Socio-economic status and attitudinal factors affecting students' willingness to communicate in the Philippine ESL setting

• Main Authors: Aguiflor, Danica L., Nuñez, Manneth C.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: English language—Study and teaching—Filipino speakers; Second language acquisition; English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/9358
• Institution: De La Salle University

Though the Philippines is known as an English-speaking country, it has been observed that most of the Filipino students nowadays lack the willingness to communicate (WTC) in English. Considering that WTC is the first step to achieving communicative competence, which is the main goal of the Philippine K-12 curriculum, this study explored the potential predictors of L2 learners’ WTC in English in the Philippine ESL context. The study examined motivation, self-perceived competence, and anxiety as potential influences on WTC in the L2 (MacIntyre et al., 1998) and an additional factor, which is socioeconomic status (SES). The study employed a quantitative research whereby 320 Junior High school students in a private school in Manila, Philippines, answered a consolidated survey questionnaire testing the attitudinal factors and SES as possible influences of L2 learners’ WTC. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to identify the students’ level of WTC, socioeconomic status, motivation, self- perceived competence, and anxiety and Pearson’s correlation to understand the relationship between the variables mentioned. Results show that there is a low positive correlation between all the variables. These results imply the need to identify other possible variables that might be affecting Filipino students’ willingness to communicate in the ESL classroom.