Enhancing Willingness to Communicate through Team Building: A Marriage of Theory and Practice

Abstract

Closely related to the well-researched areas of motivation and language-learning anxiety is the area of willingness to communicate (i.e., WTC). Many researchers (e.g., Clément, Dörnyei, & Noels, 1998; Liu & Jackson, 2008; MacIntyre & Doucette, 2009) have conducted studies concerning the factors surrounding learners’ willingness or unwillingness to communicate in a second language. The emphasis of such research has been on causes and not on solutions. This paper, through a study of the existing literature, examines the causes of a lack of WTC. It then argues that some well-known techniques and methodologies, by promoting team building, are well suited to enhance WTC. The paper concludes that the traditional warmup activity, the case-study method, cooperative learning techniques, and task-based learning techniques, when implemented with team building in mind, may aid in increasing WTC.