An inquiry into Turkish academicians' Willingness to communicate in English

Abstract

Willingness to communicate (WTC hereafter) concept has caught the interest of many studies in the field of second language acquisition. Although some studies examined the relationship between WTC and foreign language proficiency, none of them was conducted with the participation of academicians. Therefore, this study aims to examine the WTC levels of the academicians working at Faculties of Education in Turkey, and the relationship between their willingness to communicate and proficiency as determined by YDS (Foreign Languages Examination). Another aim of this study is to obtain the views of the academicians towards their willingness to communicate in English and explore the factors affecting it. A total number of 450 (53.1% female and 46.9% male) academicians working at the faculties of education different parts of Turkey participated in the questionnaire which was administered online and from these participants, eight (three female and five male) of them participated in the interviews. In the light of the study, personal and situational factors affecting the academicians' willingness to communicate are presented. © 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.