Senior High School Students’ Willingness To Communicate In English ——A Case Study Of A Senior High School In H City

Cultivating English learners’ ability to effectively use spoken language to express meaning and communicate with others are the goals of language competence.Willingness to communicate potentially affects learners’ English communication behaviors.From the previous literature,willingness to communicate has been a hot research topic over the past two decades.However,the research contents mainly were learners’ willingness to communicate in second language.There was a lack of research on learners’ communication willingness in English.Additionally,the research participants in the previous studies mainly were college students,while there were a few studies on senior high school students.Therefore,conducting the present study is both significant and necessary.This study attempts to survey the current situation of English communication willingness among senior high school students in the Chinese context of English as a foreign language and analyze the influencing factors on English communication willingness,so as to provide effective solutions for English teaching to successfully develop the students’ ability to effectively use spoken language to express meaning and communicate with others.Therefore,this paper puts forward three research questions: What is the overall situation of senior high school students’ willingness to communicate in English? What are the individual differences in the highest-level dimensions of senior high school students’ willingness to communicate in English? How is the relationship among learning motivation,communication confidence,classroom environment and senior high school students’ willingness to communicate in English?With the purpose of answering the above research questions,this study,theoretically mainly based on the WTC model of Maclntyre et al.and Wen ＆ Clément,constructing the structural equation model of senior high school students’ willingness to communicate in English and its applicability has also been verified.This paper adopted the quantitative and qualitative research methods,randomly selected eight classes from Grade Two of a rural senior high school in H City,Guangdong province,a total of 428 students voluntarily took part in the questionnaire.Furthermore,according to the English grades of the mid-term examination,these students were divided into three-level groups: high English proficiency,medium English proficiency,and low English proficiency.Nine students from the three-level groups were randomly selected for being interviewed and recorded.Through the software of SPSS26.0 and Amos 23.0,the data collected in the questionnaire was input and analyzed,and the recording in the interview was transcribed and analyzed.The main findings are as follows:（1）Senior high school students’ willingness to communicate in English generally showed a moderate degree.Students’ willingness to communicate in English in four dimensions from high to low was: the willingness to communicate in classroom language form,to communicate with classmates and friends outside class,to communicate with foreigners outside class and to communicate in classroom language content;（2）There were individual differences in the highest-level dimensions of senior high school students’ English communication willingness.Among them,students in the middle-level group were higher than those in the low-level group.However,there were no significant differences between the high-level and medium-level groups,high-level and low-level groups.Female students were higher than male students.There were no significant difference between students started learning English in kindergarten,primary school and secondary school;（3）Students’ willingness to communicate in English were influenced by learning motivation,communication confidence,and classroom environment.Among them,learning motivation was one of the most important factors affecting students’ willingness to communicate in English,followed by communication confidence,and classroom environment.The qualitative results from interview served as a supplement to further understand students’ willingness to communicate in English in different situations.The results from the present study are of great significance to enrich the theoretical and empirical research on willingness to communicate in English.In the context of English as a foreign language,this study focuses on the individual differences in the highest-level dimensions of willingness in English communication,which can make an intensive study of communication willingness.Compared with previous studies,it is innovative in research content.The concept of second language communicative willingness has been extended from college students commonly concerned by scholars to senior high school students who are less involved in scholars,and some research results have been achieved.Furthermore,it facilitates English teachers’ and relevant departments attach importance to willingness to communicate in English,thus take practical and effective measures to improve students’ English communication competence,and it also provides guidance for future research.