VietTESOL International Convention 2025

Learning no longer confines itself to the four walls of a classroom; instead, learners are now seen to traverse various learning spaces interchangeably. Thanks to the advancement of technology, virtual learning spaces promise to bring many benefits to learners; however, studies about how learners navigate among these spaces, especially in out-of-class learning contexts, still need to be made more evident. The current research explores the virtual learning spaces that EFL learners traveled to and the factors that made them stay and learn under the theoretical framework of Lai and Gu (2011), addressing this gap. The study used a mixed-method research design to collect data from a survey of 189 English majors at a public university and semi-structured group interviews with 15 students selected from that group. The findings indicated that EFL learners' primary motivations for visiting virtual learning spaces, ranked from most to least popular, were affective, resource, and goal commitment purposes. They prioritized the spaces suggested by their peers and teachers but only learned when they gained some attachment to them. These results implied that out-of-class learning with technology has significant potential for individual learning and therefore, the learning efforts in those spaces should be actively supported and integrated right from the classroom settings, rather than solely left for students to navigate and manage on their own.