The relationship between EFL Learners’ Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and their teacher immediacy attributes: A structural equation modelling

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between Iranian English Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and their teachers’ immediacy attributes. The participants comprised 256 EFL learners from three private language institutes of Mashhad, Khorasan-e-Razavi, Iran. Their selection was based on random sampling, and the participation was entirely voluntary. The instruments used in this study consisted of 1) Willingness to Speak Questionnaire, and 2) Immediacy Questionnaire. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling (SEM) were run to analyze the relationships among learners’ WTC and their teachers’ immediacy attributes components. The results demonstrated that all the subscales of WTC are positively and significantly predicted by verbal and nonverbal immediacy. Verbal immediacy has the highest positive correlation with speaking WTC, and the lowest positive correlation with listening WTC. Moreover, nonverbal immediacy has the highest positive correlation with listening WTC, and the lowest positive correlation with writing WTC.