Astudy Of The Relationship Between Junior High School Students'attitudes Toward Accomplishing Different Types Of Speaking Tasks And Their Willingness To Communicate In Spoken English In Class

Advocates of task-based language teaching believe that tasks can enable learners to gain a rich second-language/foreign-language experience in a real language environment,thereby developing their communicative competence.Among different factors contributing to foreign language learning,affective variables such as attitude,motivation and anxiety are relatively more important.Through reading of relevant literature,the author finds that previous researchers have conducted related research on “task types”,“listening tasks”,“speaking tasks”,“reading tasks”,and “writing tasks”.However,relatively few studies have explored more specific information in more specific situations such as relating junior high school students with the speaking tasks in the textbook Go for It.This study attempts to investigate students' attitudes toward accomplishing different speaking tasks as well as their willingness to communicate in spoken English in classes,and the relationship between the two variables,so as to provide some inspiration for instructors and learners.The specific research questions are proposed as follows:(1)What types of speaking tasks are provided in the junior high school English textbooks Go for It?(2)What are junior high school students' attitudes toward accomplishing these different types of speaking tasks?(3)What are the characteristics of “task-oriented willingness to communicate”and “voluntary interaction-oriented willingness to communicate” in spoken English in junior high school English classes?(4)Is there any relationship between junior high school students' attitudes toward accomplishing different types of speaking tasks and their willingness to communicate in spoken English in class? If yes,what is it?The sample of the study consists of 541 junior high school students from three different grades in two different schools in Yunnan.Questionnaire and semi-structured interview were used as the instruments for data collection of this study.The collected data were processed and analyzed by SPSS 22.0.Since this study involves data analysis of three different grades,descriptive statistical analysis,independent sample T test and one-way ANOVA,correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted.Finally,the following conclusion was reached:(1)Based on the analysis of Go for It textbooks used by junior high school students,the author finds that the provided speaking tasks can be divided into two categories: “monologue speaking tasks” and “dialogue speaking tasks”.Typical monologue and dialogue speaking tasks in the Go for It are: “Talk about”,“Describe”,“Role-play”,“Ask and answer questions”.There are more “dialogue speaking tasks”than “monologue speaking tasks” in the textbooks Go for It.(2)Junior high school students generally have an average attitude towards accomplishing the types of speaking tasks provided in textbooks.Grade 7 students have a more positive attitude.On the contrary,the attitudes of students of Grade 9 are more negative.And the attitudes of the students of Grade 8 are in between.In terms of students' attitudes toward completing different types of speaking tasks,the subjects of this study prefer to participate “monologue speaking tasks” rather than “dialogue speaking tasks”.And girl students have a more positive attitude towards speaking tasks than boy students.(3)The junior high school students have a moderate level of willingness to communicate in spoken English in class.Their initiative to participate in the communication in class is not very strong.However,if they are guided by “tasks”,their willingness to communicate in spoken English is significantly enhanced.The willingness to communicate in spoken English in Grade 8 is strong,but their“voluntary interaction-oriented willingness to communicate” is lower than“task-oriented willingness to communicate”.In Grade 9,the willingness to communicate in spoken English is weak,and their “voluntary interaction-oriented willingness to communicate” is obviously lower than “task-oriented” ones.The willingness to communicate to spoken English in Grade 7 is between Grade 8 and Grade 9.There is gender difference in terms of students' willingness to communicate in spoken English in class,and girls' willingness to communicate is higher than that of the boys.(4)There is a significant positive correlation between students' attitudes toward accomplishing different types of speaking task and their willingness to communicate in spoken English in class.There is also a significant and moderate positive correlation between students' “task-oriented” and “voluntary interaction-oriented”willingness to communicate and their attitudes toward accomplishing speaking tasks such as “Role-play”,“Ask and answer questions”,“Talk about”,“Describe”.Students' attitudes towards the completion of the “monologue speaking tasks” and“dialogue speaking tasks” can significantly predict their willingness to communicate in spoken English.Moreover,student's positive attitudes toward accomplishing“monologue speaking tasks” can further promote their willingness to communicate in spoken English in class.Based on the above conclusions,some pedagogical implications have been proposed as follows: First of all,English teachers/instructors should be familiar with and explore the design concepts of speaking tasks in Go for It,creatively use it and reasonably design spoken tasks in classrooms.Secondly,although this study found that students tend to have a preference to complete the “monologue speaking tasks”,in practice,the “dialogue speaking tasks” usually lead to a higher quality of language output.Therefore,teachers should consciously correct this preference of students in teaching,and help them with better spoken output.Thirdly,in view of the differences in grades and genders found in this study,teachers should fully consider the actual life and learning needs of their students,arrange appropriate speaking tasks in their teaching,and flexibly teach students according to their aptitude.