A Comparative Study of Male vs. Female Iranian EFL Learners’ Willingness to Communicate and International Posture
Subject Areas : Curriculum Design and DevelopmentNadia Mahmoodi 1 , Naser Ghafoori 2 , Seyed Reza Behafarin 3
1 - English department, Sarab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sarab, Iran
2 - English department, faculty of Persian literature and foreign languages, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
3 - ELT Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Keywords: Willingness to communicate, Learner Gender, International Posture,
Abstract :
AbstractThe concept of willingness to communicate (WTC) in a foreign or second language (L2) has been widely used after the rising popularity of communicative language teaching (CLT) movement. Recent research has concentrated on various factors that may influence L2 learners’ WTC. International posture (IP) is another related concept that refers to L2 learners’ attitudes towards the people and the community whose language they are trying to learn. The current research attempted to compare the amount of WTC and IP across Iranian male and female EFL learners and also to investigate the relationship between the two variables in two genders. The study was conducted with a group of 112 (49 male and 63 female) participants selected from an initial group of 171 EFL learners who studied English language teaching and translation in four universities in East Azarbaijan Province, Iran. The data were collected by the administration of a questionnaire known as ‘WTC Scale’ published by McCroskey (1992) and the IP questionnaire made by Yashima (2002). Between-group comparison was made to compare the male and female groups. The results of the analyses showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of both WTC and IP. The Pearson Correlation analysis on the questionnaire data also showed that there was almost high positive correlation between WTC and IP in both male and female groups. The findings of the study could offer pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, learners and material designers as well as suggestions for further research.