Willingness To Communicate In English,Foreign Language Anxiety And Teacher Immediacy Among Chinese EFL Undergraduates:A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Previous research has established the importance of willingness to communicate in second language learning.WTC was reported to play a decisive role in actual language use.Chinese learners have long been considered as silent participants in EFL classroom,and studies on their willingness to communicate have arrested a growing attention.Most studies have proved learner's anxiety is negatively correlated with learner's willingness to communicate.Teacher immediacy has also shown its impact on both anxiety and willingness to communicate.However,quantitative studies have not reached an agreement.In addition,few studies have explored the interrelationships between willingness to communicate,foreign language anxiety and teacher immediacy in Chinese classroom context.Little statistical evidence,in particular,has ever proved whether teacher immediacy could directly influence willingness to communicate or foreign language anxiety.This study aims to report on how much willingness Chinese EFL learners express and explore the interrelationships between willingness to communicate,foreign language anxiety and teacher immediacy in classroom context.A total of 697 non-English major students from several state-owned universities in Anhui province have participated in the large-scale questionnaire survey via online survey software Wen Juan Xing.Statistical software SPSS 17.0 was employed to conduct Exploratory Factor Analysis and reliability analysis in pilot study and descriptive statistics of WTC in English scale in main study.Structural Equation Modeling(SEM)was then employed via AMOS 17.0 to testify the hypothesized interrelationships between WTC in English,foreign language anxiety and teacher immediacy.It was found that Chinese learners are moderately willing to initiate oral tasks and they show a preference to communicate in English with partners and group members rather than the teacher or the whole class.In comparison with meaning-focused activities,most students show more interest in form-focused activities where linguistic knowledge such as word or phrase meaning is exchanged.Results of SEM indicate that foreign language anxiety is negatively related to willingness to communicate;teacher immediacy exerts positive influence on willingness to communicate;and no significant correlation is found between teacher immediacy and language anxiety.Findings of the study have not only provided statistical testimony to the interrelationships between willingness to communicate,foreign language anxiety and teacher immediacy,but also offered pedagogical implications for English teaching in college classroom.