The Association between Second Language Learners’ Willingness to Communicate, Self-monitoring, and Task-based Speech

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the relationship among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ ratings of willingness to communicate (WTC) in English and their task-based speech production and self-monitoring behavior. To accomplish this objective, methodological triangulation was adopted using a questionnaire, stimulated recall data, and quantitative measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) to answer two questions: (1) how learners’ ratings of their WTC related to the CAF of their oral output, and (2) how learners’ ratings of their WTC related to the frequency and type of their self-corrections in terms of A-, D-, and E-repairs. Fifty Iranian intermediate EFL learners participated in the study. WTC scale was used to measure the participants’ perception of their desire to initiate communication in English. In addition, to collect samples of their L2 speech, they were asked to perform a narrative task. Following their task performance, participants were asked to retrospectively comment on the type of error correction they engaged in while performing the task. The results showed the positive correlation coefficients among learners’ perceptions of their WTC and measures of fluency, A- and D-repairs to be statistically significant. The WTC also negatively correlated with accuracy and E-repairs. In the end, the theoretical as well as practical implications of the results for instructed L2 acquisition were discussed.

Keywords

• accuracy
• complexity
• fluency
• self-repair
• task
• willingness to communicate