A Survey Of High School Students’ Willingness To Communicate In English In Classroom Interactions

Developing communicative competence is one of the main objectives of foreign language learning,and the prerequisite for developing students’ English communicative competence is improving their willingness to communicate（WTC）in English.As a vehicle for communication in class,classroom interaction greatly influences students’ WTC.At present,domestic studies on WTC in second language（WTC in L2）still focus on higher education instead of junior or high school education.Therefore,the study is aimed at investigating the situation of high school students’ WTC in English in classroom interaction,and the findings will bring pedagogical implications to classroom English teaching,based on which students’ WTC in English and English communicative competence will be improved.Guided by the socio-constructivist learning theory,the heuristic model of WTC in L2 and the WTC model in a Chinese setting,the study adopts questionnaires and interviews as research instruments to investigate 256 high school students about their WTC in English in classroom interactions.Here are the research questions:（1）What is the overall situation of high school students’ WTC in English in classroom interactions?（2）What are the differences of high school students’ WTC in English in different types of classroom interactions?（3）What are the problems and their possible causes in high school students’ WTC in English in classroom interactions?The findings are summarized by combining the quantitative data analyzed by SPSS 26.0 and the qualitative data of interviews:（1）High school students’ overall WTC in English in classroom interactions reaches a moderate to high level where is between “possibly willing” and “willing”.（2）High school students’ WTC in English in S-S classroom interactions is significantly higher than that in T-S interactions.Besides,students’ WTC in English in T-I interactions is significantly higher than that in T-C interactions,but there exists just slight difference of students’ WTC in English between pair works and group works.（3）There are 3 main problems of high school students’ WTC in English in classroom interactions.First,students show relatively lower WTC in English in classroom interactions with teachers’ participation.Second,students show relatively lower WTC in English in multi-person interactions.Third,students show relatively lower WTC in English in discussions and asking questions.From personal perspective,the reasons can be students’ low-level communication confidence,low-level ambiguity tolerance or students’ face-protected orientation.From situational perspective,lack of group or class cohesiveness,improper feedback from others and unclear task instructions can account for the problems.Based on the findings,several suggestions are given to improve students’ WTC in English in classroom interactions.On one hand,high school students should cultivate their English communication confidence,relieve anxiety,be more tolerant to mistakes,try to tell expectations for more feedback and respond to others actively.On the other hand,teachers had better improve grouping ways to develop students’ cooperative ability,give more positive feedback and clear task instructions before interactions.