The purpose of this research is to investigate the complex relationship between willingness to communicate (WTC) and situational contact conditions within second language acquisition. The WTC model provides a theoretical construct to explain the Korean learners ambivalent relationship with English. Recent studies on individual differences focus on contextual variation that affect learners level of WTC. This study aims to bring the Korean context to the discussion of WTC by considering the presence of the L1 audience. Interviews with 16 participants were conducted and a short questionnaire was also administered to investigate situational conditions that affect WTC. The findings show that Korean students have lower WTC with another Korean present than alone with a native speaker, which challenges the Korean belief that they are unwilling to speak English specifically and mostly because of the native speaker. The results suggest that creating a friendship opportunity within the communication situation is facilitating to speaking English and that classroom activities should aim to increase such opportunities.
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
3. Method
4. Results
5. Conclusion
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