A study on WTC with focus on language skills, orientation toward L2 and self-perceived competence.

What is it about?

The paper investigates the concept of willingness to communicate (WTC) in the context of tertiary education in Serbia with a twofold aim: (a) to assess the level of students’ WTC, both generally and in relation to each of the four language skills, both inside the classroom and outside of it; (b) to explore the extent to which orientation towards learning L2 and self-perceived competence affect the students’ WTC. To this end, we conducted a survey with 171 B1–B2 level students at the University of Novi Sad. The measuring instrument was a three-part questionnaire, used to gather background information on the participants and their self-perceived English language competence based on a 3-point selfassessment Likert scale, as well as a list of 20 statements to examine the students’ orientation towards learning English in relation to five types of orientation.

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Why is it important?

The results of the analysis confirm the importance of the affective dimension in learning and point to the predominance of self-perceived competence as a crucial factor for L2 WTC.