L2Motivational Self System,Language Anxiety,and Willingness To Communicate By English Learners In Chinese University Context:a Structural Equation Modeling Approach

This dissertation reports on a large-scale study designed to investigate the complicated inter-relationship among variables of Ideal L2self, Ought-to L2self, English learning experience, anxiety, and L2Willingness to Communicate inside classroom and L2Willingness to Communicate outside classroom in the Chinese English as foreign language (EFL) context. L2motivational self system (Dornyei,2005,2009) and L2Willingness to communicate (WTC) model (Macintyre,1998,2001) were used as the basis for a conceptual framework. A model of L2Motivation, Language anxiety, and L2WTC was hypothesized and tested in this study, based on a great number of previous studies. The hypothesis fell into four aspects:(1) hypothesis concerning the validity of L2Motivational Self System in Chinese EFL context;(2) hypothesis concerning the predictability of language anxiety by L2Motivational Self System;(3) hypothesis concerning the predictability of L2WTCI/O by L2Motivational Self System and Language Anxiety;(4) hypothesis concerning the difference in L2WTCI/O, L2Motivational Self System, and Language Anxiety in terms of individual differences.Quantitative approach complemented by a qualitative one was adopted to test the hypothesis above in present study. Questionnaires adopted from the scales of L2Motivational Self System and language anxiety and Willingness to Communicate inside and outside classroom scale with a few modifications, were administered to1592participants from a key university located in Shandong Province, follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with22students selected. On the one hand, the data collected from questionnaire were submitted to SPSS17.0and analyzed through AMOS17.0. Descriptive statistics, reliability of the subscales, correlation were examined and a hypothesized model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling. The data collected from interviews, on the other, were all carefully transcribed, and analyzed in a qualitative way. Based on the quantitative and qualitative results, major findings are as follows:(1) The international structure of L2motivation has been validated in Chinese typical English as foreign language (EFL) context, and empirically supports the tripartite of L2motivational self system.(2) The three variables of L2Motivational Self System have all been found to significantly relate to language anxiety. Ideal L2Self and English learning experience both negatively correlated with language anxiety, while Ought-to L2Self significantly leads to an increase in language anxiety.(3) The three components of L2motivational self system have been identified as predictors of Willingness to Communicate inside and outside classroom, with English Learning Experience accounting for the most variance in Willingness to Communicate inside as well as outside classroom. As revealed by the interviews, participants with high L2WTC report to be more related to Ideal L2self, those with medium L2WTC are motivated to learn English mainly through their Ought-to L2self. Students from low L2WTC group are more concerned with their English learning experience.(4) L2Willingness to communicate inside classroom by Chinese learners of college English is found much stronger than their L2Willingness to communicate outside classroom. Besides, L2Willingness to communicate inside classroom explains most of the variance in L2Willingness to communicate outside classroom. In accordance with the quantitative results, participants in interviews seem to have a higher L2WTC inside classroom rather than outside classroom. In EFL context, English classroom might provide one of the few chances for students to use English. Students with high L2WTCI report on High L2WTCO, students with medium and low L2WTCI respectively correspond to those with medium and low L2WTCO.(5) Language anxiety, one of the most important affective variables seems to be less influential than expected in predicting L2Willingness to communicate both inside and outside classroom. However, anxiety is also a crucial affective variable worth attention. According to the interviews, almost all the participants report on the suffering of anxiety in English learning. Conflicting with most of the previous studies, some of them report that anxiety plays a positive role.(6) Differences have been found in L2WTCI/O, Ideal L2Self, Ought-to L2Self, English Learning Experience and language anxiety concerning learners’individual differences, especially gender.(7) Confirming the results of quantitative research on the one hand, the interviews also point out, on the other, the importance of reckoning with the influence of Chinese traditional culture while investigating the interrelationship among L2Motivational Self System, language anxiety, and L2WTCI/O by Chinese learners.(8) The influence of test has been found great as expected. In Chinese EFL context, many participants say that they learn the language mainly because it is a compulsory course and they have to pass the examinations. This finding helps explain the insignificant role that Ought-to L2Self plays in predicting learners’L2WTC.(9) Participants in the interviews propose a number of suggestions on the promotion of L2WTCI. Their suggestions are mainly relevant to the immediate environment of classroom language teaching. The most frequently mentioned ones are the personal charisma of teachers, particular ways of teaching, appropriate teaching materials, and approaches to creating positive classroom atmosphere. Other results of interviews provided a thorough understanding of the results obtained in the phase of questionnaire study.The findings of this study may have many an implication for second language acquisition, foreign language education, curriculum design, compiling of teaching materials, and the on-going foreign language teaching reform in our country. L2motivation, language anxiety, and L2WTC are all multi-faceted and complex in nature, therefore limitations are unavoidable in this study. In its first attempt to investigate the interrelationships among L2Motivational Self System, Language Anxiety, and L2WTCI/O, the present study needs to be confirmed by more research in the future. Suggestions for future research are provided near the end of this dissertation.