A Study On Senior High School Students’ Willingness To Communicate In English Based On Classroom Interaction

The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017 version,revised in 2020)has clearly proposed that English is an indispensable communication tool for international exchanges and cooperation.English teachers should focus on cultivating students’ communication competence and language application ability in class so as to lay a foundation for students’ real communication.Many studies at home and abroad have shown that students’ English communication in class is commonly realized through classroom interaction,and willingness to communicate in English(L2 WTC)is an important prerequisite to generate students’ communicative behaviors in class,playing a crucial role in cultivating their English communicative competence.Therefore,in order to understand senior high school students’ L2 WTC in classroom interactive context,this study uses a combination of questionnaire and semi-structured interview methods to investigate 178 Grade One students from Nanning X Senior High School in the theoretical guidance of Wen & Clément’s modified model of L2 WTC and Kang’s preliminary construct of situational WTC in L2,striving for answering three research questions:(1)What are the characteristics of senior high school students’ L2 WTC in different types of classroom interaction?(2)Are there any differences in senior high school students’ L2 WTC in different types of classroom interaction?(3)What factors may influence senior high school students’ L2 WTC in different classroom interactive contexts?The results indicate that senior high school students’ L2 WTC is at a medium level(M=61.242),which is in the range of “not sure” and “willing”.There are significant differences between students’ L2 WTC and different types of classroom interaction.Compared with S-S interaction,students are more inclined to communicate with teachers in English,especially preferring the form of T-Ss interaction.In S-S interaction,students are more willing to communicate with their peers in English.In different classroom communicative contexts,students’ L2 WTC is both affected by individual and situational factors.Students’ personality traits such as motivation,attitude,personality,communication anxiety,communication confidence,self-perceived communication competence and English proficiency are important individual factors affecting their L2 WTC.Meanwhile,classroom atmosphere,classmates and teachers are the main situational factors affecting students’ L2 WTC in classroom interactive contexts.Based on the above major findings,aiming to improve students’ L2 WTC and their language use ability,this study puts forward the following pedagogical suggestions from two aspects.In terms of individual factor,teacher should guide students optimistically transform their attitude towards speaking English,strengthen their motivation and interest to speak English,and optimize the usage of modern information technology to show students the foreign cultural pluralism for cultivating their international posture.Teacher should also guide students to objectively evaluate their own and their peer’s English proficiency.In terms of situational factor,teacher should provide adequate guidance and support to students during classroom interactions,create a friendly and inclusive classroom atmosphere,and cultivate harmonious teacher-student relationships.Besides,teachers should also consider the influence of peers when grouping and give play to the leading role of group leaders.