Influences on Willingness to Communicate Among ESL Students

Willingness to communicate (WTC) affects the process of second language (L2) learning. It is a part of the psychological perspective of second language acquisition (SLA) study. WTC focuses on why some students choose to communicate in a certain context, while the others do not. The aim of this study was to examine WTC as well as the influence of self-perceived communicative competence and group dynamics among Croatian high school learners of English as a second language (ESL). The study was conducted in in the Zadar Technical high school (“Tehnicka skola Zadar”). The sample consisted of 69 students in first, second, third and fourth year of high school. The instruments included a questionnaire along with interviews. The results revealed that the students showed moderately high levels of willingness to communicate, they perceived themselves as mostly competent, and had positive beliefs about group dynamics in their classroom. Furthermore, willingness to communicate was strongly positively correlated with self-perceived communicative competence, and moderately positively correlated with group dynamics. Analysis of differences between grade levels showed increase of willingness to communicate in later years of study. The results of this study support previous claims that positive group dynamics and selfperceived communicative competence increases willingness to communicate. The findings may have implications for English second language teaching and ESL classroom procedures.