Willingness to Communicate, Communication Apprehension, and Motivation of ESP Learners in Virtual Online Classes: The Case of Engineering Students

Willingness to communicate (WTC) has recently become an important concept in modern language pedagogy which has been defined as the intention to initiate communication, given a choice. Thereby, the present study investigated Iranian English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students’ willingness to communicate in English and its potential relationship with their communication apprehension (CA), and motivation to learn and use English language in virtual online classes. To do so, this study employed a survey-based design. First, to ensure that the instruments and procedures were reliable and valid, the researcher conducted a pilot study. Then, during the main study, ۲۰۰ female and male ESP undergraduate students studying mechanical and electrical engineering at Urmia University, Iran completed a battery of questionnaires including WTC Scale (MacIntyre, Baker, Clement, & Conrod, ۲۰۰۱), CA Scale (McCroskey & Richmond, ۱۹۸۴), and Motivational Intensity Scale (Gardner, ۱۹۸۵). Pearson product-moment correlation analyses were performed on the data. The analysis of the findings revealed that there was a high negative correlation between ESP students’ WTC and their CA. Moreover, the outcomes of the current study demonstrated a high positive relationship between WTC and the participants’ motivational levels to learn and use English language in virtual online classes. The results and implications of this research study extend the literature on willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, as well as motivation and can be insightful to educators in general and ESP teachers in particular