The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine receiver variables involved in strategic communications and to look specifically at the use of graphic images in strategic communication materials. It argues that any complete, general model of persuasion effects will include both goal compatibility and emotional determinants. It argues that some influential theories used in strategic communications scholarship, including the situational theory of publics and the elaboration likelihood model, are incomplete because they have omitted these variables. This study also tests variables related to willingness to communicate, behavioral intention, and attitude towards the organization. These variables are drawn from prominent, well-tested theories in strategic communications, and used to begin building a new model of the effects of messages featuring graphic images.

International teaching assistants (ITAs) are considered advanced English users with relatively high standardized language proficiency test scores. However, they may experience difficulties during their interactions with undergraduate students. Some of these difficulties may arise from affective factors such as ambiguity, stress, and adjustment and can impact language use. From an individual differences perspective, a second language user with high communication anxiety may have difficulty comprehending or producing appropriate pragmalinguistic forms. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined the underlying factors in ITAs communication anxiety and willingness to communicate in the US classroom and how these factors explained their pragmatic competence, which refers to the ability to use language in socially appropriate ways. A total of 289 ITAs participated in the study. To measure their judgement of appropriateness, a pragmatic appropriateness test was designed. The speech act production was elicited through a discourse completion test. Two survey instruments were designed to measure ITAs’ classroom communication anxiety and willingness to communicate. The major underlying factors from the exploratory factor analysis performed on the survey responses were ‘ease of communication,’ classroom management anxiety,’ ‘fear of warning,’ and ‘willingness to interact with students’. A six-predictor multiple regression analysis revealed that linguistic competence was the most important factor contributing to pragmatic competence. Other factors such as ease of communication and willingness to communicate positively correlated with pragmatic competence. In addition to quantitative data, qualitative data were collected in the form of classroom observations, field notes, and interviews from a group of ITAs (N = 4) who had also participated in the quantitative part of the study. The analysis of the qualitative data revealed that the situational context of instruction determined the particular communication patterns in different disciplines, specifically the impact of threat posed to the negative and positive face of the discourse participants. Additionally, in conjunction with the quantitative findings, while the ITAs seemed to be generally willing to interact with students, teacher-fronted talk in the form of delivering lectures and self-talk especially in large classes was found to be anxiety-inducing for some of them. Length of residence and opportunities for communication seemed to influence the process of adjustment and acquisition of the classroom pragmatic norms. Finally, ITAs’ perceptions and beliefs about appropriateness seemed to affect their pragmatic performance in the classroom. More specifically, ITAs’ perspectives on education and communication such as moderating the power variable in class and building rapport and interpersonal relationships with students through casual talk seemed to guide their choices of pragmalinguistic forms and politeness strategies. The study offered a number of implications for ITA research and training.

This study explores the possible relationship between extramural English (EE) and students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in the EFL classroom in the Swedish upper secondary school. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, and the data was collected through a questionnaire and interviews. The results of the study suggest that EE usage positively affects students’ language proficiency and their self-perceptions of their English ability, which in turn is beneficial for their WTC in all contexts inside the classroom. The results also show that the students who spend the most time in EE contexts reported higher levels of WTC than the non-frequent users of EE. Productive EE activities were also found to be more beneficial for raising students’ WTC than receptive activities. The connection between EE and WTC is, however, not absolute since a minority of the students reported a high frequency of EE but low WTC, which indicates that several other factors might also be influencing upper secondary school students' WTC.

This study aims at exploring (1) EFL students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) from the perspectives of some English teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools, and (2) the same teachers’ reported strategies for dealing with their students’ WTC. Six teachers from five different upper secondary schools in Sweden, who all teach English in different programs, volunteered to participate in the study. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, and the transcripts were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results of the study showed that teachers perceive both social and psychological factors to influence students’ WTC, and that motivation plays an important role. A natural part of discussing EFL learners’ WTC also seemed to be to discuss their use of the target language. Strategies that were reportedly perceived to enhance EFL learners’ WTC were building respectful relationships within the classroom, using meaningful and relevant topics, creating communicative settings, correcting mistakes cautiously and utilizing digital tools. However, enhancing students’ WTC was considered challenging, and more teacher training in affecting factors of and strategies for enhancing EFL learners’ WTC are suggested to be needed.

There is very little research done on the use and perceptions of icebreakers, and even fewer researchers have focused on young learners in this regard. This study investigates which icebreakers English teachers in grade 4-6 use in Swedish primary classrooms, why they use them, and what their perception is of how icebreakers can affect students’ oral production. Five semi-structured interviews were carried out, containing twelve questions formulated with a focus on significant factors such as motivation, engagement, foreign language anxiety and willingness to communicate, which are addressed in the research on icebreakers. The interviews were transcribed, translated, analyzed (more than once) and thematically categorized to answer the research questions. This showed patterns, perceptions, and trends that English teachers in grade 4-6 have of icebreakers and their use. Most of the teachers who were interviewed had a knowledge of what icebreakers are and what affect they have, and use them daily. As a tool for improving oral performance, icebreakers were seen as well-functioning by most of the interviewed teachers, even though not all of them believed they had time to use them. Only one teacher believed there to be other more effective methods to use. The study showed that teachers perceive anxiety and fear to be reduced by using icebreakers during English lessons, something that is necessary to promote speaking. It may therefore be advisable for teachers to reflect on common classroom practices that induce anxiety, rather than viewing language anxiety as a disadvantageous characteristic of individual learners. The results call for in-depth studies of icebreakers and their effects on students’ learning experiences and speaking ability. Moreover, the study helps fill the gap of research in grades 4-6, with new perspectives on teachers’ perceptions of young learners in relation to icebreakers.

The present study aims to investigate the possible impact that extramural English (EE) has on students’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) in the Swedish EFL classroom. The focus lies specifically on speaking anxiety and its relation to EE, if certain EE activities have a greater importance than others, and if there are gender differences in EE activities and levels of speaking anxiety. The study was carried out in a secondary school in Stockholm, Sweden. The 142 participants attended the last term of ninth grade when the study was carried out. Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire and results demonstrated that the more extramural English the participants engaged in, the lower their levels of speaking anxiety were. Results also showed that productive EE activities seemed to have a greater impact than receptive activities on FLA. Finally, the study also revealed gender differences in preferred EE activities as well as in levels of speaking anxiety. The participating girls, as a group, had higher levels of speaking anxiety than the boys and were more involved in receptive EE activities than the participating boys. Additionally, the boys spent more time on activities involving video games than girls.

In Sweden, 50% of all teenagers between the ages 12-18 spend at least three hours a day, spending their time on anything from digital games to YouTube and homework research. Given the popularity of such activities, it is worthwhile investigating to what degree any one of them might be used to help facilitate English second language learning. Research show that digital games use lead to an enhanced vocabulary comprehension, reading comprehension, speaking comprehension, lowered anxiety level and enhanced willingness to communicate for L2 English learners. In the current study we used a qualitative teacher interviews and a quantitative student questionnaires to determine to what extent Swedish elementary school teachers and students in the southern part of Sweden perceive extramural multiplayer online games as being effective for facilitating L2 learning motivation and vocabulary acquisition, as well as their strategies for implementing digital gaming. The major conclusions of this study from both a teacher and student perception is that the motivation is enhanced in students who are frequent gamers, also enhancing their motivation in the classroom to learn English. Additionally, teachers found a wider vocabulary and knowledge of synonyms in students who frequently play games.

This dissertation proposed and operationalized a theoretically meaningful and practically useful conceptualization of change for three well known communication constructs, namely willingness to communicate (WTC), self-perceived communication competence (SPCC), and communication apprehension (CA). Specifically, this research found that students' WTC and SPCC scores increased linearly during the semester and their CA scores decreased linearly. In addition, results from this dissertation indicated that for all three constructs considerable differences among students existed with respect to both initial levels and subsequent change in levels. These results are important and can advance the theoretical communication research centered around these constructs. In particular, knowledge that the hypothesis of linear change in the constructs received support from empirical data and that variations in students' trajectories of change were recorded, can prompt communication scholars to search for novel theoretical frameworks that can explicate these change processes. Moreover, the findings of this research are also salient for classroom instruction. Specifically, teachers of introductory communication classes can use the results of this study as broad benchmarks that can inform realistic expectations with respect to students' improvement in WTC, SPCC, and/or CA. In addition, this dissertation presented the benefits derived from properly conceptualizing and studying change by means of latent growth modeling, a powerful and versatile data analytic technique. Specifically, employing this methodology offered the opportunity to get detailed information about how changes in one construct are related to changes in the other two constructs and to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the intricate ways in which interlinkages among the constructs change across time. The benefits of this dynamic way to study WTC, SPCC, and CA are readily apparent as it facilitates teachers access to information that can be used to tailoring their activity for a more targeted, efficient, and beneficial instruction.

This study explored the effectiveness of a Willingness to Communicate (WTC) scale with advanced foreign language (L2) learners. The WTC instrument included sections on communicating with native speakers of the L2 and peer language learners in various settings (at home, abroad, in-class and online). As most prior research had focused on beginning language learners, for this study, we recruited participants who began to learn their respective languages in informal, long-term immersion settings. Participants took the WTC survey as part of a larger self-assessment instrument with a subset of 600 intermediate and advanced level Spanish (n = 339), Portuguese (n = 155), and French (n = 106) L2 students taking an Oral Proficiency Interview (computerized). The instrument was found to be reliable (Cronbach α = .88), and there was a significant difference [t (5) = 2.97, p = .031] in WTC between sections for online and in-class settings. However, the WTC had no significant relationship (Pearson's r2 = .0005) with OPIc score. Thus, while WTC might help beginning learners reach advanced level language, it might not discriminate among learners who are already advanced.

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the second language (L2) is the "readiness to enter into discourse" which is considered to be the direct precursor of students' communication in L2 (MacIntyre et al., 1998). Oral language is thought to precede written language which creates an assumption that ongoing refining of oral skills may impact writing fluency. In respect to WTC model, there have been several versions that describe the construct (MacIntyre et al., 1998; Wen & Clement, 2003; Matsuoka, 2006). This study references self-efficacy, a cognitive variable in Matsuoka's (2006) proposed model, when analyzing writing as a phenomenon in relation to WTC. Two sequential writing samples collected from 12 international students are closely examined for key themes, which are informed by the responses to the WTC and Language History questionnaire. The results show a moderate correlation (rs=.646) between self-efficacy and willingness to communicate among the surveyed participants as well as a moderate correlation between the error frequencies and WTC scores (rs=.536).