2021; Islam, 2019;
Rasool & Winke, 2019; Razzaq & Hamzah, 2024) studies examining Pakistani learners who
have studied abroad have found students experienced significant challenges adapting to writing
expectations for academic purposes in foreign languages, difficulty participating in discussions,
inadequate exposure to native speakers' communication patterns, cultural shock and pressure to
adapt to new customs, whereas ability to achieve communicative competence in English
remained closely connected to successful adaptation into a new culture (Bashir et al., 2019;
Bashir et al., 2021; Bashir et al., 2022; Bashir & Khalid, 2022). Therefore, what appears to
remain unexamined is how former Pakistani students who have completed their studies in
Pakistan interpret their transition from being taught English in Pakistan versus using English
abroad as a means of assessing how their confidence regarding their English abilities has
changed during their time abroad, their motivations for continuing to learn English abroad and
how they evaluate their knowledge about themselves and their learning processes.

1.1 Background and Problem Statement

Despite the powerful position of English, it is uneven in the context of higher education
in Pakistan. It is a required subject and used in many university programs as the medium of
instruction, which is a marker of academic excellence, a sign of a prestigious institution, and a
passport to a bright academic and professional future. At the same time, Pakistani students have
their own linguistic experiences which are due to multilingualism, unequal schooling, and
various levels of access to conducive learning environments. Qualitative research in universities
of Pakistan has found that while students may highly regard English as a means of expressing
with the rest of the world and improving their statuses, they tend to be less interactive, insecure,
or passive at the formal class setting. Mixed-methods research has likewise found that along with
the feelings towards the learning of English, the ought-to L2 self, international posture, and
instrumental concerns are also prominent in the motivational profiles of the learners from
Pakistan. This means that the Pakistani ESL learners often regard English as a vital skill but they
do not always show a similar level of confidence, autonomy, or strategic approach (Islam, 2019;
Rasool and Winke, 2019).

The recent Pakistani scholarships also indicate that the root of the problem goes beyond
"motivation" we accept in general. The loss of motivation should be looked at in terms of the
elements of the classroom like materials and tissues of the class, previous failures, and factors
like the person's total disposition such as his/her resilience and social character. Other research
underscores the importance of metacognitive strategies and the willingness to write in
contributing to academic performance for Pakistani ESL learners while multilingual pedagogical
investigations foreground the contradiction between the English language expectations set by the
authorities and the students' diverse linguistic realities. Collectively, these inquiries suggest that a
blend of affective, cognitive, institutional, and sociolinguistic factors, rather than exposure alone,
shape learners' development (Pathan, Ismail and Fatima, 2021; Razzaq and Hamzah, 2024).
 When Pakistani students travel outside the country, those patterns do not just vanish;
rather they go through a test in a different type of communicative ecology. The research
conducted on Pakistani students in the Netherlands showed that academic writing, class
participation, examination practices, and group work would become major issues in particular
because students perceive them to be the ones demonstrating the differences between home and
host educational cultures. Another qualitative work with Pakistani cohorts abroad pointed out the
linguistic barriers, lack of interaction with locals, discrimination and issues around religious
practice and social [Link] research also indicates that English proficiency has
the associated benefits of sociolinguistic adjustment and it is negatively correlated with the
acculturative stress of Pakistani international students. To put it differently, the English language
abroad is not only a tool for studies but also a means of integration, self-presentation, and
survival in the daily life (Bashir et al., 2019; Bashir et al., 2021; Bashir et al., 2022).

Meanwhile, the broader study-abroad literature cautions against the automatic assumption
that language learning is improved simply because one is abroad. A systematic review shows
that the evidence is neither straightforward nor unanimously affirming this view while empirical
studies have shown that the gains from study abroad are intricately connected to interaction
channels, the initiatives taken by the students, the contextual accommodation of anxiety, and the
opportunities provided to students to practice the language in a meaningful way. Some students
find themselves more at ease in communication and less anxious while others still suffer from
the problems of limited interaction or in showing the local norms as intimidating. On the other
hand, in English-as-a-lingua-franca environments, some of the students have lower anxiety and
feel a greater sense of ownership over their command of English because the communication is
not tied to native speaker norms. (Lee, 2018; Moore, Torgerson and Beckmann, 2021; Martin-
Rubió and Cots, 2018; Köylü and Tracy-Ventura, 2022; Heinzmann, Köylü and Ehrsam, 2024).

The important concern, therefore, is not so much examining whether Pakistani learners
abroad benefit or enhance, but formulating meanings from change. The central problem,
therefore, is not simply that Pakistani learners improve overseas, but how they make sense of
change. On the other hand, the existing study-abroad studies have focused on East Asians or
European learners, standardized motivational measures, or linguistic gains. What still remains to
be adequately understood is the subjective reflection of Pakistani ESL learners on changes in
confidence, motivation, and awareness of learning after transition from Pakistan into foreign
academic environments. There is a specific need for a smaller, reflective, qualitative account,
with more attention on former students’ voices, rather than seeing them merely as scores on the
preconstructed scales. This is exactly the gap this study can fill.

3.2 Rationale and Theoretical Framework

To conceptualize these changes theoretically, this study has adopted a Humanistic

Learning theory’ (Rogers, 1969; Maslow, 1943). Humanistic learning theory focuses on the
whole learner and the affective aspects of learning. The theory holds that learners do well if
learning is self-directed, personally relevant, and in a supportive learning environment. Self-
actualization (the fulfillment of one’s potential), intrinsic motivation and the autonomy of the
learner are salient humanistic tenets.

For Carl Rogers, education should merely facilitate the learners’ natural curiosity instead
of enforcing external educational goals. Self-esteem and confidence in children are achieved
naturally when they are given choice, and their emotional needs are attended to. In language
learning, a humanistic environment may include the teachers acting as facilitators and being able
to provide positive reinforcement to the learner, providing an atmosphere that allows the learner
to take risks in their language acquisition, and encouraging the learners to set their own goals and
reflect on their progress.

This is proven by recent researches: Delgado-Bermejo and Martínez (2025) argue that
humanistic-oriented instruction leads to higher willingness to study, active participation, and
learners taking charge of their own education. In an ESL setting, humanistic approaches (such as
community language learning or silent way) have been empirically shown to bolster motivation
and alleviate anxiety by catering to learners’ emotions and autonomy. Therefore, humanistic
theory offers a useful perspective for this study. It is therefore pertinent to study for the kind of
confidence, motivation and cognizance of learning, fostered by studying abroad, which are
predicted by Humanistic theory, particularly by Rogers and Maslow.

In other words, as the learners struggle through a more humanistic like learning situation
abroad, one that offers more choice, more feedback and more “being for real”, confidence,
motivation and awareness are bound to suffer changes, and it is these changes with which this
research is interested. This theoretical frame also validates the qualitative, reflective approach:
humanistic education appreciates the subjectivity of students, so listening to students describe
their own transformation in their own terms is consistent with the theory’s focus on personal
significance.

This framework is especially suitable for the Pakistani learners since prior research in
Pakistan revealed that motivation is highly influenced by learning experience, milieu, social
expectations, and perceived utility of English. Pakistani undergraduates ranked attitudes to
learning English, ought-to L2 self, international posture, and instrumental motives as their most
important motivational forces (Rasool and Winke, 2019). Islam’s qualitative work showed
similarly that learners immediate educational environments, teacher practices and institutional
conditions determine, influence their motivation as well as self confidence. For these students
who later study abroad, their earlier motivational formations do not get erased but instead, they
get to be reinterpreted when the learners get newer participation patterns, feedback system, and
more extensive English language use (Islam, 2019; Rasool and Winke, 2019).

Second, confidence in this study is best explored through self-efficacy theory than vague
personality traits. According to the psychological theory of self-efficacy, confidence is
conceptualized as beliefs that students have about their abilities to accomplish specific tasks
(Bandura, 1997). In language learning, such beliefs determine persistence, willingness to take
risks, the use of strategies, coping with anxiety, and readiness to communicate. In language
learning, belief systems manifest in persistence, risk-taking, strategy usage, anxiety management,
and communicative willingness. This is important because the proposed study has an interest in
reflective shifts of confidence post relocation abroad: It is likely that participants will explain
which experiences, interactions and successes have contributed to altering what they thought
they could accomplish in English and whether they “feel more confident” (Zhang et al., 2020;
Saez-Zevallos et al., 2025). Third, the notion of learning awareness concept is best based on
metacognition and reflective learning. Metacognition refers to the awareness and regulation of
one’s learning, which is achieved by planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning process
(Flavell, 1979).
 In language education, metacognitive awareness has been attributed repeatedly to
autonomous, strategic use of language resources and a link to performance enhancement.
Reflection, therefore, is one of the main tools through which such awareness manifests itself.
The potentially effective and ineffective strategies are identified only after comparing the
previously adopted ones; This makes the open-ended, reflective design of the present study
theoretically coherent: if the goal is to understand how learners came to be aware of how they
learn English, then inviting structured reflection on ‘before’ and ‘after’ experiences is not merely
a method of convenience but a conceptually aligned approach (Schön, 1983; Razzaq and
Hamzah, 2024; Teng, 2025).

Fourth, study abroad itself should not be constituted as a single treatment condition but as
socially mediated ecology of practice. There is now emphasis that language gains do not depend
on who the learners talk to but also on the frequency of language use, the type of English in
circulation in the host environment and whether or not the environment acts to weaken or boost
participation.

Lee (2018) showed that even short-term study abroad can raise willingness to
communicate and reduce anxiety. Fryer and Roger (2018) demonstrated that motivation is
longitudinally altered with diverse patterns of change as the learners’ L2 selves are played out
and reshaped abroad. Köylü and Tracy-Ventura (2022) further showed that English-as-a-lingua-
franca study-abroad contexts may provide a low-anxiety atmosphere in which learners gain
ownership of English, while Heinzmann, Köylü and Ehrsam (2024) found that students
themselves see ELF contexts as conducive to learning and competence. The studies strongly
encourage an interpretation of confidence and motivation as dynamic as well as situated and
dependent on interaction (Fryer and Roger, 2018; Lee, 2018; Köylü and Tracy-Ventura, 2022;
Heinzmann, Köylü and Ehrsam, 2024).
 Taken together, these perspectives suggest a coherent conceptual model for the present
study. Learners’ prior English histories in Pakistan shape their motivational self-system and
initial self-efficacy beliefs. Studying abroad then changes the ecology of language use,
participation, and feedback. Through reflection on these experiences, learners may report
increased or decreased confidence, reconfigured motivation, and heightened awareness of how
they learn most effectively. The study’s interpretive goal is therefore not to measure one isolated
construct, but to understand how these dimensions interact in the narrated experience of
Pakistani ESL learners abroad.

3.3 Aim of the Research:

The study aims to explore how Pakistani ESL learners who previously studied in Pakistan and
are now studying abroad reflect on changes in their English-language confidence, motivation,
and learning awareness, and how they interpret the contextual factors shaping those changes.

Research questions:

 How do Pakistani ESL learners studying abroad reflect on changes in their confidence,
motivation, and learning awareness in relation to their earlier English-learning
experiences in Pakistan?

 What personal, linguistic, academic, and environmental factors do these learners perceive
as contributing to those changes before and after studying abroad?

Research Objectives:

 To examine participants’ reflective accounts of how their confidence, motivation, and

awareness of learning strategies have changed from their period of study in Pakistan to
their current study-abroad experience.

 To identify the key contextual influences—such as classroom practices, social

interaction, academic demands, and language-use opportunities—that participants
associate with those changes.
3.4 Methodological Orientation and Ethical Considerations

Given the study’s focus on reflection, meaning-making, and perceived change, a qualitative
design is appropriate. The proposed use of an open-ended online questionnaire with
approximately fifteen prompts is especially suitable because the population is geographically
dispersed and because written, asynchronous response formats can give participants time to
think, compare past and present, and articulate experiences in their own words. Methodological
work in applied linguistics and online qualitative research suggests that e-questionnaires can
widen access to participants, reduce cost, and capture diverse interpretations, while also offering
a degree of autonomy and anonymity that may support more candid reflection. At the same time,
such instruments do not permit the same level of probing as interviews, which means question
design and analytic rigor become especially important (Pitura, 2023).

The proposed sample of about ten former IIUI students studying abroad, balanced by
gender as far as feasible, fits a small-scale qualitative project whose aim is depth rather than
statistical generalization. A purposive sampling logic is appropriate because the study seeks
participants who share a meaningful biographical trajectory: learning English in Pakistan,
studying at IIUI, and then transitioning to higher education abroad. The proposal does not
specify participants’ ages, disciplines, host countries, or exact lengths of stay; therefore, the
study should explicitly acknowledge these as currently unspecified contextual variables rather
than assume homogeneity across destinations or academic programs. In analytic terms, the
dataset would be well suited to thematic analysis or qualitative content analysis focused on
patterns across the themes of background, confidence, motivation, learning awareness, learning
environment, and advice to future learners.

Ethically, the study is on strong ground because it already incorporates a participant

information sheet, consent form, and anonymous questionnaire. Current educational research
guidance emphasizes informed consent, voluntariness, confidentiality, and clear communication
of participant rights. Internet research guidance also highlights the need to explain how data will
be stored, who will access it, whether responses are anonymous or merely pseudonymized, and
how participants can withdraw prior to submission or request deletion where identifiable follow-
up is possible. Because the study involves adult alumni rather than currently enrolled students
under the researcher’s direct authority, coercion risks may be lower, but the recruitment message
should still avoid any implication of obligation or institutional expectation (BERA, 2024; AoIR,
2020).

3.5 Expected Contributions and Limitations

The study has several likely contributions. Empirically, it can add a needed Pakistani voice to a
literature still dominated by non-Pakistani and often non-South Asian samples. Conceptually, it
can show how confidence, motivation, and learning awareness intersect rather than operate
independently. Methodologically, it can demonstrate the value of a focused qualitative
questionnaire for capturing reflective, cross-context comparisons. Pedagogically, it may generate
insights for pre-departure guidance, English support courses, reflective strategy instruction, and
support systems for students preparing to study abroad. It may also help educators in Pakistan
move beyond narrow proficiency narratives toward a more process-oriented understanding of
learner development.

There are, however, clear limitations that should be acknowledged in the introduction rather than
deferred. First, the study relies on retrospective self-report, so it captures perceived change rather
than directly measured language development. Second, a small purposive sample cannot support
broad generalization across all Pakistani students abroad. Third, open-ended online
questionnaires can generate uneven response depth and do not allow follow-up probes
comparable to interviews. Fourth, if participants are studying in multiple host countries,
destination differences may complicate interpretation. Finally, because the present proposal does
not specify age, discipline, host context, or length of residence abroad, the study must be careful
not to overstate causal claims about “studying abroad” as a single experience. These limitations
do not weaken the study’s value; rather, they clarify its contribution as interpretive, exploratory,
and context-sensitive.