An Exploration Of Learners’ Willingness To Communicate In L2 In Different Learning Contexts

Based on the Mac Intyre et al.’s heuristic model and Wen and Clement’s Willingness to Communicate(WTC)model,this thesis reports a study of Chinese non-English majors’ WTC in English in non-target language context and international students’ WTC in Chinese in target language context.The relationship between WTC and its influential factors(gender,language proficiency,language learning anxiety and motivation)is also explored and discussed.The study aims to address the following research questions:1)What are the current states of non-English major students’ WTC in English in non-target language context and international students’ WTC in Chinese in target language context?2)Do non-English majors’ WTC in English and international students’ WTC in Chinese differ across gender and language proficiency?3)How are language learning anxiety and motivation related to WTC in different learning contexts and which of them contributes more significantly to the prediction of WTC?Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed in the present study.The participants involved in the study were 174 students from a university in Jiangsu Province.98 of them with different English proficiency were non-English majors from its Independent College and the other 76 with different Chinese proficiency were from its Overseas Education College.Questionnaires were adopted in the quantitative research.Three scales were utilized: WTC in English/Chinese scale,language learning anxiety scale and language learning motivation scale.Descriptive statistics,Independent Sample T-Test,Pearson correlation analysis,Two-way ANOVA and multiple regression analysis were conducted to analyze the data collected from the scales.In addition,a semi-structured interview was adopted to elicit the reasons for the results obtained.8 participants(4 Chinese non-English majors,4 international students)who had participated in the quantitative survey were selected and interviewed.Detailed analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data yielded thefollowing findings:1)Chinese non-English major students and international students all have a relatively modest level of WTC,and their willingness to communicate inside the classroom(WTCI)is higher than that outside the classroom(WTCO).No significant differences in WTC and WTCI are found between the two groups while there do exist significant differences in WTCO of the two groups.Compared with Chinese non-English majors,international students are more willing to communicate in Chinese outside the classroom.2)The gender difference in WTC is found to be statistically significant among Chinese non-English majors.Female students are more willing to communicate in English than that of male students.However,there is no significant gender difference in WTC among international students.Besides,language proficiency is found to be a significant influential factor of WTC of the two groups of students.Students with higher language proficiency are more willing to communicate with others in the target language.3)Chinese non-English majors’ ELA has a significant negative effect on their WTC in English,while ELM has a significant positive effect on their WTC in English.ELA emerges as the only predictor in WTC in English.Similarly,international students’ CLA also has a significant negative influence on their WTC in Chinese,and CLM has a significant positive effect on their WTC in Chinese.Both CLA and CLM are all statistically significant predictors of WTC in Chinese,while they differ in the predictive power.CLA has the stronger predictive power than CLM.The study reported here is helpful for the language teachers to know more about the current states of students’ WTC and the influential factors.It is recommended that teachers should create a more relaxing and harmonious atmosphere not only to cultivate students’ learning motivation,but also to help them reduce anxiety and then improve their L2 WTC and the actual communicative competence.