| With the increasing attention paid to spoken English,more and more importance has been attached to the study of the willingness to communicate in second language.Foreign researches on L2 willingness to communicate started early and are abundant,but the domestic researches on L2 willingness to communicate started late and most of them are based on foreign researches.The present study investigates English majors’willingness to communicate in English which focuses on the following questions.First,what are the general trend and characteristics of English majors’ willingness to communicate in English?Are there any differences in their willingness to communicate in different communication activities?Second,how do some factors such like gender,English proficiency,the starting age of English learning and self-perceived communicative competence exert influence on English majors’ willingness to communicate?The instrument for data collection in this study is a questionnaire adapted from Maclntyre etc.(2003)and Xin(2006).Altogether 138 English major undergraduate students were included in the survey.The Independent Sample T Test was used to reveal if there is influence between the several factors and students’ willingness to communicate.The study revealed the following facts.Firstly,the general trend of the subjects’ willingness to communicates in this study is relatively modest,and their willingness to communicate inside class is stronger than that outside class.The majority of them will choose to keep silent when given the opportunity in the class.The subjects’ willingness to communicate is stronger in less interactive activities than in more interactive ones.Secondly,in terms of gender,the differences in willingness to communicate between males and females are slight.Although females have stronger willingness to communicate inside and outside class activities,the differences are not statistically significant.In terms of language proficiency,TEM-4 scores were used as predictor of language proficiency in the study,the differences between higher proficient English learners and less proficient ones are significant in terms of willingness to communicate.The more proficient in English students are,the more willing he or she will be in communicating with others.In terms of starting ages of English learning,learners with starting ages of English learning have no difference in willingness to communicate.In terms of self-perceived communicative competence,self-perceived communicative competence is highly predictive of willingness to communicate.There exists difference of students’willingness to communicate among students’ with different self-perceived communicative competence.Based on these results,several suggestions were proposed for English teaching.Firstly,setting willingness as a goal of college English teaching.Secondly,taking students’communicative needs into consideration.Thirdly,attaching equal importance to students’psychological needs.Fourthly,making the teaching content closely related to the students’study and life. |
