ABSTRACT Background Despite growing attention to English education in Bangladesh, conventional classroom instruction often fails to meet learners' diverse needs or ensure effective language development. Informal digital learning of English (IDLE) has emerged as a promising avenue for fostering learners' affective experience and enhancing proficiency beyond formal classroom settings. Nevertheless, empirical evidence on how Bangladeshi learners participate in and experience self‐directed language learning remains scarce, underscoring the need for further investigation. Objectives Drawing on the broaden‐and‐build theory, this study examines how foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and foreign language anxiety (FLA) shape learners' IDLE and (AI‐mediated) IDLE (AI‐IDLE) behaviours and learning confidence. Methods An explanatory sequential mixed‐methods design was adopted, integrating quantitative data from 1045 university students with qualitative insights from 26 semi‐structured interviews. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to test the hypothesized relationships among variables, followed by thematic analysis to enrich the interpretation. Results and Conclusions Quantitative findings revealed that FLE positively predicted IDLE behaviour and learning confidence, whereas FLA, traditionally viewed as debilitating, also exerted a facilitating effect by directly promoting participation in IDLE and AI‐IDLE activities and indirectly enhancing learning confidence. IDLE significantly predicted both AI‐IDLE and learning confidence, while FLE did not directly predict AI‐IDLE. Qualitative findings corroborated these results and further highlighted additional factors (e.g., instrumental motivation and cognitive ability) that contribute to the complexity of the emotion‐(AI) IDLE‐confidence link. This study provides pedagogical implications for optimising learners' technology‐mediated informal learning in the Bangladeshi context.
Zhao et al. (Sun,) studied this question.