Communicating as a Team. A study of EFL Students’ Perceptions about the Influence of the Learner Group’s Dynamics on their Individual WTC

Sammanfattning: Considering the current emphasis on communicative abilities in EFL teaching, learning and assessment (Council of Europe, 2020), research on willingness to communicate (WTC) has become increasingly important. Despite the increase of research in this topic area, further research is needed on situational factors relating to individual learners’ WTC. Hence, the aim of this study is to explore what effects learners perceive that the group in which EFL teaching takes place consisting of peers and a teacher, i.e., learner group, has on their individual WTC. Moreover, the results in this study are based on qualitative data collected through interviews with six students from two classes in the first year of the upper-secondary school in the south-west of Sweden. The study is based on theories of socio-constructivist learning acquisition and the predominant communicative language approach in EFL teaching. Additionally, research on WTC and group dynamics are central parts of this paper. Results from this singular study indicate that learners experience that they are willing to communicate in their current learner groups during EFL classes due to a positive environment. Peers’ behavior towards each other is shown to either promote or prevent WTC, although the behavior of other group members seems to affect individual students to different degrees depending on their personality. Lastly, results produce interesting findings in regard to how interaction patterns, students’ proficiency level and the communicative situation (e.g., whole-class, smaller groups or pairs) also appear to influence students’ individual WTC.