THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS AND WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE

Abstract

The relationship between personality traits and willingness to communicate (WTC) in English language teaching (ELT) was investigated in this study. The examinees included 303 university students at Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad. Data were gathered using the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 2001) and Willingness to Communicate (WTC) Scale (McCroskey, 1992). When talking to strangers 33.7% of the examinees obtained low scores on WTC, 49.5% had medium levels of WTC and 16.8% had high WTC. When talking to acquaintances 36.3% of the examinees reported low levels of WTC, 46.9% reported moderate levels and 16.8% reported high levels of WTC. Similar results were reported when talking to friends. In addition, coefficients revealed significant positive correlations between WTC in EFL and all Big Five dimensions. Interpretation of the coefficients suggest that there was a small correlation between WTC in EFL and Conscientiousness, Emotional stability and Agreeableness. Moderate to high correlations were between WTC in EFL and Extraversion and Intellect. It was concluded that the interaction of the Big Five Personality Traits may significantly contribute to the promotion and production of WTC in learning English as a second language.