Understanding willingness to communicate as embedded in classroom multimodal affordances: Evidence from interdisciplinary perspectives

• Published in: Linguistics and education Vol. 51; pp. 59 - 68
• Main Author: Peng, Jian-E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Inc 01.06.2019; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Classroom communication; Classroom observation; Classrooms; College students; English as a second language; Interdisciplinary aspects; Language teaching methods; Linguistic and applied linguistic approaches; Linguistics; Multimodal affordances; Multimodality; Second language learners; Second language teachers; Visual grammar; Willingness to communicate; China; Visual grammar; Second language learners; Willingness to communicate; Multimodal affordances; Linguistic and applied linguistic approaches
• ISSN: 0898-5898; 1873-1864
• DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2019.04.006

•This study analyzed how L2 learners’ WTC is responsive to classroom multimodality.•Data included interviews with eight students and teachers’ PowerPoint slides.•WTC was influenced by linguistic and affective factors, and contextual factors.•WTC's associations with kinesthetic, auditory, and visual modalities were found.•Interactive meaning construed in two visual images with high WTC was analyzed. This study draws on linguistic and applied linguistic approaches to analyze how second language learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) is responsive to classroom multimodal affordances. The data reported in this paper includes three rounds of semi-structured interviews, each conducted after a classroom observation, with eight students from two intact English classes in a university in China, and Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) slides supplied by their teachers. The findings showed that WTC was subject to the joint influence of individuals’ linguistic and affective factors and classroom contextual factors. Nuanced associations of WTC and kinesthetic, auditory, and visual modalities were also identified. The interactive meanings construed in two visual images in PPT slides reported to stimulate high WTC were analyzed using visual grammar, which yielded complementary insights. This study accentuates the need to understand WTC as embedded in classroom multimodal affordances so as to reveal the totality of students’ meaning making of classroom interaction.