Translating Willingness to Communicate into Learner Talk in a Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) Classroom

Abstract

Cumulative research has explored willingness to communicate (WTC) in English as a second language and English as a foreign language contexts, but few have looked at the interface between WTC and learner talk from a Chinese learning perspective. This study investigates how six multilingual and multicultural students’ WTC translates into talk in a Chinese as a foreign language classroom in a highly internationalised Scottish University. Specifically, it examines what factors play a part in translating WTC into talk and how such factors enable or impede the process. It adopts a qualitative multiple-case study approach comprising high-density monthly triangulations of classroom observations, learner journals, video-stimulated recall interviews and semi-structured interviews conducted over one academic year. Findings revealed 13 learner-internal and learner-external factors which engage with one another to form various interactional patterns. Adapting to such interactional patterns, the six students’ WTC was found to self-organise into and out of attractor states in which the students were either pro-talk or against-talk. This empirically attests that the WTC-talk realisation exhibits dynamism, non-linearity, self-organisation, co-adaptability, and dependence on initial states and context. Recurring interactional patterns were identified as characterising each student’s successes or failures in realising talk. Pedagogical implications are also provided in light of the findings.