Willingness to Communicate-Group Dynamics and Seating Allocation at Beginning Level Japanese
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: The ultimate goal of L2 learning should be to engender in language learners 'the willingness to communicate' or WTC (MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei & Noels, 1998).The success of language learning depends to a large extent on the amount of input and output.Pair and group work is widespread in education (Storch, 2002), including the language classroom.This pedagogical practice increases the amount of language input (McGroarty, 1993) as well as output (Long & Porter, 1985).MacIntyre et al. also claim that WTC does not necessarily transfer from L1 to L2.They maintain that some linguistic development is a precondition for WTC.If so, WTC should ideally run in parallel to that of communicative competence.This study examines whether WTC can be engendered and fostered through group dynamics via seating arrangements among beginning level Japanese learners.Dual methods with video-recording to observe learners' behavior and a questionnaire to assess their perceptions of their own WTC were employed.The results show that with 'scaffolding' by the instructor at the beginning stage, the students became more willing to communicate in L2 while the survey revealed that they found teacher-allocated partners conducive to language learning and active language use. Key terms: Willingness to Communicate (WTC)
Author: Nobuyoshi Asaoka
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W596176654