A Survey Study On High School Students' Classroom Willingness To Communicate In English From International Classes

Willingness to communicate(WTC)is an essential factor influencing the learning process.The ultimate goal of the learning process should be to engender in language students the willingness to seek out communication opportunities and the willingness actually to communicate.China has the largest number of English learners,as well as its unique English learning environment,mostly in classroom and taught by non-native speakers.Therefore,it's essential to conduct an empirical study on WTC among Chinese students,especially among high school students from the international classes.Considering the important role of WTC in EFL learning process,and the urgent requirement in practical teaching,the present study attempts to address the following questions:1)What is the general situation of the high school students' classroom WTC in English like from the international classes?2)Are there any differences between high achievers and low achievers on classroom WTC?If yes,what are these differences?3)Is there any relationship between classroom WTC and English proficiency?If yes,to what extent?To acquire sufficient and convincing data and information to answer the research questions,the study adopts both quantitative and qualitative research.The instrument used in the study is a questionnaire adapted by the author based on MacIntyre et al.'s Willingness to Communicate inside the Classroom(2001).The questionnaire was administered in November,2016 to 85 high school students from the international classes at Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School at Yangzhou and finally 78 were found valid.Then,the data is processed by SPSS 19.0.The qualitative research covers semi-structured interviews with 6 students selected from those whose questionnaires are considered valid.Among them,three come from the high-achieved group and the rest are from the low-achieved group.The interview is carried out in Chinese and the whole process is tape-recorded.Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative survey results yields the following findings:Firstly,generally speaking,high school students from the international classes have a medium-high level of Willingness to Communicate in English.WTC in Reading(Mean=4.04)is favored most by students,followed by WTC in Listening(Mean=4.02).WTC in Speaking(Mean=3.65)and WTC in Writing(Mean=3.63)are perceived as less likely aspects.Besides,within the WTC in Reading category,"Reading letters from a pen pal written in native English"is favored most by students.Secondly,high achievers and low achievers have significant differences in their willingness to communicate in all four dimensions as results of independent samples T-tests(p<.05).According to the results,students of high proficiency are much more willing to communicate.Among the four dimensions,their difference in WTC in Speaking is the most significant(p<01).The mean value of high achievers' WTC in Speaking(Mean=3.90)is much higher than that of low achievers(Mean=3.12).Regarding the specific items,except for "Greeting to your classmates in English"(p=.077>.05)and "Describing the rules of your favorite game"(p=.271>.05),high achievers and low achievers have significant differences in other items.Thirdly,the correlation analysis shows that both WTC in Speaking and WTC in Listening have a positive and significant correlation with the English proficiency rated in all four skills,listening,speaking,reading and writing.However,WTC in Reading has a positive and significant correlation with English proficiency in speaking,writing,listening,but reading.WTC in Writing has a positive and significant correlation with English proficiency in reading,writing,listening,but speaking.Based on the discussions of the above findings,some pedagogical implications are made.Firstly,students should be informed of the effectiveness and practical value of the willingness to communicate.Teachers should try to create more communicative opportunities for students by designing interesting classroom tasks.Secondly,teachers should try to create vivid language speaking environment,offer students authentic listening materials,and balance the time planning among the four language skills.Thirdly,teachers should pay more attention to the low achievers,offer them more chances to communicate in English and encourage them timely and frequently.