Looking into students' willingness to communicate: A case study in Mandarin language learning

Abstract

This case study explores the students’ willingness to communicate in Mandarin language. The learning of Mandarin as foreign language (FL) in Kolej Profesional MARA (KPM) Beranang has started since 2013. However, there have been some issues on students’ willingness to communicate using Mandarin especially on students’ reluctance to use the targeted language. Therefore, this research was aimed to explore students’ willingness to communicate using Mandarin language in KPM Beranang. The research used a qualitative approach and the main data for the study was semi-structured interviews and observations. The researcher used Atlas.ti version 8.0 to analyze the data. The research findings showed that students’ willingness to communicate by using Mandarin was only limited to greeting their teachers. It was found that students were not willing to use Mandarin in voicing out their opinions during the teaching and learning processes, not to mention when they are outside of the classroom context. The students did not have the confidence to use the targeted language and were not willing to communicate with strangers.