A Survey Of Students' Willingness To Communicate In English Classroom In Senior School

Willingness to communicate in English is an intention to use English to communicate with others.Using English is the final aim of English teaching.However,it is reported that class silence is universal in English classrooms especially in senior schools.Thus,researches to seek the factors that affect students' willingness to communicate in English are attached to great importance.In this article,three questions are raised to search the topic: To what extent Chinese students are willing to communicate in class in English? What are the differences and similarities between students with high and low willingness to communicate in English? What are the factors that affect students' willingness to communicate in English in class?We adopt questionnaire,class observation,learning journals and semi-structured interviews to collect the data.The data of the questionnaire are analyzed utilizing SPSS.And the information in the journals and interviews is qualitatively content analyzed.1087 students of Grade 1 in a senior high school in Chongqing participated in phase one during which they finished a questionnaire about willingness to communicate in English class.Then during phase two,4 students in the same class were selected to keep learning reflecting journals,half of whom got the highest score 50 in the questionnaire while the rest scored the lowest 10.In phase three,another 6 students,of whom three scored lowest and others got the highest in the questionnaire,took part in the semi-structured interview.According to the survey,the communication willingness in English of the students is on average 3.34.Female students have higher willingness than male students.There is no much gap between students of different levels.The differences and the similarities between students with high and slow communication willingness in English in class are the following: students with high willingness to communicate in English score higher in the self-estimated journals than the latter;the former take an active part in the class while the latter stay silent according to the classroom observation;the group atmosphere of the high communication willingness students is more passionate;the attitudes to difficult language expressions between them are different.Students with highwillingness adopt a positive attitude while the other tend to be negative.Despite these,students prefer form-focused activities than meaning-focused activities.Besides,the class schedule has influences on them.Factors from five aspects are identified to influence students' willingness to communicate in English: English communication competence,personality,affection,motivation and social context.