| At present,English teaching in China lays more emphasis on students'communication and interaction,and the focus of teaching is gradually shifting to the cultivation of students' English communicative competence.Willingness to communicate(WTC),a latent structure covering various affective factors,will directly affect whether students are willing to seek communication opportunities and engage in communication practices.Therefore,the key to effectively improving students'communicative competence is to stimulate and cultivate their communicative willingness.WTC has a dual nature at the trait and state level.Most of the current researches focus on trait-like WTC,such as self-confidence,anxiety,motivation and other stable factors,but there are a few researches on situational WTC and even less studies have focused on the dynamic changes of students' WTC in different contexts.English language instruction in China is mainly carried out in a special context,the classroom,and it is realized through different interactive forms.Therefore,based on the classification of classroom interaction and L2 WTC models of previous researches,this research takes 206 junior school students from Lu Xiang middle school in Wuhan as research subjects and adopts the method of questionnaire and interview to explore the following three research questions:(1)What is the current situation of junior school students' WTC in English?(2)What are the differences of students' WTC in English in different types of classroom interaction?(3)What are the possible influencing factors contributing to their WTC in English in different interactional contexts?The main findings of this research can be summarized as follows:First,at present,junior school students' WTC in English lies between "probably willing" and "definitely wiling" and it is not generally high.There exists significant gender difference in WTC in English and girls are more willing to communicate in English than boys in class.There is no linear increase in WTC in English across the three grade levels.Eighth graders' WTC is significantly lower than that of the seventh and ninth graders.The ninth graders have the strongest WTC in English,followed by seventh graders,but there is no significant difference between the two grades.Second,junior school students are more willing to communicate in English in T-S interaction than in S-S interaction.Compared with T-I interaction,students tend to speak English in T-C interaction.In dyadic and group interaction,students demonstrate nearly the same level of WTC in English,but in dyadic interaction students are slightly more enthusiastic to communicate in English.Third,students' personality traits,such as L2 speaking confidence,communication anxiety,self-perceived communicative competence and language proficiency,are significantly related to their WTC in English and they are important individual variables affecting students' WTC in different interactional contexts.Additionally,peer influence,topic characteristic,teacher factor and classroom atmosphere are dominant situational factors of WTC in English.Based on the research findings,some suggestions to improve junior school students' WTC in English are put forward as follows:First,students should transform their learning concept,foster a positive attitude toward English communication,and improve comprehensive language skills.Second,teachers should attach importance to peer influence,and organize groups and assign roles sensibly to stimulate students' interest in communication.Third,teachers should take into consideration students' English level and needs,and pay attention to the interest and difficulty of topics.Fourth,teachers should realize the influence of their ontological characteristics,and emphasize facilitating effect of teacher feedback rather than its critical impact.Lastly,teachers should break the rigid teacher role model,construct learning community of teachers and students,and build a harmonious and democratic classroom atmosphere. |
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