The mediating effect of culture on the relationship between FL self-assessment and L2 willingness to communicate: The Polish and Italian EFL context

Abstract

The study reported in this chapter verifies the assumption that the strength of relationship between self-assessment of foreign language (FL) skills and Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in a FL is determined by the cultural background of the students. Since self-assessment is said to be culturally-bound (e.g., Lockley, 2013; Mercer, 2011), variation in the link between the two variables found in different countries may be significant. To explore this phenomenon, a pilot study was conducted among 35 Polish and 35 Italian high school learners of English as a FL, representing the same level of proficiency (B1 +/B2 according to Common European Framework of Reference). The data for the study were collected with the use of three questionnaires, which had the form of self-report surveys. One of them, that is, the FL Self-Assessment Measure, consisted in the participants evaluating their level of different subskills in English, such as grammar and pronunciation accuracy, vocabulary range, and fluency. The two other batteries - the Measure of WTC in the FL Classroom and Measure of WTC outside the FL Classroom (Baran-Łucarz, 2014) - diagnosed the participants’ eagerness to speak in a FL in these two different settings. The outcomes showed that the Italian participants not only assessed their level of English subskills significantly higher than the Polish students, but also that they were more willing to communicate in both settings. Moreover, the results suggest that the Polish participants were more concerned about their level of English when speaking in the TL than the Italian learners. While in the case of the Polish respondents, moderate to strong relationships (Spearman rho) between self-assessment of English skills and WTC both in the classroom and naturalistic setting were found, in the case of the Italian participants the correlations were either weak or non-significant. Most of the differences between the paired correlations computed for particular subskills and L2 WTC for the Polish and Italian participants were statistically significant.