The Impact of Doing Problem-Solving Tasks on Willingness to Communicate, Self-perceived Communication Competence, and Communication Apprehension among Iranian EFL Learners

Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice

مقاله 7، دوره 6، شماره 13، بهمن 2013، صفحه 125-145   

نوع مقاله: Research Paper

نویسندگان

Amir Amir Marzban^{* 1}؛ Maryam Mahmoudvand²

¹Department of English, Qaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qaemshahr, Iran

²Departments of English, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mazandaran, Iran

چکیده

Willingness to communicate (WTC) plays a central role in learning a second/foreign language. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of doing problem-solving task on learners’ WTC in English. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 61 pre-intermediate learners were chosen by means of administrating a placement test. Learners were pretested through three scales of WTC and its two antecedents: self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) and communication apprehension (CA). Of course, the experimental group was provided with fifteen problem-solving tasks during the course, while the control group was not. After fifteen sessions of the treatment, two groups were posttested through the same three scales. The results demonstrated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of their WTC’s level. Moreover, the learners’ WTC was found to be directly related to their SPCC and indirectly related to CA. So based on the MacIntyre’s path model (1994), these both antecedents can be the best predictors of WTC. The analysis of the data was done through multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA) statistical programs.

کلیدواژه‌ها

Willingness to communicate؛ communication apprehension؛ self-perceived communication competence؛ problem-solving tasks

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