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belief, he chose to participate a lot in the speaking activities in the ESL class, but not in the grammar learning activities in Ms. Lin’s class. Third, his belief of the uselessness of grammar in oral communication might be related to his control beliefs. Because he thought that grammar was not useful in oral communication, he chose not to put much efforts in grammar learning.
5.1.4 Summary of the Enduring Variables
Overall, from Walter’s data, it can be suggested that enduring factors, such as parental involvement, informal linguistic environments, and his core beliefs in L2 learning could all enhance or hinder his WTC. Walter’s data from the MFQ showed that he had high integrativeness, and perceptual and affective correlates, and low fear of assimilation.
These qualities made him willing to use the L2 at home, in school, and in foreign
countries. Together with the parental involvement, and informal linguistic environments he had, these conditions all made him willing to use English in different situations.
However, because of his core beliefs in English learning, he did not put much efforts on learning grammar in class.
5.2 Themes of the Situational Variables
In the present study, the situational variables were more classroom-related. Walter had two kinds of English classes. One was the ESL class taught by a foreign teacher, and the other was his regular English class taught by a local English teacher, Ms. Lin. In these classes, many situational variables might influence Walter’s WTC. The researcher also used three themes to better capture the situational variables that influenced Walter’s WTC in class. The three themes were teaching style and teacher immediacy, class size, and topics. These variables are discussed in the following paragraphs.
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5.2.1 Teaching Style and Teacher Immediacy
The findings from the present study were consistent with the findings in MacIntyre and associates’ (MacIntyre et al., 2011) study. In MacIntyre and associates’ (MacIntyre et al., 2011) study, students were most willing to use French with non-critical teachers. In the present study, Walter was also most willing to use English with the ESL teacher because he was non-critical. On the other hand, because he viewed Ms. Lin as a critical teacher, he was not willing to use English with her. In the interviews, Walter mentioned that in Ms. Lin’s class, one student could only speak one sentence in one session. This comment shows that Ms. Lin did not use communicative activities in her class. In addition, Walter also mentioned that Ms. Lin focused on teaching vocabulary and structure. This teaching style of Ms. Lin made Walter silent in her class. On the other hand, in the ESL class, the ESL teacher was very mistake-tolerant and free, and he discussed many textbook-assigned topics and chatted with the students. His friendly attitude and behaviors that shortened the distance between him and the students made Walter want to chat with him. Teacher immediacy refers to a teacher's words or behaviors that shorten the distance and enhance the relationships with the students (Zhang et al., 2018). According to Walter, the ESL teacher was very friendly, and willing to talk to them about his personal life and ask the students’ personal life. These actions strengthened the relationships between him and the students, making the students more relaxed and more willing to communicate in class. On the contrary, although Ms. Lin was friendly enough to students; however, according to Walter, her strictness and seriousness about the use of correct grammar and vocabulary made him nervous to speak in her class, hindering his WTC. Another reason why Walter did not like the corrective feedback (CF) given by Ms.
Lin might be of Walter’s age. According to Lyster and Saito (2010), there are three types of corrective feedbacks (CF), recasts, prompts, and explicit correction. In Lyster and
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Saito’s study (2010), they found that younger learners benefitted more from CF, whereas adult learners did not. In addition, they also found that the younger the learners are, the more they benefit from CF (Lyster & Saito, 2010). In the present study, Walter was already seventeen years old. He could not be considered a young learner of English. The age effect might be the reason why he could not benefit from the CF given by Ms. Lin.
5.2.2 Class Size
Aside from the teaching styles and teacher immediacy, Walter’s different class size in the two classes also influenced his WTC greatly. The findings in the present study were also consistent with Wen and Clement’s study in 2003 (Wen, W. P., & Clément, R.
2003). In Wen and Clement’s study (2003), they found that students in large classes are not willing to communicate because they felt unsafe to use English. Because the students were not separated into groups based on their levels of English proficiency in Ms. Lin’s class, there were fifteen students in the class. On the other hand, because the same group of students was separated into two groups based on their English proficiency for the ESL class, Walter’s ESL class only had four students. According to Khazaei and associates (Khazaei, Z. M., Zadeh, A. M., & Ketabi, S., 2012), the more the students in a class, the lower WTC the students had. In the interviews, Walter mentioned that in Ms. Lin’s class, a student could only speak one sentence in each class. On the contrary, in the ESL class, he could speak English for more than ten minutes in each session. In addition, in Ms.
Lin’s class, because there were more classmates there, Walter did not want to embarrass himself in front of his fourteen classmates; therefore, he decided to stay silent in Ms. Lin’s class. On the contrary, since there were only four students in the ESL class, Walter felt relaxed and was willing to participate in communicative activities.
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5.2.3 Topics
Aside from the teaching style and teacher immediacy, and the class size of the two classes, the topics that the instructors chose to discuss also influenced Walter’s WTC.
According to Walter, in the ESL class, although the teacher used many communicative activities, he mainly chose discussion topics from the textbooks. In Walter’s opinion, he thought that textbook-assigned topics were too limited. In addition, when the teacher discussed the textbook-assign topics with the students, most of them did not have the knowledge of the necessary vocabulary or structure, making them difficult to carry on the discussions. According to Walter, he enjoyed talking about his personal experiences, such as his golf competitions, family trips, and his favorite countries and movies. He thought that if the ESL teacher let them discuss more about things they had more knowledge and experience about, the class would be more fun. This finding was consistent with the findings in a previous research (Wolf, 2013). In Wolf’s study (2013), he found that his participants had greater knowledge, interest, and confidence when discussing their own chosen topics. Walter’s desire of discussing his chosen topics was related to task-interest and task-confidence stated in Zhang and associates’ paper (Zhang et al., 2018). According to Zhang and associates (Zhang et al., 2018), the lack of task-confidence has a detrimental effect on a learner’s WTC, and the lack of task-interest would make the students not excited when performing the task.
5.2.4 Summary of the Situational Variables
Overall, from Walter’s data, it can be suggested that situational variables, such as teaching style and teacher immediacy, class size, and the topics that an instructor choose could all enhance or hinder his WTC. The type of tasks a teacher uses in class, how close his relationship is with the students, how skillful he is in correcting the students’ mistakes,
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how big his class is, and the topics he chooses to discuss in class all influence the students’ WTC.
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CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 6.0 Introduction
Chapter Six summarizes and concludes the whole study. There are five sections in this chapter. Section one presents the summary of the major findings of the present study.
Section two presents the pedagogical implications based on the findings of the present study. Section three presents the contribution of the present study. And section four presents the limitations and future suggestions.