ENHANCING EFL STUDENTS’ WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE: TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT THEIR ROLES AND STRATEGIES

Funny Amalia Sari

doi:10.23917/kls.v1i1.2473

Abstract

This study aims to investigate teachers’ beliefs about the scope of their roles in terms of interaction strategies in order to develop and maintain their learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC). Four experienced teachers of twoEnglish courses in Indonesia were asked to answer an open self-completion questionnaire that was designed based on the three interaction strategies proposedby Lee and Ng (2010). The study suggests any pedagogic interventions always depend on good teaching: one method alone does not promise success. This present study is expected to contribute to the comprehension of teachers’ influence to learners’ WTC particularly to language teacher development.

Highlights

A gamut of research has indicated that learners’ active involvement in communication and interaction in their target language is essential during the learning process as modern language pedagogy aims to enable learners to naturally communicate in their target language
Skehan (1989, cited in Zarrinabadi, 2014) who argues that learners’ talk in the target language is fundamental to achieve L2/FL (Foreign Language) proficiency; the learning process should place more emphasis on how to utilize classroom tasks largely to encourage students to demonstrate their linguistic competence within conversations
McCroskey (1987) claims that willingness to communicate (WTC) is proven as a predictor of classroom participation since students with high ranking WTC participated more in classroom interaction and they are likely to be ready to get involved in any interactions using their L2 outside classrooms (Kang, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

A gamut of research has indicated that learners’ active involvement in communication and interaction in their target language is essential during the learning process as modern language pedagogy aims to enable learners to naturally communicate in their target language. Speaking plays an increasingly important role in language learning. Skehan (1989, cited in Zarrinabadi, 2014) who argues that learners’ talk in the target language is fundamental to achieve L2/FL (Foreign Language) proficiency; the learning process should place more emphasis on how to utilize classroom tasks largely to encourage students to demonstrate their linguistic competence within conversations. Besides the absence of opportunities to interact in target language, another possible reason that may hinder language learners from being capable of communicating in their target language is that they do not have Willingness to Communicate (WTC). McCroskey (1987) claims that WTC is proven as a predictor of classroom participation since students with high ranking WTC participated more in classroom interaction (cited in Liu and Jackson, 2008) and they are likely to be ready to get involved in any interactions using their L2 outside classrooms (Kang, 2005)

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