Indonesian EFL Learners’ Willingness to Communicate in the Instructional Context

Abstract

<jats:p>The principal goal of L2 education is to enhance learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC). Hence, this survey study was undertaken with the purpose of exploring Indonesian EFL learners’ WTC especially in a classroom context or the so-called Instructional WTC (IWTC) in order to know the conditions triggering their willingness and unwillingness to communicate using L2. This survey applied descriptive quantitative method where 100 EFL learners from three State Universities in Indonesia were involved as the respondents. The respondents are the English students of IAIN Curup Bengkulu, Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta and Universitas Musamus Merauke Papua. Those universities represent three of five major islands in Indonesia. A questionnaire was distributed to the respondents in order to explore their WTC in six IWTC components comprising communicative self-confidence, integrative orientation, situational context of L2 use, topical enticement, learning responsibility, and off-instruction communication. The findings revealed that group size, classroom environment, students’ cohesiveness, familiarity to the topic, degree of topic preparation, classroom seating arrangement, gender, self-awareness, and familiarity with interlocutors were the factors that affected learners’ WTC. Further studies are highly recommended to deeply explore the teaching activities done by teachers by considering the influential factors of learners’ willingness and unwillingness to communicate as an effort to maximize their WTC.</jats:p>

Factors Influencing Indonesian EFL Learners’ Willingness to Speak English in Classrooms

“…In comparison, item 17 (volunteering to speak English individually in class) receives the lowest mean score of 3.11, suggesting that the learners are likely to be more willing to speak English in groups than in a whole class. This finding aligns with several previous studies (Cao & Philp, 2006;Riasati & Rahimi, 2018;Amalia et al, 2019). They reported that learners are more willing to speak when they are in smaller groups.…”

“…Several previous studies in the literature also revealed similar results (e.g. Kang, 2005;Cao & Philp, 2006;Xie, 2011;Riasati & Rahimi, 2018;Amalia et al, 2019). According to Cao and Philp (2006), communication may be hindered when a topic of discussion is unfamiliar to learners because they may not have enough background knowledge to discuss the unfamiliar topics.…”

“…It is likely due to the fact that both of the studies share similar learning contexts and participants. (Riasati & Rahimi, 2018;Amalia, Asib, & Marmanto, 2019). They found that learners are more willing to speak English when they are sitting in front of classrooms rather than sitting at the back of classrooms.…”

“…Therefore, learners tend to be less willing when it comes to speaking English to older classmates. Considering the findings, teachers can work on students' cohesiveness by arranging more group activities or tasks where learners can learn, trust, and support each other (Amalia et al, 2019). High students' cohesiveness results in more L2 engagement (Xie, 2011), learners tend to feel psychologically closer to each other when they share feelings of cohesiveness, leading to a more pleasant community (Dornyei & Murphey, 2003cited in Peng & Woodrow, 2010.…”

Willingness to Communicate and Its Influencing Factors Among Indonesian Pre-Service Teachers

“…Within the Indonesian context, a recent study exploring learners' perspectives of their WTC indicated that social and classroom context, linguistic competence, individual differences, and cultural context influence learners' WTC in L2 (Fadilah, 2018). Another research investigating Indonesian EFL learners' Instructional WTC addressed that gender, group size, classroom environment, students' cohesiveness, topic familiarity, degree of topic preparation, classroom seating, self-awareness, and familiarity with interlocutors influence learners' WTC (Amalia, Asib & Marmanto, 2019). In a classroom situation, it is the duty of teachers to monitor learners' participation and to provide reinforcement in order to stimulate their classroom engagement.…”