A Study On The Relationship Between College Students’ L2 Motivational Self System And Willingness To Communicate

L2 motivation is one of the crucial factors that influence learners’ individual differences and motivated behaviour.Willingness to Communicate(WTC)in English is identified as the final step before authentic communication behaviour and is regarded as an effective indicator for predicting whether language learners will be engaged in L2 communication.However,against the backdrop of globalization,English learners in China have long been labeled as reticent learners.It is of vital importance to motivate students to engage in English communication and improve their English communicative competence.There are many studies on L2 motivation and Willingness to Communicate respectively at home and abroad,which have gained significant achievements in both theoretical and practical levels.However,studies combining L2 Motivational Self System and L2 WTC and attempting to explore their relationships among English majors and non-English majors are rarely to be seen.Therefore,the thesis presents a study designed to investigate the correlation between Ideal L2 Self,Ought-to L2 Self,L2 Learning Experience,and L2 Willingness to Communicate inside and outside the classroom in the Chinese EFL context.This research employed L2 Motivational Self System(D?rnyei,2005)and L2 Willingness to Communicate Heuristic Model(Mac Intyre,1998)as the theoretical frameworks and took 356 college students,including 219 English majors and 137non-English majors,as research participants.Through quantitative and qualitative methods,this research employed the questionnaire and semi-structured interview as the instruments to explore the relationship of L2 MSS and L2 WTC among English majors and non-English majors.The major findings are: 1)with regard to the L2 MSS,both English majors and non-English majors appeared to have clear and positive images of their ideal English selves,while their ought-to English selves were comparatively vague.The majority of the participants seemed to hold positive attitudes towards English learning.As regards L2 WTC,students appeared to show a relatively high level of willingness to engage in English communication both inside and outside the classroom.2)Ideal L2 Self and L2 Learning Experience tended to show significant differences between English majors and non-English majors.There was no significant difference between them in Ought-to L2 Self.English majors were significantly more willing to speak English inside and outside of the classroom than non-English majors.3)Significant positive correlations were found between three dimensions of L2 MSS and L2 WTC inside and outside the classroom for English majors and non-English majors.4)Ideal L2 Self and L2 Learning Experience appeared to have relatively strong predictive powers on L2 WTC inside and outside the classroom for both English majors and non-English majors,while Ought-to L2 Self had no prediction on L2 WTC.The present study investigated the relationship between the three dimensions of L2 MSS and L2 WTC.The findings of this research can provide some pedagogical implications and suggestions for English teachers on how to stimulate college students’ L2 motivation,relieve their foreign language anxiety,and improve their willingness to communicate in English.