The Application of the Problem-Based Learning Approach to English Class: Chinese-speaking Learners’ Willingness to Communicate

Abstract

This study examined the effect of the integration of the problem-based learning (PBL) approach in English courses on Chinese-speaking university students" willingness to communicate (WTC). This study also examined whether there were possible differences in learners" WTC in terms of the gender variable. Two English classes in a Taiwanese university were randomly assigned to the PBL and teacher-lectured (TL) conditions. The PBL group with 43 participants received the PBL instruction in small group settings, whereas the TL group with 45 participants was fully provided with interpretations of teaching materials by the instructor and completed the tasks individually. The WTC scale, including seven subscales, was administered after the treatment. The results of two-way multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the PBL group significantly outperformed the TL group on the friend subscale, while the TL group demonstrated significant main effects on WTC subscales in terms of the gender variable.

Facilitating L2 WTC: A review of past studies

“…Out of the 26 studies identified, 14 focus on fostering WTC via in-class learning. The studies cover areas such as employing certain teaching techniques to lessen learners' anxiety or communication apprehension (Farahani & Abdollahi, 2018;Jamalifar & Salehi, 2017;Kamdideh & Barjesteh, 2019;Mesgarshahr & Abdollahzadeh, 2014;Montazeri & Salimi, 2019;Tavakoli & Zarrinabadi, 2018), encouraging use of the target language (Lin, 2017;Marzban & Mahmoudvand, 2013;Shamsudin, Othman, Jahedi, & Aralas, 2017), promoting autonomy among learners (Matsuoka, Matsumoto, Poole, & Matsuoka, 2014;Uztosun, Skinner, & Cadorath 2018) and rising learners' awareness about their future goals (Al-Murtadha 2019; Munezane, 2015;Zarrinabadi, Ketabi, & Tavakoli, 2017). Some studies suggest that anxiety negatively affects learners' WTC (Peng & Woodrow, 2010;Zarrinabadi, 2014) and it is one of the strongest predictors of WTC (Zarrinabadi, 2014).…”

“…Other interventions which have been empirically proven to lessen anxiety and consequently increased WTC among L2 learners are using extended wait-time (Kamdideh & Barjesteh, 2019) and humour (Farahani & Abdollahi, 2018). Some recent teaching approaches that promote active learning such as problem-based learning (PBL) (Alikhani & Bagheridoust, 2017;Lin, 2017), debate instruction (DI) (Shamsudin et al, 2017) and group dynamics-oriented instruction (GDOI) (Marzban & Mahmoudvand, 2013) have also been used as treatments to increase L2 WTC. The participants in these studies worked on tasks that require them to engage in spoken discourse in the target language.…”