Methodology in Language Learning: (UN)WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE

 

The purpose of communicative language teaching approaches is to promote the learners’ communicative competence in the target language. However, it is not uncommon to find people who tend to avoid entering L2 communication situations even if they possess a high level of communicative competence. This implies that there is a further layer of mediating factors between having the competence to communicate and putting this competence into practice. Because this substrate is the immediate antecedent of the actual initiation of L2 communication, it must be highly situated in nature and it is likely to be made up of a combination of a number of psychological, linguistic, and contextual variables.

 

A multilayered ‘pyramid’ model, subsuming a range of linguistic and psychological variables, including linguistic self-confidence (both state and trait); the desire to affiliate with a person; interpersonal motivation; intergroup attitudes, motivation, and climate; parameters of the social situation; communicative competence and experience; and various personality traits. Behavioral performance can then be predicted from the combination of people’s intentions to perform the behavior in question and their perceptions of control over the behavior.

 

The emphasis on available opportunities also highlights the importance of the traditional distinction between foreign language learning (FLL) and second language acquisition, with the former referring to school learning with no or only limited contact with L2 speakers, and the latter to language attainment at least partly embedded in the host environment. In an attempt to tap into this distinction, in L1, is its situated nature, and therefore the study of variables related to the social and psychological context of communication is particularly relevant here.

 

WTC is a composite ID variable that draws together a host of learner variables that have been well established as influences on second language acquisition and use, resulting in a construct in which psychological and linguistic factors are integrated in an organic manner. Additional importance is lent to the concept by the fact that it can be seen as the ultimate goal of L2 instruction—thus, WTC is a means and an end at the same time. Although the construct has already been subject to considerable empirical research, there are still several open questions.

Just like with language learning strategies, it can lead to conceptual confusion to mix up language acquisition and language use processes because they may be related to different types of antecedents and attributes. 

 

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University of Oxford - post gradual studies 2009 'English Language Teaching'

 

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