The influence of teacher confirmation and connected classroom climate on Malaysian university preservice English teachers' willingness to communicate in English
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Date
2014-09
Authors
Yousef, Reem A.H.
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the direct and indirect influences of exogenous factors, namely, teacher confirmation and connected classroom climate and endogenous factors, namely, motivation to learn English as a second language, communication confidence, and affective learning on willingness to communicate (WTC) in English among Malaysian pre-service English teachers. Also investigated was whether there were differences towards WTC in English by ethnic groups. The survey research method was used to conduct the study. A questionnaire was adapted from previous research and was administered to 328 pre-service English teachers from five universities in Malaysia. Stratified random sampling was utilized to identify the sample and data was analyzed employing structural equation modeling in SPSS and AMOS to test the hypothesized model and the relationships between the study variables. The structural model revealed that the exogenous factors reported significant direct influences on the endogenous factors, namely, teacher confirmation reported significant direct effects on motivation, communication confidence, and affective learning, while connected classroom climate had significant direct influences on motivation and affective learning. Communication Confidence and Affective Learning in turn reported significant direct influences on WTC but there was no significant direct effect on WTV from motivation to learn English, indicating that WTC was indirectly influenced by teacher confirmation and connected classroom climate through communication confidence and affective learning as the
mediating variables. Further analysis using One-way Analysis of Variance revealed that Indian and Chinese pre-service English teachers who were from the smaller ethnic groups reported significantly higher means for WTC in English compared to the Malay pre-service teachers who were from the dominant ethnic group. This study found that communication confidence and affective learning were significant mediating variables for students’ WTC and that among the Malay pre-service teachers their WTC in English was influenced by the inertia of their first language. These findings imply that teachers must consciously and pro-actively promote the development of communication confidence and attitudes to improve students’ WTC, especially among Malay pre-service teachers.
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Motivation to learn English as a second language , among Malaysian pre-service English teachers