Willingness to Communicate in English as a Foreign Language in Bosnian-Herzegovinian EFL Context

Abstract

Willingness to communicate (WTC) has recently been extensively investigated in the field of language study, especially in second language acquisition studies and communication studies. Studies suggest that WTC is an important tool that can facilitate language learning. Hence, the aim of instructors when teaching a language should be to increase the students' WTC. The aim of this study is to explore the Bosnian-Herzegovinian university students' willingness to communicate in English as a foreign language in different situational and interpersonal contexts. For that purpose, the Willingness to Communicate Questionnaire (McCroskey, Richmond, 2013) was utilized. The instrument consists of seven sub-scales: group discussion, meetings, interpersonal, public speaking, friend, acquaintance, stranger and it consists of 20 items. The research sample consists of 193 students from three universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two public universities and one private university. The results show that students' grade level, type of university and GPA significantly affect their willingness to communicate, while gender, nationality, or the number of foreign languages that students speak do not affect their WTC. Since this concept has not been studied broadly in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian EFL context, findings of this quantitative study might facilitate the process of setting pedagogical aims in English language instruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with special emphasis on WTC.Keywords: WTC, communication, foreign language, achievement. IntroductionThe concept of willingness to communicate (WTC) has been more significantly investigated since 1998, when MacIntyre, Clement, Dörnyei, and Noels (1998) presented a formulation of a mixture of psychological, linguistic, educational, and communicative dimensions of language that underlies an individual's willingness to use the target language (Mystkowska-Wiertelak, Pawlak, 2016). Since then, a significant number of studies have been conducted to shed light on this concept. It has been proven that many situational factors and personality traits drive the learner's desire to communicate in a foreign language (Sinanović, Bećirović, 2016). A great deal of studies on WTC has been conducted in second language contexts of China, Japan, and Iran. Many researchers have actually tried to test the model of willingness to communicate proposed by MacIntyre and associates (1998) or they try to elaborate on different factors that influence the WTC and try to * Corresponding author E-mail addresses: emina.rizvic@stu.ibu.edu.ba (E. Rizvić), senad.becirovic@ibu.edu.ba (S. Bećirović) European Researcher. Series A, 2017, 8(3) 225 make connections between willingness to communicate and specific outcomes of the language learning process, such as achievement.The importance of interacting in the foreign language during the learning process is not negligible (Bećirović, 2016). In order to fully engage in the process, learners must be willing to give their absolutely best to immerse themselves in th...

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