‘To talk or not to talk?': Investigating the complex dynamic emergence of willingness to communicate in a Chinese as a foreign language classroom

Abstract

My thesis sets out to investigate Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in Chinese, its mediating factors and their interrelationships embedded in the learner and the classroom context. It adopts a longitudinal qualitative multiple-case study design comprised of six tertiary students learning Chinese as their major in a four-year Scottish undergraduate programme over the course of one academic year.

Methodological triangulation is achieved by employing classroom observations, learner self-assessment forms, videostimulated recall interviews and semi-structured interviews. I present personalised and contextualised accounts of both trait-like and situational factors that trigger or withhold, boost or reduce individual learners’ WTC in a Scottish CFL (Chinese as a foreign language) classroom context. I also demonstrate, from a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) perspective, how such factors interplay and contribute to the constant and momentary fluctuation of WTC that leads to individual differences in communication frequency in a classroom setting.

Thirteen themes emerged, which are categorised under two dimensions – the individual person and the classroom context. Eight variables – learner beliefs, personality, motivation, linguistic factors, cognitive factors, affective factors, cultural factors and physiological factors are identified to be conditions owned directly by the person or derived internally from the person. Five variables – topic, interlocutor, classroom dynamic, classroom discussion and class size, are identified as readily existing in the immediate classroom context and external to the person. All thirteen factors impact on the six students’ WTC interdependently over time and across situations. In the findings chapter, I present how subjective individual variability (individual factors) interacts with objective contextual conditions (contextual factors) and how such interactions take place, evolve and drive the six individuals into speech or inhibit them from speaking up in the CFL classroom. A comparative account of the factors differentiating higher and lower WTC students, as well as Asian and Anglophone students is also included. I then discuss the emergence of WTC in the CFL classroom, drawing on CDST in interpreting its major interactions, based on which a CDST-inspired WTC model specific to the present study is proposed.

Lastly, pedagogical implications are provided to hopefully facilitate practitioners to design and cultivate WTC-friendly classes.