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The paper reports on the involvement of ‘significant others’ (e.g. parents and friends) as experienced by a group of learners learning English at university in their Arab homelands. Underpinned by a sociocultural standpoint, the data collected from a written narrative and four subsequent semi-structured interviews suggest that ‘significant others’ directly and indirectly fostered or hindered the participants’ English language development and identity formation by prompting different strategies. Further research into the cooperation between actors inside and outside the classroom is believed to generate essential findings for the language learner development programmes.