RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WILLINGNESS TO

COMMUNICATE (WTC) AND SPM ENGLISH ORAL PERFORMANCE

AMONG FORM 5 STUDENTS

Teah Yu Qin

GS36870

BACKGROUND In Malaysia, all Form 5 students have to sit for

Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) which is a national examination.

This includes oral assessment known as ULBS (Ujian Lisan Berasaskan Sekolah)

For the English language subject, all candidates are required to do oral assessment TWICE during Form 4 and ONCE during Form 5.

However, many teachers are giving feedbacks on the drop of students’ performance in SPM oral assessment.

Many students are refusing or finding it difficult to speak in the target language, English.

A study done on Form 4 & Form 5 students had shown that speaking is the learners’ weakest skill (Hassan & Selamat, 2002).

In recent years, WTC in a second language has become a core concept of L2 acquisition and communication (Peng, 2007)

This brings to the focus on students’ willingness “to talk in order to learn” (Skehan, 1989) and its relationship to their performance in oral assessment.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Students in Malaysia spend between at least 11-13 years learning English which is a compulsory subject in their formal education.

Students who are in Form 5 have to sit for English in SPM which includes oral assessment.

The marks attained for oral assessment will be included into their overall marks scored in English paper during SPM.

However, despite assistance and guidelines given by teachers to help students before their assessment, many teachers still find the overall performance of oral assessment dropping.

Students are increasingly unwilling to use English in situations such as during group activities in classroom, conversing with people in daily life, giving a speech in front of audience, etc.

No previous studies have explored the direct relationship between WTC and English oral test performance.

According to Dornyei (1995), communication strategies have been proven to have a significant effect on language performance, but does WTC also proves to have a significant influence on oral performance?

SMK TANJUNG PUTERI RESORTA SUMMARY OF ULBS SCORE

YEAR TOTAL OF CAND. 30-26 25-21 20-16 15-11 10-6 5-1

2008 153 12 11 30 45 35 20

2009 185 9 26 33 51 38 28

2010 201 10 20 33 60 44 34

2011 179 11 19 14 45 58 32

2012 212 10 20 21 56 65 40

Remark: Score range is 30-21(Good), 20-11(Average), 10-1(Weak)

SMK UNGKU AZIZA SUMMARY OF ULBS SCORE

YEAR TOTAL OF CAND. 30-26 25-21 20-16 15-11 10-6 5-1

2011 235 24 69 83 40 8 11

2012 243 17 59 64 56 26 21

2013 231 18 51 65 43 35 19

Remark: Score range is 30-21(Good), 20-11(Average), 10-1(Weak)

GENERAL OBJECTIVE

To examine the relationship between willingness to communicate and SPM English Oral Performance in Form 5 Students

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES To investigate the level of WTC among Form 5

students

To examine situations that affect students’ WTC

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Does WTC affect students’ performance in SPM English oral assessment?

What are the levels of WTC among Form 5 students in different situations (interpersonal communication, group discussion, public speaking)?

What affect students’ WTC inside and outside the classroom?

THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Most L2 WTC researches have been conducted in western countries but not in local context. Thus the findings of this study is hoped to provide more insight to the influence and relevance of WTC among local students.

Not only so, this study is hoped to be able to shed light on the extend of relationship between English learners’ oral performance and MacIntyre’s WTC theory.

PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

This study enables students to be aware of the situations and factors that affect their WTC and help them to cope with it in order to improve their oral performance in SPM oral assessment.

By knowing the factors and degree of students’ WTC, teachers can implement effective teaching strategies and target at students’ affective aspect to help improve their oral performance.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

With the subject teacher as the SPM oral assessor, credibility and reliability of the oral test results may be questioned.

Due to accessibility, all schools involved in the study are rural school. Therefore, the study may not possibly represent relationship between WTC and SPM oral assessment performance in urban schools.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

Willingness to Communicate (WTC)

The readiness of a speaker to use the target language to communicate with others.

A learner’s “readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using a L2” (MacIntyre et al., 1998)

Oral Assessment

An assessment where a student’s response to the assessment task is verbal, in the sense of being “expressed or conveyed by speech instead of writing” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2006)

Assessment can be considered as oral as long as a component of the student’s response is verbal and that verbal component is being examined.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

The origins of WTC construct came from first language (L1) communication research (McCroskey & Baer, 1985).

As there was an evident shift of emphasis in teaching and learning of L2, thus an early model was developed by MacIntyre (1994).

Later on, the early model was applied to L2 communication and showed that WTC in L2 was consistently predicted by L2 communication.

Because WTC was originally presented as a personal trait affection (MacIntyre et al., 1998), MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) heuristic model is enhanced using Gardner’s (1985) socio-educational model.

In Gardner’s model, motivation is one of the main factors for communication.

Motivation influences WTC either directly, as shown in studies conducted in Turkey (Cetinkaya, 2005), or indirectly, as shown in studies conducted in Japan (Yashima et al., 2004) and China (Peng & Woodrow, 2010).

Weaver (2000) developed a model for measuring L2 WTC in the speaking and writing skills. This contributed to the adaptation of original MacIntyre’s WTC model.

Focusing on the educational context of the classroom,

MacIntyre et al. (2001) determined L2 WTC in terms of the four skills of speaking, reading, writing, and listening.

Yashima & Tanaka (2001) found that the decision to speak or not in L2 has an obvious impact on the person’s success at language learning.

This is also affected by communication apprehension in L2.

Malaysian students have a high degree of English communication apprehension; this is supported by Mustafa and Zain (2009) in their study of Malaysian ESL learners.

Therefore, in a study conducted by Yashima (2002), the findings showed that communication apprehension and motivation contribute to WTC and communication competence.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

WTC IN ENGLISH

Communication

Apprehension

MotivationCommunicati

on Competence

Group Discussion

Meeting

Interpersonal

Conversation

Structural model of WTC in English (Adapted from Yashima, 2002)

RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

WILLINGNESS TO

COMMUNICATE

SPM ENGLISH ORAL

PERFORMANCE

IV DV

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH APPROACH & DESIGN

This study uses quantitative approach that involves objective measurement to gather numeric data that are used to answer questions or test predetermined hypotheses. It generally requires a well-controlled setting. (Ary, 2010)

In addition, cross-sectional survey is used in this study. Cross-sectional surveys are used to gather information on a population at a single point in time.

SAMPLING

The total of Form 5 students in SMK Ungku Aziz, SMK Tanjung Puteri and SMK Kelapa Sawit is 600.

Thus, a sample of 234 students is selected from the mentioned schools. (Krejcie & Morgan, 1970)

These schools are selected because they have been experiencing a drop in SPM oral assessment in recent years.

INSTRUMENT

The questionnaire has two sections. Section A consists of 20 items which give

information on the respondents’ willingness to use English in various daily situations.

Section B has 8 items that focus on their attitudes and feelings towards English language.

The WTC Scale is adapted from MacIntyre, Baker, Clément and Conrod (2001). Based on the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), this scale measures students’ willingness to engage in L2 communication inside and outside the classroom.

PILOT STUDY

A pilot test will be carried out to ensure clarity of instruction and items before the main study is conducted.

30 Form 5 students who are not respondents for the main study are selected for the pilot study and revisions will be made as necessary.

DATA COLLECTION

The researcher will distribute 234 sets of questionnaire to Form 5 students from SMK Ungku Aziz, SMK Tanjung Puteri and SMK Kelapa Sawit.

One day will be given to complete the questionnaire after the researcher explains the items carefully.

Students were to hand in the questionnaire to their respective form teachers who will collect and send the completed questionnaire to the researcher.

DATA ANALYSIS

The data obtained from questionnaire will be analysed using the IBM SPSS 20.

The questionnaire consists of 28 items and will be computed in order to obtain total score, mean, and standard deviation.

The degrees of WTC will be calculated by computing the mean of the students’ rating scores of twenty-eight items.