The Relationship between WTC and Oral Proficiency Measurements in the Study Abroad Context

Abstract

Theories of second language acquisition such as the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996) and Pushed Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1995) emphasize that learners must actually communicate in order to bring about the conditions for language acquisition. Learners who are more willing to communicate may create more opportunities for interaction, and thereby possibly improve their spoken proficiency. In L2 research fluency, accuracy and complexity have been used to extensively measure spoken output. This study uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate a largely under-researched area: whether there is a relation between fluency, accuracy and complexity, task engagement, and measures of willingness to communicate and actual learner communication and how these change for a group of 23 high-proficiency mainly Asian L2 English learners on a nine-week academic preparation course at a university in England.

Taking stock: A meta-analysis of the effects of foreign language enjoyment

“…High levels of enjoyment in the FL classroom were therefore strongly associated with a greater willingness to communicate in the TL. As WTC has been linked to proficiency in the FL and as some theories (e.g., the pushed output hypothesis) maintain that the only effective means of acquiring a language is through active communication (Robson, 2015;Sato, 2020;Swain, 1995;Zhang et al, 2018), this large correlation between FLE and WTC has practical implications, particularly for FL teachers. Again, it should be noted that no directionality can be assumed as correlations were used in this meta-analysis, although WTC is generally utilized as an outcome variable in individual difference models in applied linguistics (see Karimi & Abaszadeh, 2017;Yashima et al, 2004).…”

Taking Stock: A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Foreign Language Enjoyment

“…High levels of enjoyment in the FL classroom were therefore strongly associated with a greater willingness to communicate in the target language. As WTC has been linked to proficiency in the FL, and as some theories (e.g., the Pushed Output Hypothesis) maintain that the only effective means of acquiring a language is through active communication (Robson, 2015;Sato, 2020;Swain, 1995;Zhang et al, 2018), this large correlation between FLE and WTC has practical implications, particularly for FL teachers. Again, it should be noted that no directionality can be assumed as correlations were used in this meta-analysis, although WTC is generally utilised as an outcome variable in individual difference models in applied linguistics (see Karimi & Abaszadeh, 2017;Yashima et al, 2004).…”

Assessing mixed methods research quality in the European student mobility literature

“…Four of these studies used survey methods to collect quantitative data, but two others used established assessments. In addition, Robson (2015) quantitatively analyzed 10-minute samples of student discussions, and Mortensen (2014) used quantized data, or the transformation of qualitative data to quantitative data (Bazeley and Kemp, 2012; Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009). The non-identified studies also relied less on interviews.…”