Students perceptions on the factors that influence their willingness to orally communicate in the EFL classroom in Ecuadorian high schools

Abstract

This paper explores the students’ perceptions on the factors that influence their willingness to orally communicate. Its purpose was identifying whether the motivation, proficiency level, personality type, and the method of teaching speaking, influences students’ willingness to communicate orally. This study took place in Quito with a population of 5 teachers and 100 students. To carry out this research, 5 observation sheets and 100 questionnaires were necessary. The methods used to analyze the results were qualitative which include affective and psychological aspects and quantitative to score the percentages of the results. The results demonstrate that motivation, proficiency level and, personality play an important role in the acquisition of second language, being “motivation” the most important as a factor that is intrinsically related with proficiency level and personality. The main conclusion drawn throughout this research was that teachers and students who are motivated can benefit the process of learning. Thus, it is important that teachers change and adapt their behaviors, abandon traditional methods, and look for new techniques and activities that help students to achieve a meaningful communicative competence