AStudyonSecondaryVocationalSchoolStudents’WillingnesstoCommunicateandtheInfluentialFactorsinsidetheClassroom

【Abstract】As a communication tool， English focuses on the importance of language output. Studies on WTC started relatively late in China， mainly focused on college students， while little focused on vocational school students. Thus a set of questionnaires were delivered and interviews were made to investigate the present status of vocational school students WTC in English class.

【Key words】Secondary Vocational School； Willingness to Communicate； Influential Factors

【作者簡介】馬海亮，浙江大學(xué)外國語言文化與國際交流學(xué)院。

1. Introduction

One of the fundamental goals of second language learning is to provide learners with the ability to communicate effectively using their L2 when given the opportunity to do so. EFL students in vocational school need to have strong willingness to communicate. However， learning English language as a communicative skill is really a challenging thing for Chinese vocational school EFL learners.

2. Literature Review

Willingness to Communicate has evolved from “unwillingness to communicate” firstly advanced by Burgoon （1976）. In the initial stage of development， WTC in L1 was treated as a personality trait， showing stable individual differences over time and across situations.

3. Methodology

3.1 Research questions

The research is designed to investigate secondary vocational school Students ‘ willingness to communicate in L2 inside the classroom， the research questions are as follows：

1） What are the general characteristics of secondary vocational school Students ‘ willingness to communicate in L2 inside the classroom？

2） What are the main factors that affect their WTC in L2 inside the classroom？

3.2 Participants

The subject of the study： 32 Chinese students with 20 girls and 12 boys from a secondary vocational school in Huanan city of Jiangsu province. Chinese students in this school are non-native speakers of English. The students average age is about 17， and they are from grade one and two. They have a basic vocabulary of about 2000 words and each week， they have two English lessons by a typical female teacher with 8 years of teaching experiences. Half of them are majoring in Tourism， the rest are majoring in Accounting.

3.3 Instruments

3.3.1 Questionnaires

There are two parts involved in the present questionnaire （see appendix 1）. The first part is about the basic information of the subjects including grades， major， gender， age， self-perceived competence and years of English learning. The second part of the questionnaire is students Willingness to Communicate inside the Classroom.

The second part is the willingness to classroom inside the classroom. The original ones are made four parts of the skills： speaking， reading， writing and listening. It uses five-point Likert Scale. There are about six questions in each skill which was to show how willingly they would like to communicate. The items cover situations or tasks that students are familiar with or easy to happen inside the classroom and outside the classroom. Here， based on the needs of study， only uses speaking and reading part.

3.3.2 Interview

The interview is used as a complement to the questionnaires. The students who are chose to be interviewed according to their questionnaires. The purpose of the interview is to collect data from the questionnaires.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1 Analysis of WTC questionnaire

The mean of WCT scale scores are from 1.72 to 3.78. The first question one to seven are of speaking aspect， while the last six questions are of reading part of willingness to communicate. As for the speaking part， the scores of question1， 2， 5， 7 are relative high， which means what should be overcome in learning speaking. More specific， Speaking in a group about your summer vacation （56.2%） ； Speaking to your teacher about your homework assignment. （78.1%） ； How willing would you be to be an actor in a play？（ 56.2%） ； Play a game in English， for example with a mobile. （65.6%）

As for the reading part， the scores of question1， 2， 5 are relative high， which means what should be overcome in learning reading. More specific， Read a novel. （75%） ； Read an article in a paper. （84.3%） ； Read an advertisement the paper to find a good bicycle you can buy. （71.8%）

4.2 Analysis of Interview

In the past decades， numerous quantitative studies of L2 WTC in both Western and Asian contexts have been conducted， and the following main factors have been found to significantly influence L2 WTC： L2 anxiety， self-perceived communicative competence， L2 motivation， personality traits， language attitude， international posture， gender， age， and L2 communication frequency.（Shi，2008）Here the focus on the interview are of the three aspects， as follows，

4.2.1 English language anxiety

When asking all of the participants how well they were speaking in English， most of them answered that it was very difficult in the classroom. For example， Student C says：

I am afraid I couldnt speak well， because I was so afraid that I might make silly mistakes and my poor accent. （Student C）

This example appears to be representative of the most students：

Interviewer： Would you like to speak English in English classroom？

Student C： No.

Interviewer： Why ？

Student C： They always smile. Mm， in English class， if you answer the question in English， my classmates will laugh at you.

Interviewer： So you are not confident in classroom， what about outside the classroom？

Student C： Much better.

Interviewer： What was it like？

Student C： To be honest I have little confidence to speak English after class. Only when I communicate with others if the people always smile and patient， then I will continue. （Student C）

As what they described， they have fear of making grammatical mistakes.

4.2.2 Motivation

The findings clearly show that most participants think learning English is important because of it can help to find a good job. Student As words perfectly indicate this：

Interviewer： How important is English， in finding a good job？

Student A： Very important in China. If you have a good competence of English you can find a really very good job， a good job.

Interviewer： How to say， Can you give me an example？

Student A： In my hometown I just get， around 3， 000 Yuan a month， but if I get an international job in a foreign company I can get eh， 10， 000 Yuan， so its totally different.

Interviewer： Oh， big difference. Is it true？

Student A： Of course， one of my relatives told me that in a family dinner. And if we have a job overseas， the company will provide us some more money for our daily living.

This participant shows that English is extremely useful for his career.

4.2.3 International posture

Another reason for studying English can also be in some ways related to International posture. According to Student B：

English is the language for the scientific world and I want to know about science and technology of what is happening now， so I have to learn English to understand. （Student B）

Why I study English？ Because it is an international language and if I I want to communicate with foreign people， so I have to learn English. （Student C）

The participants also show that the language acts a useful as a tool for communication， such as when travelling， or talking to other foreigners， or making friends with others of the world.

Well， you know， if we can speak another language we can make friends with the people who， are， foreign people and we can learn the culture. （Student D）

Interviewer： So， what are your main reasons for studying English？

Student D： Mm， maybe the most reason for me is to find a good job after I graduate and the second is if I travel to somewhere I need to use English. Most countries， most part of the world people all use English.

5. Conclusion

In this study the goal was to investigate the present status of vocational school students WTC in English class， and to examine the influential factors which affect students willingness to communicate. In this both quantitative and qualitative study， the status of willingness to communicate through questionnaires， and the factors were analyzed through a recorded， semi-structured， face-to-face interview.

To question one， the status of vocational school students WTC in English class， the conclusions are that the vocational school English classroom WTC generally is not high， result shows that most of the students WTC focus on “sometimes do” and “half time willing to”. The results show that most students do not want to speak English and have a low willingness to communicate in English classes.

To question two， the willingness to vocational school English classroom communication correlates with three variables. This study found that willingness to communicate inside the classroom has relationships with classroom anxiety， motivation and international posture. Among them， the willingness to communicate in English is positively correlated with English learning motivation， which has a significant negative correlation with classroom anxiety. This is the second question to be answered.

Finally， there are several recommendations to be made for further research on this topic.

Firstly， the numbers of samples/participants are thirty-two students in one vocational school of a province， which is not sufficient for a study.

Secondly， the quantitative research needs a lot of data to analyze， due to the limited time， a lot of analysis need to be done. The SPSS （Statistical Package for the Social Sciences） should be adopted for the analysis of the data.

Thirdly， more researches of WTC theories should be read to find more specific topics.

References：

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[2]Kang，S.J.“Dynamic Emergence of Situational Willingness to Communicate in a Second Language.”33.2（2005）：277-292.

[3]MacIntyre，P.D.，&Doucette;，J.（2010）.Willingness to communicate and action control.System，38（2），161-171.