Fostering K-12 Learners' Willingness to Communicate Through Technology-Enhanced Practices With a Perspective of Learner Analytics

Introduction

Language learning as a life-long process is interwoven with intricate as well as diverse paths. These paths might include plenty of entrances and exits; however, each one of them commonly has one single direction, namely, being able to communicate. It is also interesting to reveal that communication is not only the goal of language learning, but it is also the tool of the process (Mystkowska-Wiertelak & Pietrzykowska, 2011). Learners of a language need to communicate in the target language both as a receiver and –better, as a producer of the language. This preferable outcome of language learning pursues communicative and interactive proficiency (Zarrinabadi et al., 2021), which could be shaped by actual practice.

In a setting where exposure to the target language is limited, foreign language (L2 hereafter) learning consists of deficiencies in access to the practice of communication. L2 learners are at a faulty position in utilizing the target language in communication as they are fenced by their first language (L1) (Baker & MacIntyre, 2000). In most cases, the L2 learning journey of these learners is only restricted to the classrooms, and they might fail to get opportunities to use the language daily (Chaisiri, 2023). Therefore, they are in essential need of emerging a stimulus for using the language in L2 communication.

In tandem with the search for stimulation in L2 communication, a series of proximal and distal influencing variables are shaped in L2 learners (MacIntyre et al., 2011). L2 learners might develop affective factors such as enjoyment, anxiety, or fear of communication, situational factors such as the effect of interlocutors or topics of communication, as well as individual factors such as their perceived proficiency level of L2. A full representation of the L2 communication process must conceptualize all these influences. Willingness to communicate (WTC) as a concept could unite these influencing variables and amend itself as a guide to real communication in L2 (Guo et al., 2023; Mystkowska-Wiertelak & Petrzykowska, 2011; Yashima et al., 2016). It is worth noting here that this real communication is a web of using all four language skills together. However, by following the tendency, communication or initiation to communication indicates speaking here and on in this chapter.

Originally shaped by the studies of Burgoon (1976) on the reticence, WTC is a multilayered concept that is intricately interwoven with individual, contextual, linguistic, and affective factors (Kanat-Mutluoğlu, 2020). The pioneering researcher of this concept, McCroskey, with an associate, described WTC in one of the earlier studies as the intention to communicate when free to do so (McCroskey & Baer, 1985). The emergence of and the emphasis on the intent in this description of WTC indicates the unnecessity of being in real communication. In a sense, WTC does not lead to a conclusion that an individual might turn this enthusiasm into an action of communication. Moreover, this identification refers to a stable tendency to be in communication, like a personality trait such as being emotional or talkative. However, when the concern is communication, the fluctuation of willingness is inevitable.

To identify WTC in an L2 context (L2 WTC hereafter), MacIntyre et al. (1998) also echoed the feature of intention, but they highlighted the fluctuation of WTC by its state and dynamic feature defining it as “readiness to enter into discourse at a specific time with a specific person or persons, using an L2 when free to do so” (ibid, 547). L2 WTC is further conceptualized as the final state predisposition before the explicit action of communication (MacIntyre et al., 2011; Peng et al., 2017). It is identified as the primary predictor for an individual to use the target language in communication (Bernales, 2016; MacIntyre & Legatto, 2011).