<![CDATA[This study aims to examine the implementation of the STOP Technique (Stop, Take a Deep Breath, Observe, Proceed) as a form of brain break in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, while also exploring how students make sense of their experience with the technique. The study is grounded in the common difficulty teachers face in sustaining students' concentration and readiness to learn throughout extended lessons. A qualitative case study approach was employed in a tenth-grade class at a senior high school in Subang, involving 45 students, four of whom were purposively selected for in-depth interviews to capture varying levels of learning engagement. Data were gathered through classroom observation sheets, field notes, semi-structured interviews with students and an external observer, and a review of the lesson plan document, then analyzed using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014). The results indicate that, at the procedural level, the STOP Technique was carried out accurately and consistently across both meetings, supported by a high degree of agreement among all data sources. Nevertheless, its effects on participation, attention, classroom atmosphere, engagement, and teacher–student interaction were unevenly distributed, with students seated in the front and middle rows showing greater involvement than those seated at the back. A notable gap also emerged between direct observational data, which portrayed a more critical picture, and recall-based interview data, which tended to convey a more favorable impression. These findings suggest that the STOP Technique functions effectively as a calming pause at the procedural level, but its capacity to produce class-wide behavioral change depends heavily on students' initial engagement and physical proximity to the teacher, indicating a need to combine it with broader classroom management strategies for its benefits to reach all students equally]]>
