Abstract
Willingness to Communicate in English: A Comparative Study of Turkish and Syrian EFL Learners at Gaziantep University
Willingness to communicate has recently gained considerable attention and significance in second language acquisition. Although many studies have been carried out in terms of willingness to communicate (WTC) in different EFL contexts, it can be said that the number of the studies conducted at primary, secondary, or higher education levels is not sufficient in the Turkish EFL context, and so the gap in this field has not been fully filled yet. In this sense, this study was conducted as a cross-cultural comparative study aiming to investigate the willingness of both Turkish and Syrian students to communicate in English as a foreign language inside and outside the classroom. For this purpose, the quantitative data were collected from 200 students in the Preparatory School. A L2 WTC questionnaire and scale were used as data collection tools in this study. And also, SPSS V26.0 statistics program was used in the analysis of the quantitative data. In the analysis of the data obtained, such descriptive statistics as mean ranks, total mean values, and percentages were utilized accordingly. In addition, Man Whitney U test was used to examine in detail the differences between the two student groups with respect to their perceptions of willingness to communicate in English and WTC levels inside and outside the classroom. The analysis results showed that the Turkish students had a moderate to high level of L2 WTC in English, whereas the Syrian students were found to have a moderate level. In terms of WTC in English, the Turkish students were found to be relatively more willing than the Syrian students. Moreover, through the comparative analysis results, it was revealed that the Turkish students had a relatively higher level of WTC than the Syrian students according to the nation variable, while no significant difference was found in each student groups’ WTC levels according to the gender variable. The findings of this study will contribute positively to the development of foreign language teaching curricula, teacher education programs, as well as EFL teachers by better understanding their students from different ethnic backgrounds considering their WTC perceptions and levels in English inside or outside the classroom.
Keywords
Willingness to Communicate, Perceptional Differences, Nation and Gender Variables, Preferred Interlo