earticle

영어

As willingness to communicate (WTC) has been proposed as one of the key concepts in L2 learning and instruction, speakers’ psychological antecedents to WTC and factors affecting them have also become important in the language education field. This study addresses two research questions: (a) Does speakers’ excitement fluctuate during L2 communication? (b) If it does, what factors affect speakers’ excitement? To answer these questions, a qualitative case study was conducted with 12 Korean university students. The data were collected from interviews, observations, conversations, stimulated recalls, and measurement of language proficiency. From an inductive analysis of the data, it was found that L2 speakers’ excitement fluctuated by the role of various primary factors: (a) personal, (b) environmental, and (c) personal-environmental factors. The findings suggest the possibility of changing speakers’ excitement and WTC through a pedagogical intervention. Various affective factors identified in this study can offer useful information as to how to increase L2 learners’ excitement by providing instigative factors and preventing inhibiting factors for it. It is expected that language educators can help L2 learners increase their WTC and facilitate their language learning by boosting their excitement.