A Case Study on Willingness to Communicate in English in the Iranian Tertiary Educational Context

Abstract

Willingness to communicate (WTC) in English is specifically important because L2 (foreign/second language) communication is considered to be a key factor in L2 learning. When the opportunity to speak English arises, there are generally two options: speaking or avoiding it. Several factors might exert influence on the choice of either option by different individuals. In this vein, the current study investigated the underlying factors that lead to (un)willingness on the part of Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) tertiary students. Through a purposive sampling procedure, this classroom-based case study recruited and examined 10 EFL learners in Iran over a period of three weeks. Data were collected employing semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and stimulated-recall interviews. Thematic analysis was performed to identify common themes from the participating students’ ideas. Results reveal that participants’ L2 WTC emerges as a result of the complex, dynamic and non-linear interaction between individual, contextual, and linguistic factors. These three factors interdependently exerted either facilitative or inhibitive impacts on an individual student’s WTC in class at any point in time. The current study, therefore, reinforces the need for teachers to be aware of the multiple factors which lead learners to be more or less willing to communicate in L2 classrooms.

The Willingness to Communicate in English Among Domestic Students in an International Online Class

“…It is consistent with a finding confirming that self-perception of English ability positively correlates to English proficiency and class performance (Dewaele & Furnham, 2008;Takahashi, 2009). Likewise, the finding of this research confirms the one by (Alimorad et al, 2021;Aslan & Şahin, 2020), confirming that one of the factors affecting classroom participation is negative L2 perception and L2 speaking anxiety.…”

“…With purposive random sampling, this research recruited ten students and used the semi-structured interview as the method of data collection. Results of the research revealed that WTC arises as the result of interactions involving some factors: individual, contextual, and linguistic factors (Alimorad et al, 2021).…”

A Study of the Relationship Between Students’ Global Perspective and Willingness to Communicate in English at an English Medium Instruction University in China

“…By and large, some findings were consistent with the concept of individual factors (Peng, 2019;Alimorad and Farahmand, 2021;Ma et al, 2022) or within-person variability (Zhang et al, 2019), such as themes 3, 6, 11, and 13, and most of the rest are in line with the contextual/environmental factors (Peng, 2019;Alimorad and Farahmand, 2021;Ma et al, 2022) and betweenperson variability (Zhang et al, 2019;. While the previous studies mainly focused on in-class factors that influenced students' L2 WTC, the current study discovered some additional out-of-class factors, like themes 5, 12, and 13, which show students' initiative to use English in real-life situations, and to some extent confirm previous researchers' finding that WTC is socio-culturally constructed as a function of the interaction of individual and environmental factors both inside and beyond the classroom walls (Peng, 2019;Alimorad and Farahmand, 2021;Ma et al, 2022).…”

“…The complex, dynamic interaction among individual, contextual, linguistic and educational factors may facilitate or impede L2 WTC of Iranian EFL tertiary students (Alimorad and Farahmand, 2021) and Chinese postgraduate students (Ma et al, 2022). More research is needed to uncover the difference between WTC in using English for general purposes and WTC in EMI settings (Ma et al, 2022).…”

“…According to willingness to communicate in second language (L2 WTC) theory, if learners have a high WTC, they will take the initiative to practice using English as much as possible (MacIntyre et al, 1998;Braskamp et al, 2014;Alimorad and Farahmand, 2021). Therefore, English language teaching (ELT) should aim at fostering students' L2 WTC.…”