Thai EFL students’ willingness to communicate and teachers’ immediacy in online classrooms

This study aims to explore the level of Thai EFL undergraduate students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) and students’ perceptions towards teachers’ immediacy behaviors as well as the relationship between Thai EFL undergraduate students’ willingness to communicate and students’ perception of teachers’ immediacy behaviors in English language online classrooms.A mixed-methods research design called exploratory sequential research design was employed in this study. In the first phase, qualitative data was collected from semi-structured focus group interviews with students and one-on-one semi-structured interviews with teachers and analyzed in order to elicit the data regarding students’ willingness to communicate and their perceptions towards teachers’ immediacy behaviors. Then, the results from the qualitative phase were used as a guideline to develop a questionnaire which was relevant to the willingness to communicate in online classrooms. In total, 1,119 first-year university students (N=1,119) responded to the questionnaires. Results showed that the salient factors that influenced the level of students’ willingness to communicate in online classrooms were communication channels, students’ beliefs, peer influence, teachers’ characteristics, teaching methods, and online classroom atmosphere. The results revealed that most students perceived that both teachers’ verbal and nonverbal immediacy could influence their language learning in online classrooms. The result of the Pearson correlation coefficient demonstrated that both teachers’ verbal and nonverbal immediacy were correlated positively with students’ willingness to communicate. The findings of this study can improve teachers’ awareness when teaching online and they can use them to seek out ways to improve themselves and adjust their own teaching approaches in order to enhance their students’ online language learning outcomes in the future.