This article describes connections between positioning theory and willingness to communicate in the context of English language learning. The author analyses the cues in research interviews, adopting the perspective of positioning theory. Interviews were carried out with 8 students during 2020 and 21, for the purpose of researching EFL students' willingness to communicate (MacIntyre, Clement, Dornyei, & Noels, 1998). In this study the interviews are reviewed to explore the patterns of communication between the interviewer and the students in the light of positioning theory. The originators of positioning theory, Van Lagenhove and Harré (1999), identify the following components in any interaction: position, speech and other acts, and storyline. Coding the teacher's cues as “structural", “contextual" or “social" reveals that students are empowered by the use of contextual cues, which build on the students' responses to questions, and social cues, which create friendly feeling (Hazari, Lock, Cass and Beattie, 2015). When the interview transcripts were analyzed according to these cues, the facilitating purpose of “researcher talk", which appeared to dominate the interviews, emerged clearly. This research study shows how positioning theory can help us to understand the dynamics of interaction between a teacher-researcher and students outside class. The author suggests that positioning analysis yields insights which are also helpful for understanding interactions in the classroom. The article concludes with suggestions as to how teachers can leverage this knowledge to understand classroom interaction as well as 1:1 interactions between teacher/researchers and students.

This paper is a report on an investigation into spoken fluency as perceived by EFL professionals in China. Building on Segalowitz’s (2010) analysis of fluency into utterance and cognitive and perceived fluency, a study by Dore (2016) was replicated. China-based EFL teachers were asked to rate three speech samples then complete a questionnaire explaining the reasons for their ratings and their beliefs about fluency. The overall questionnaire results were similar to Dore’s, but the sample ratings showed greater divergence, with only 56% agreement on which sample exhibited a higher degree of fluency. The majority preferred a performance with fewer hesitations; the others appeared to be influenced by grammatical proficiency and accent. Respondents agreed that effortlessness and coherence were significant components of fluency. Ratings of components of utterance fluency correlated with automaticity, supporting the view that utterance fluency could be predictive of perceived fluency. 本論は、中国のEFLの教官たちに行った、流暢さに関するアンケート調査の報告である。流暢さの要素を、発声、認知、知覚される流暢さに分類したセガロヴィッツ（2010）の考え方を用い、ドーレ（2016）による研究を再現した。計４６人のEFLの教官たちが３つのスピーチサンプルを評価し、評価の理由と流暢さについての信条を説明する質問事項に答えた。結果は全体的にドーレの研究結果にかなり似たものになったが、評価において、ドーレの結果より大きな分散が見られた。サンプルがより高い程度の流暢さを示した場合でも、わずか56％の一致であった。多くは躊躇のない話し方を好み、文法の習熟と発音に影響を受けたのは少数だった。回答者たちが同意したのは、難なく話すことと首尾一貫性が流暢さの重要な要素であるということだった。発声の流暢さに関する評価 は、自動的処理に相関し、発声の流暢さが知覚される流暢さを予測しうるという見方を支持していた。