It is beneficial for Chinese English-learners to improve their communicative competence through being taught in a communicative-based class (especially with the use of task-based language teaching, Nuevo, 2006). However, previous studies revealed that Chinese teachers have had difficulties in engaging students in communicative-based classes (Chen, 2003; Chowdhury & Ha, 2008; Chung & Huang, 2009). Therefore, although communicative-based classes aim to have students engage with using the target language within the class setting, students in China seem resistant — they are not active in communicating with each other or even the teacher (Chen, 2003). The purpose of this Dissertation study was to examine whether teachers’ use of scaffolding strategies and autonomy supports might help engage students as well as improve their communicative competence in communicative-based classes. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among teachers’ use of scaffolding strategies and autonomy supports, the satisfaction of students’ psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and students’ self-determined motivation, self-regulation, class participation, and their English learning outcomes by assessing a path-analytic model. Before conducting the path-analytic model, I validated the survey items used to measure teachers’ use of scaffolding strategies, teachers’ autonomy supports, students’ psychological needs, students’ self-determined motivation, and students’ self-regulation through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Participants involved in the EFA were similar to participants who were involved in this dissertation research (CFA and path analysis): freshmen and sophomores who were taking communicative-based classes (Communicative English for Chinese Learners) at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. The EFA-surveys were translated into Chinese and back-translated into English, then distributed face-to-face during the month of June 2017, the end of the second semester in the 2016-2017 school year. Items were adjusted based on results of the EFA, and were subsequently used in a CFA and path-analytic analysis. Surveys were again distributed at the end of the first semester in the 2017-2018 school year for CFA and path analysis. CFA results confirmed the factor structures proposed by EFA. Path analyes showed that the initial hypothesized model did not fit the data well, and thus, the model was modified and a final model was selected and discussed. The final model revealed that only teachers’ use of scaffolding strategies predicted students’ satisfaction of their psycholgocial needs to promote intrinsic motivation, while students’ satisfaction of psychological needs mediated the relationship between teachers’ use of scaffolding strategies and students’ self-determined motivation, as assumed by the self-determination theory. In addition, students’ self-determination (including their satisfaction of psychological needs and motivational regulation) was positively related to their self-regulaion, class participation, course score, and expectation of the amount of knowledge they had learned, both directly and indirectly. Finally, students’ self-regulation negatively predicted students’ course score — which is contradictory with previous studies — while class participation was positively associated with both students’ scores (as assumed by previous studies) and expectation of the amount of knowledge they had learned.