Willingness to communicate (WTC) is emerging as a concept to account for individuals' first language (L1) and second language (L2) communication. This study examined relations among L2 learning and L2 communication variables in the Japanese English as a foreign language context using the WTC model and the socioeducational model as a framework. A L2 communication model was constructed and tested using AMOS version 4.0, with a sample of 297 Japanese university students. In the model, a latent variable, international posture, was hypothesized to capture the general attitude toward the international community and foreign language learning in Japan. From structural equation modeling, it appeared that international posture influences motivation, which, in turn, influences proficiency in English. Motivation affected self-confidence in L2 communication which led to willingness to communicate in a L2. In addition to this indirect path, a direct path from international posture to WTC in a L2 was significant. The model's fitness to the data was good, which indicates the potential for using the WTC and other constructs to account for L2 communication.MUCH OF THE RESEARCH ON INDIVIDUAL differences in second language (L2) acquisition has demonstrated the influence of affective variables, including attitudes, motivation, and language anxiety on achievement or proficiency.A recent addition to the affective constructs is willingness to communicate (WTC), which is emerging as a concept useful in accounting for individuals' first language (L1) and L2 communication. The concept, first developed in L1 communication by McCroskey and his associates (McCroskey, 1992;McCroskey & Richmond, 1987) was applied to L2 communication by MacIntyre and Charos (1996). As the emphasis in L2 teaching and learning has been shifting to communication, both as a necessary process and as a goal of learning a L2, a way to account for individual differences in L2 communication is needed. MacIntyre and Charos (1996) and MacIntyre and Clément (1996) demonstrated the possibility by combining insights from two disciplines, L2 acquisition and communication.In Japan, as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Techonology's guidelines for foreign language (mostly English) teaching within the school education curriculum (Monbusho, 1989(Monbusho, , 1999a(Monbusho, , 1999b have placed increasing emphasis on communication, a greater portion of textbooks and classroom activities has focused on face-to-face interaction in hypothetical intercultural contact situations. It is expected that English will cease to be considered as simply a knowledge-based subject, which it has long been in Japan.When communication is a goal of language instruction, such questions as "communication with whom?" and "for what?" arise, and a social psychological perspective becomes relevant in answering them. In addition to motivation and attitudes toward the people with whom students will

This article investigates results and antecedents of willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language (L2) through 2 separate investigations conducted with Japanese adolescent learners of English. In the first investigation, involving 160 students, a model was We would like to thank Peter MacIntyre for letting us use the communication-related scales that he adapted from McCroskey and Richmond (1991) to refer to second language as well as for his valuable suggestions, and Linda Viswat for her valuable comments. We would also like to express our gratitude to anonymous reviewers for their very helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this article. created based on the hypothesis that WTC results in more frequent communication in the L2 and that the attitudinal construct international posture leads to WTC and communication behavior. This model was tested with structural equation modeling and was found to fit the data well. The second investigation with 60 students who participated in a study-abroad program in the United States confirmed the results of the first. Finally, frequency of communication was shown to correlate with satisfaction in interpersonal relationships during the sojourn.A goal of second language (L2) and foreign language (FL) learning is to facilitate better communication and understanding between individuals who come from different cultural backgrounds and speak different languages. MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei, and Noels (1998) emphasized communicative goals using the conceptual model of willingness to communicate (WTC), in which L2 proficiency is not regarded as the goal of learning an L2 per se but is seen as a means to achieve interpersonal/intercultural goals. Both state and trait variables, including self-confidence, intergroup motivation, intergroup attitudes, and personality, were shown to affect one's WTC in the L2 in a given situation.

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Recently, situated willingness to communicate (WTC) has received increasing research attention in addition to traditional quantitative studies of trait-like WTC. This article is an addition to the former but unique in two ways. First, it investigates both trait and state WTC in a classroom context and explores ways to combine the two to reach a fuller understanding of why second language (L2) learners choose (or avoid) communication at given moments. Second, it investigates the communication behavior of individuals and of the group they constitute as nested systems, with the group as context for individual performance. An interventional study was conducted in a class for English as a foreign language (EFL) with 21 students in a Japanese university. During discussion sessions in English over a semester in which Initiation–Response–Feedback (IRF) patterns were avoided to encourage students to initiate communication, qualitative data based on observations, student self-reflections, and interviews and scale-based data on trait anxiety and WTC were collected. The analyses, which focused on three selected participants, revealed how differences in the frequency of self-initiated turns emerged through the interplay of enduring characteristics, including personality and proficiency, and contextual influences such as other students’ reactions and group-level talk–silence patterns.

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