چکیده:
This research was conducted to measure Persian EFL students‟s degree of willingness to write in English. To reach the goal, semi-structured interviews were conducted, deriving inspiration from earlier works of McCrosky and Baer (1985), MacIntyre, Dornyei, Clement, and Noels (1998), and Yashima (2002) on willingness to communicate. The participants of the study were 29 individuals comprising 23 university students from different majors and 6 writing experts with academic statuses varying from BA holders in TEFL to university professors in applied linguistics. They were interviewed in two separate layers via employing the Delphi technique. Content analysis was conducted on the interviews and the components were extracted; the WTW questionnaire was then designed and developed for the first time and was validated via conducting factor analysis and was then administered to 257 university and IELTS students. The final version of the questionnaire included 38 items after having been factor analyzed. The results indicated that there are four factors underlying the construct of willingness to write, which are interlinguaprofession, cognition, involvement, and technology. The findings of the study can bring considerable benefits to EFL students to recognize the influential factors on their degree of willingness to write (WTW) and try to boost the facilitating factors to become more autonomous learners. Academic EFL/ESL writing teachers can enhance their students‟ writing ability via embarking upon new strategies through which they can make learners more willing to write by promoting learners‟ involvement and engagement in writing, as one of the findings of this study.
خلاصه ماشینی:
In a study conducted on 34 international students in Thailand, it was found out that feedback played a crucial role in enhancing the students‟ motivation level in writing though some lacked proficiency in English (Hamidun, Hashim, & Othman, 2012).
Some of the interview sample responses regarding the factors that influence EFL learners‟ WTW are provided below: Expert 1 (Professor in Applied Linguistics): “Students should first be taught the basic rules and structures of the language to become more willing to write ……… I believe peer writing review can make students willing to write and to write more…..
Items with the median score 9, for instance, as the most influential factors in making learners willing to write, were: When I am able to write an essay, When I attend international congresses, When I monitor my own progress in writing, When I plan to study abroad, When I feel free to write, When I outline my ideas individually before I start writing, When my teacher uses different ways of teaching in the classroom, When I am involved in teaching writing in the class, AREL 346 Applied Research on English Language, V.
Based on the results of the pilot study, the questionnaire was modified (64 items) and administered to 257 university and IELTS students, who had passed an academic writing course in English, from various majors with different educational backgrounds.
Table 4 shows the descriptive statistics of the 64-item WTW questionnaire after the second piloting phase: AREL 348 Applied Research on English Language, V.