<![CDATA[Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have increasingly been adopted to support English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning due to their flexibility and accessibility. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on the effectiveness and technical aspects of MOOCs, providing limited understanding of how EFL learners construct meaningful learning experiences, negotiate challenges, and perceive pedagogical features that facilitate language development in online environments. Addressing this gap, this study explores learners’ lived experiences through a narrative inquiry to generate a deeper understanding of learner-centered online language learning. Five EFL learners who actively participated in online English courses were purposively selected, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using narrative analysis. The findings reveal that interactive feedback, authentic discussion forums, structured learning pathways, and mobile accessibility are the pedagogical features that most effectively foster learner engagement, autonomy, and sustained language development, whereas limited interaction, non-adaptive assessment, technological constraints, and insufficient opportunities for authentic communication remain significant barriers. Beyond identifying these facilitating and inhibiting factors, this study demonstrates that meaningful language development in MOOCs is constructed through the dynamic interplay between interactive pedagogy, learner autonomy, and sociocultural engagement rather than through technological affordances alone. The study contributes theoretically by extending the understanding of learner autonomy in MOOC-based EFL learning from a narrative perspective and offers new insights that effective online language learning emerges from the integration of pedagogical interaction, reflective learner agency, and authentic social participation. These findings provide a conceptual foundation for designing more learner-centered, interactive, adaptive, and socially engaging MOOCs to improve the quality of online EFL instruction.]]>
