Exploring willingness to communicate in the language classroom

Abstract

Currently, the aim of language learning is to use the language for communicative purposes and it is widely agreed that interacting in the target language will cause improvement in L2. However, the challenge is that some learners are willing to speak whereas some are not. This challenge and the focus on interaction in the language-learning process have led to the need for the construct of willingness to communicate (WTC). As a result, WTC was proposed as the “primary goal of language instruction” (MacIntyre, Baker, Clement, & Donovan, 2002, p. 545). When learners are engaged in learning a language, they are involved in this process with their self-beliefs and attitudes, and these are related to learners’ experiences (Mercer, 2011). Learners’ self-beliefs have significant effects on their current behavior and interactions, which are believed to have considerable impact on L2 learning. Taking up the construct of WTC as an aspect of the self, we can say that both internal aspects of the self and external social environmental factors interact to form the leaners’ willingness to communicate. Thus, we can say that WTC is affected by situational factors such as communicative self-confidence, motivation, communicative competence, selfconfidence, intergroup climate and personality (Kang, 2005). Given that WTC is an important component of learning a language, the variables influencing WTC need to be researched to help the learners in the process. Besides this, WTC that can be affected by situational variables needs to be emphasized rather than WTC influenced by individual factors, which is relatively stable (Kang, 2005). Based on this assumption, the purpose of the study is to explore the dynamic aspect of the WTC as a self-related construct with regards to the classroom environment.