An Investigation Into Primary School Students' Willingness To Communicate In English Class

Willingness to communicate(here after referred to as WTC),an important concept for second language learning,has attracted the wide attention of language learning researchers who have conducted lots of interdisciplinary research.Their findings indicate that WTC is regarded as the most direct factor which determines whether language learners would finally take part in second language communication.In Chinese EFL setting,students have been trained as good test takers instead of proficient speakers.Consequently,it is a fundamental issue to stimulate students' WTC and further promote the effectiveness of English language teaching.In response to this issue,the study attempts to obtain an objective and comprehensive understanding of students' WTC in primary school by discussing four research questions so that it can provide some practical evidence for solving this issue.The four research questions refer to:(1)the overall trend of primary school students' WTC in English;(2)the difference in WTC between male and female students;(3)the relation between students' English test scores and their WTC;(4)the related factors influencing primary school students' WTC.It is also expected that the study can offer English teachers some suggestions to encourage their students to participate in classroom activities and enhance their WTC in English learning.The subjects of the study were 121 primary school students from Xingyao Tiancheng School in Kunming.Both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted.In quantitative research,the questionnaire was composed of the basic information of the participants,the background of students' English learning and WTC scale in English class.SPSS 19.0 was employed to analyze data,including Descriptive Statistics,Independents Sample T-test and Pearson Correlation Analysis.In qualitative research,twelve selected primary school students of Grade Six participated in semi-structured interview to support and verify the findings of the quantitative research.Several findings are also obtained in this study:(1)It is high for the overall degree of primary school students' WTC in English class;(2)Female students are more willing to communicate in English than those of male students;(3)There is a relation between students' English test scores and their WTC in English: the better scores the higher WTC;(4)There are some relative influencing factors on students' WTC,such as situational factors,individual differences and external objective factors.Based on the above-mentioned findings,we can give some suggestions to EFL teachers and learners.It is recommended that teachers should change their teaching ideas and take the usage of English as the important goal of students' English learning.They should help students create a relaxed and harmonious learning environment,develop group cooperative learning,design diversified classroom activities,cultivate students' communication competence,and establish a good relationship between teachers and students.Meanwhile,students should cultivate their interests in English,build their confidence in English communication and form a positive attitude toward English learning.