This thesis puts an emphasis on the use of gaming technology as a form of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) activity, investigating its effects on interaction and willingness to communicate (WTC) in the target language (TL) of Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The study, adopted the pseudo-empirical research design with a pre-test structure, was carried out with 30 third year undergraduate students enrolled in a course of English for Information Technology 1 at a university in Thailand. The study modified an existing commercial game to better meet specific objectives of the language course. The data were collected by means of quantitative and qualitative research techniques (i.e., recordings of TL interaction in class and computer game activities, questionnaires, and interviews). The transcripts of participants’ interaction were analysed for the amount of words and turns and for the characteristics of their TL use. The questionnaire and interview responses were analysed to provide the evidence of participants’ WTC. The study found that gameplay encouraged a significant increase in the quantity of TL interaction which also contained a variety of discourse functions associated with social, collaborative interaction (e.g., greetings, requests, and questions) and covered ranges of linguistic features (e.g., use of a variety of verb forms). This provided evidence that language learners received opportunities to interact using the TL when playing games. In addition, participants’ responses to WTC questionnaires and interview questions indicated that the level of WTC appeared to be enhanced by taking part in the game, as positive perceptions of WTC, low anxiety when interacting in the TL, high self-perceived communicative competence, and high frequency of TL use, were reported. This indicated that language learners benefited from less stressful environments within the game and thus were willing to use the opportunities provided to practice and use the TL. In light of these findings, this study draws attention to the role and effectiveness of computer games in encouraging TL use for authentic communication and willingness to use the language. The study offers some suggestions for future research and concludes with implications for second/foreign language pedagogy, curriculum and CALL material design, and educational game development.

Professional operatic singing can be performed technically for practice and rehearsal, or with heightened emotion through intention to communicate with an audience. Previous studies of respiration in operatic singing have not taken into account the professional performer�s ability to differentiate at will between rehearsal and performance modes of singing. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the differences between singing �with intention to communicate� (as if performing) and singing �technically� (as if in rehearsal). The hypothesis is that this specified change of condition would change the respiratory patterns employed by the singers. Estimation of respiratory patterns was obtained using magnetometers. Performance singing was labelled �IC� (intention to communicate). Rehearsal singing was labelled �T� (technical) and also included �TL� (technical loud) and �TS� (technical soft). Each of the five singers performed two tasks (a free choice aria in Italian, and a set song). Only intra-subject analysis was used. One thousand and one breaths were analysed. These were then matched, so that only complete musical phrases (sung six times by the same singer) were compared with each other. Seven hundred and sixty-two matched phrases were analysed in this way. Measured variables were initiation lung volume (ILV), termination lung volume (TLV), the amount of lung volume expired (LVE), %VC released per second (Flow), the expiratory time (Te), and inspiratory time (Ti). Sound pressure level (SPL) was measured. This study also examined the ability of experienced listeners to distinguish between the T and IC performances from DAT recordings. Findings show that in comparison with T singing, IC singing used more air, with a greater percentage of vital capacity expired per second, but without a simple association with sound pressure level or expiratory time. Listeners were able to distinguish IC from T performances, demonstrating a perceived difference in the quality of the vocal output. These results demonstrate that performance intention to communicate, compared to rehearsal, results in a measurable difference in respiratory parameters, and therefore needs to be specified in future research.

This project focuses on organization members that use communication as their principle tool for carrying out job duties and responsibilities. More specifically, this study examines the factors that impact the communication of inside and outside sales representatives. The goal of this research is to investigate willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-esteem in daily life and in organizational settings. A total of 87 participants completed questionnaires congruent with these three topics. Previous literature concerning willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self esteem were examined to explore relevant information concerning each topic. Results suggest that differences in men and women and willingness to communicate in daily life or communication apprehension are not highly significant. Yet, there is a slight significance in differences when comparing sex and willingness to communicate in the workplace. A longitudinal study of self-esteem and goal success proved self-esteem was not a significant variable when discussing goal attainment within an organization. Future research should explore other variables that could affect willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-esteem to better understand communication within the workplace.

This project focuses on organization members that use communication as their principle tool for carrying out job duties and responsibilities. More specifically, this study examines the factors that impact the communication of inside and outside sales representatives. The goal of this research is to investigate willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-esteem in daily life and in organizational settings. A total of 87 participants completed questionnaires congruent with these three topics. Previous literature concerning willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self esteem were examined to explore relevant information concerning each topic. Results suggest that differences in men and women and willingness to communicate in daily life or communication apprehension are not highly significant. Yet, there is a slight significance in differences when comparing sex and willingness to communicate in the workplace. A longitudinal study of self-esteem and goal success proved self-esteem was not a significant variable when discussing goal attainment within an organization. Future research should explore other variables that could affect willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-esteem to better understand communication within the workplace.

During the last decade, social media has had a great impact on the way we communicate. It has also expanded our awareness of the world.! However it has become harder for the lay person to find news, because of too many conflicting interests in the mass media industry on one hand, and simply too much free information available on the other! This report documents my study of how social media has affected the way we collect, consume and share news. I describe how democratization of information has made some things easy, but some other things hard - filtering data to find meaningful content has become harder! My studies were targeted mainly at people younger than 30, and mainly in India, and much of its design is informed by problems characteristic to the Indian context. So while I do not explicitly target my end result at the Indian market, a news network by its very nature needs to be global, and this process reflects that.! I go on to use Design Methods including Brainstorming, Participatory Workshops and Service Design theory to arrive at a product that aims to provide people a way to stay up to date with meaningful and relevant news. ! I propose a social network for individuals to exchange news with each other. I try to understand what makes some pieces of information more important than others, and how a network can self filter information so that participants can get high quality content.! In the final result, I describe the framework of this network and how people would contribute to it and consume from it.

Professional operatic singing can be performed technically for practice and rehearsal, or with heightened emotion through intention to communicate with an audience. Previous studies of respiration in operatic singing have not taken into account the professional performer�s ability to differentiate at will between rehearsal and performance modes of singing. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the differences between singing �with intention to communicate� (as if performing) and singing �technically� (as if in rehearsal). The hypothesis is that this specified change of condition would change the respiratory patterns employed by the singers. Estimation of respiratory patterns was obtained using magnetometers. Performance singing was labelled �IC� (intention to communicate). Rehearsal singing was labelled �T� (technical) and also included �TL� (technical loud) and �TS� (technical soft). Each of the five singers performed two tasks (a free choice aria in Italian, and a set song). Only intra-subject analysis was used. One thousand and one breaths were analysed. These were then matched, so that only complete musical phrases (sung six times by the same singer) were compared with each other. Seven hundred and sixty-two matched phrases were analysed in this way. Measured variables were initiation lung volume (ILV), termination lung volume (TLV), the amount of lung volume expired (LVE), %VC released per second (Flow), the expiratory time (Te), and inspiratory time (Ti). Sound pressure level (SPL) was measured. This study also examined the ability of experienced listeners to distinguish between the T and IC performances from DAT recordings. Findings show that in comparison with T singing, IC singing used more air, with a greater percentage of vital capacity expired per second, but without a simple association with sound pressure level or expiratory time. Listeners were able to distinguish IC from T performances, demonstrating a perceived difference in the quality of the vocal output. These results demonstrate that performance intention to communicate, compared to rehearsal, results in a measurable difference in respiratory parameters, and therefore needs to be specified in future research.

This is an empirical study about factors that motivate pupils to speak English as a foreign language. The aim of this study is to investigate when pupils in the classroom situation, in Grades 4-6 in a school in Sweden, are motivated to speak English as a foreign language, and why they are motivated to speak English in these situations. To implement this study, questionnaires and interviews have been chosen as methods. 51 pupils in Grades 4-6 took part of the study. Since being able to communicate orally in a foreign language is of great advantage for one, and creates opportunities both for work and for study abroad, it is important for pupils to learn how to communicate orally in English. It is important to be able to use the language. In the English curriculum in Swedish schools, speaking English is a skill pupils must possess. Since this is the requirement it is important that teachers in Sweden relate to this. Many pupils do not like to speak in front of the rest of the class and some pupils only like to speak in informal situations. Therefore, teachers must use various strategies to create a willingness to communicate among pupils and various strategies to motivate them to speak English. The results show that pupils are motivated to use the language in class when they have recently been abroad. It also shows that they are motivated when they can decide the topic and speak about something they are interested in. / <p>Engelska</p>

Willingness to communicate (WTC) arose out of the search for a construct to explain why some people are more likely to speak in a particular communication situation than others facing the same situation (MacIntyre, Dörnyei, Clément, & Noels, 1998). This study investigated the extent to which 1,789 Japanese university students' willingness to speak and write in English to a Japanese student, an international student, a Japanese teacher of English, and a foreign teacher of English varied inside an EFL classroom. Using the L2 WTC Questionnaire (Weaver, 2005), it was found that the students' level of L2 WTC varied significantly according to their level of self-perceived ability to speak and write in English. At the group level, students in the highest self-perceived speaking ability group were more willing to speak in English to an international student or a foreign teacher of English. In contrast, students in the lowest self-perceived ability speaking group were more willing to speak in English to a Japanese student or a Japanese teacher of English. At the individual level, the average student from the different self-perceived ability groups displayed distinctive patterns of willingness to speak in English to the different types of interlocutors. For example, the average student from the low self-perceived ability group was more willing to speak in English to an international student or a foreign teacher of English in speaking situations/tasks requiring a limited or controlled use of English. In terms of writing, the average student from the high self-perceived ability group was not willing to write in English to a Japanese student when the writing task required a certain level of personal information. Students' responses to the Open-ended L2 WTC Questionnaire also revealed a number of factors that mediated their willingness to use English with different types of interlocutors. Collectively, the findings of this study not only highlight the interpersonal nature of L2 communication, but also provide important insights into how different types of interlocutors can help maximize students' level of L2 WTC, which might in turn lead to further advancements in their level of L2 communicative competence. / CITE/Language Arts

Advances in technology over the last few decades have led to significant changes in the way we communicate. Technological innovation has been one of the reasons for the development of computer-mediated communication (CMC), which has had far-reaching implications in the private and professional lives of many people. Instant messaging (IM), which is one form of computer-mediated communication, has significantly gained popularity over the years and many scholars have examined its influence in areas including business and academics. Initially developed to enhance communication between users who understood the same language, some IM clients including Wechat (www.wechat.com), QQ International (www.imqq.com), and Skype Translator (www.skype.com) have integrated a built-in translation application that facilitates communication among users that speak different languages. The current research project explores the relationship between machine translation, IM, and foreign language (FL) learning. In particular, it investigates whether machine-translated IM could improve the willingness to communicate (WTC) of beginner FL learners and whether the IM translation tool offers learners opportunities to communicate (OTC) in the FL. To answer these questions, China-based beginner FL learners were recruited and paired with native and near-native English speakers based in Canada. China-based participants completed two questionnaires and also exchanged (machine-translated) IM on selected topics with Canada-based participants for a period of ten weeks. Some China-based participants communicated with the help of the IM translation tool, while the others communicated without the tool. After analyzing the data gathered during the study, we found that WTC increased more for participants with the IM translation tool than for participants without the IM translation tool. Our analysis also indicated that the IM translation tool offered participants OTC in English. This was illustrated in various conversation aspects including number of words and turns exchanged, synchronous exchanges, ownership, conversation enhancement, topics discussed, tasks undertaken, and requests for paraphrase, repetition and explanation. In the discussion of the implications of our findings, we outline how the research project reinforced our understanding of the concept of WTC in a technology driven FL learning environment. We also discuss the implications of our findings for machine translation (MT), FL, and translation studies. Our discussion focuses on the debate on the tools to use and content to teach in the translator and FL training environments as well as various concepts in translation studies including MT quality, writing for MT, fit-for-purpose MT, collaboration and MT post-editing. This project enables us to test the applicability of MT in a different context using a novel group of users. The project therefore contributes to ongoing research on the relationship between CMC (specifically IM), MT, and FL learning, as well as to our knowledge of applications and perceptions of MT.

It is generally assumed that in order to learn a language, learners need to master reading, writing, listening and speaking. However, merely possessing the skills and abilities to communicate is not sufficient; one must have the will to use the language. In order to formulate a model that can accurately describe the willingness to communicate, Mac-Intyre et al. (1998) formulated a model that attempts to do just this. The goal of this study is to verify the veracity of the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) model in terms of to what extent students’ self-reported WTC correlate with their actual WTC in the class-room. To accomplish this, this study utilized interviews with Swedish EFL students in southern Sweden, based on the WTC framework, and classroom observation in order to collect data on said connection. The results of this study showed that self-reported WTC and actual WTC do not necessarily correlate with one another; for some students, they spoke English more than they reported, some spoke less, and others’ WTC reflected their self-assessed WTC. Although the WTC model could account for the students’ actual WTC, it could not account for this discrepancy. However, this discrepancy may not be due to the model itself, but rather to the situational factors that, to a certain degree, influenced the outcome of this study. Based on this study, teachers are recommended to consistently speak English, as this raises the students’ own WTC, and to encourage English usage among students themselves. For future research, it is therefore recom-mended that non-linguistic factors be taken into account, possibly through factor analysis, in order to produce more nuanced data, as well as conducting a longitudinal study.