Children’s experiences of agency when learning English in the classroom of a collectivist culture

Abstract This paper explores agency in a collectivist culture to investigate whether, and if so how, school-children experience as supportive learning speak English the classroom of culture. It draws on Ryan Deci’s (2019) Self-Determination Theory (SDT) examine nine primary classrooms three schools Alexandria, Arab Republic Egypt. The research involved 281 primary-school-children who completed open-ended sentences about experiences ELT classroom, observations participating classes 18 individual interviews. Our findings provided support for universality need autonomy (reflecting agency) within culture, that sample children expressed greater autonomy. They also inter-relatedness basic needs SDT, competence, relatedness. suggest were encouraged by their schooling system develop Control or Impersonal Orientations rather than Autonomy Orientations. These sustained through children’s fear making mistakes teachers scolding them which inhibited sense capacity speaking English. Some found was less when they did simultaneous pairwork, competence relatedness satisfied.