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Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

10-2015

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Degree Name

English: Teaching English as a Second Language: M.A.

Department

English

College

College of Liberal Arts

First Advisor

John Madden

Second Advisor

James Robinson

Third Advisor

Sunny Lie

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Keywords and Subject Headings

Willingness to Communicate, self-perceived communication competence, motivation, international posture, Chinese culture, communication apprehension

Abstract

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) has been “proposed as one of the key concept in L2 learning and instruction” (Kang, 2005, p. 278). This study examined Chinese English learners’ WTC in an Intensive English program (IEP) in the US. The study used both the WTC Survey and semi-structured interview to identify the variables that impact Chinese students’ WTC and how different language environment (China and America) affects their WTC. There were a total of 12 participants who filled out the Survey and 11 of them were interviewed. The Survey results indicated that there was one participant who tended to talk less which matched with the participants’ interview answer. Interview data showed that there were various factors impacting students’ WTC. The significant finding from this study was that the participants all became more willing to communicate after they studied in IEP. It indicated the predisposition of L2 (second language) WTC does not remain the same across from various situations, in addition, there are different variables impact WTC.

Comments/Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my professor, thesis advisor Dr. John Madden for his guidance of my study and writing of this thesis.

Besides my thesis advisor, I would like to thank the other two members of my thesis committee: Dr. James Robinson and Dr. Sunny Lie. I offer sincere thanks to Dr. James Robinson who recruited me when I was in China and offered me the graduate assistant opportunity. I am thankful for his help throughout my time at SCSU.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, Changhua Yang and Pin Lei. I thank my father for supporting me to pursuit my dream and for instilling in me a strong work ethic. I thank my mother for being my best friend over the years and especially for encouraging me in researching and writing this thesis.

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