Investigating Situational Antecedents Of Learners' L2 Willingness To Communicate In Group Work Of College Second Language Classroom

With the flourishing research on interaction-driven language acquisition,many scholars emphasize the importance of learning through effective interaction inside and outside the classroom.Given the benefits of engaging in communication,the notion of Willingness to Communicate(WTC),which was defined as the intention and desire to initiate communication(MacIntyre,Clément,D?rnyei & Noels 1998),had gained much attention in teaching practice and teaching research.Previous research has paid much attention to the trait-like psychological factors,such as self-perceived confidence,while few studies have explored the dynamic and situated nature of the interaction among situational antecedents influencing L2 WTC in the classroom context or the group work situation.By adopting Zhang,Beckmann and Beckmann's state WTC framework(2018),this study was designed to investigate situational variables and their interaction determining learners' Willingness to Communicate(WTC)in the second language(L2)group work setting.This multi-case study used both quantitative and qualitative approach and collected data through self-report questionnaire,classroom observation and semi-structured interview.Firstly,a questionnaire about Willingness to Communicate in group work was administered to 57 sophomores majoring in English at a linguistic university in China,and 44 students responded.In the 44 respondents,7 respondents were selected to participate in the semi-structured interview based on their questionnaire results and midterm course grades in order to know their experience in group work.The findings show that situational L2 WTC in group work emerges from the joint effect of interacting situational variables such as teacher,interlocutors,task,and topic.The results indicate that teachers could exert influence on students' L2 WTC in group work by showing teacher immediacy,equal attention,and making grouping arrangement.Interlocutors and tasks could also have an effect on learners' L2 WTC in group work by peer familiarity,interlocutor contribution,group work usefulness,task usefulness,task interest and difficulty.Based on the findings,the author provides qualitative evidence to Zhang et al.'s(2018)newly-designed framework and confirms their speculation that students' perceptions of teacher,interlocutors,and tasks are more direct situational antecedents of L2 WTC than teacher,interlocutors and tasks.This study makes theoretical implications by suggesting L2 WTC as a dynamic situational construct that can change according to context rather than just a trait-like predisposition.Besides,the author found that situational factors would affect L2 WTC by exerting influence indirectly on psychological factors such as self-perceived confidence.It indicates a new research direction and builds a link between previous qualitative research about situational factors and the quantitative research of the correlation analysis between psychological factors and L2 WTC.The author also makes pedagogical suggestions,such as creating a safe and relaxing atmosphere to engage more students and making suitable grouping arrangement.