تمایل به ایجاد ارتباط در میان دانشجویان کارشناسی زبان انگلیسی در ایران با توجه به دانش واژگانی آنها

the current study examined iranian undergraduate efl students’ willingness to communicate with regard to their vocabulary knowledge. in general, participants were somewhat willing to communicate in english. the total mean score of 730 university students’ perception of willing to communicate was 83.53 out of 135. results, regarding four parts of willingness to communicate, revealed that participants were more willing to speak in english with their friends, more willing to read letters from their friends which were written in native english, more willing to write down a list of things they must do the next day and more willing to understand an english movie. the results also showed that university students had good willingness to read, whereas their willingness to write was, to some extent, low. to see whether the independent variable (vocabulary knowledge) could predict the variability in the dependent variables (wts, wtr, wtw, wtl, wtc), simple regression analysis was run. there were five models of regression equation employed in this study. in all the models students’ score in vocabulary knowledge was considered as the predictor of the model. however, in the first model willingness to speak, in the second one willingness to read, in the third one willingness to write, in the fourth one willingness to listen and in the fifth one, willingness to communicate was taken into account as the criterion variable. f test of significance illustrated that in all models the relationship between variables were linear and the independent variable could be used to reliably predict the dependent variable. furthermore normal distribution of residuals displayed in plots and histograms reconfirmed that all equations could be accepted as predicting regression model. the results of the regression analysis revealed that vocabulary accounted for 8 percent of the variance in willingness to speak (r2=.084), 10 percent of the variance in willingness to read (r2=.101), 5 percent of the variance in willingness to write (r2=.047) and 9 percent of the variance in willingness to listen (r2=.093). the result further showed that scores on vocabulary test accounted for 13 percent of the variance in students’ willingness to communicate (r2=.127). it indicates that vocabulary accounted for more variance in students’ willingness to communicate as a whole in comparison with each of its parts. taking willingness to communicate components into account, the results indicated that vocabulary has the least contribution to students’ willingness to write and the most contribution to students’ willingness to read. it seems that students’ willingness to read is more under the influence of their vocabulary knowledge than their willingness to write. the results also revealed that there was a positive relationship between students’ vocabulary knowledge and their overall willingness to communicate. in other words, students with higher score on vocabulary test were more willing to communicate. this positive association was also obtained for four parts of wtc. these findings are to some extant in accordance with previous studies done on the relationship between vocabulary and language skills. like iwashita (2005) who proved the influence of academic students’ lexical competence on their performance in speaking tests, finding of this study showed that the students’ vocabulary knowledge can impact positively their willingness to speak. previous studies found that the knowledge of vocabulary is a determining factor in reading comprehension (anderson & freebody, 1979; beglar & hunt, 1999; qian, 2002). in the same direction, this study exhibited that students’ willingness to read is also positively related to their vocabulary knowledge. scholars have found that vocabulary is related to writing ability (beglar & hunt, 1999; laufer & nation, 1995). willingness to write is also illustrated to be positively associated with vocabulary knowledge. taking willingness to listen into account, students’ score on vocabulary test was related to their willingness to listen. this finding is in line with previous studies of alderson & huhta, (2005), beglar and hunt, (1999) and bonk, (2000) who proved the positive effect of vocabulary on listening ability. to further examine students’ willingness to communicate with regard to their vocabulary knowledge, one-way analysis of variance (anova) was conducted to see whether the students with different vocabulary levels also differ in the level of willingness to communicate and its components. the results of anova reconfirmed the findings of regression analyses regarding the relationship between students’ vocabulary knowledge and their willingness to speak. learners’ willingness to speak in high vocabulary group was higher than in mid and low groups and the willingness to speak in mid vocabulary group was higher than in low vocabulary group. however, the difference between high and mid groups was not statistically significant. considering the relationship between students’ vocabulary knowledge and their wtr, there was a significant difference among the mean scores of the high, mid and low vocabulary groups on the overall scores of the wtr. in other words, the high vocabulary level group was more willing to read than the mid and low vocabulary level groups, and the mid group also was more willing to read than the low group. also finding a significant difference in the mean scores of wtl among the students from the three vocabulary groups suggested that the differences in the levels of vocabulary knowledge influence students’ willingness to listen. the one-way anova statistics indicated that there are significant differences among mean scores of willingness to write for students in three different vocabulary groups. the most striking difference between the students’ willingness to write was related to the difference between the low group and the mid group and also between the low group and the high group. in other words, these groups of vocabulary knowledge significantly differed in their willingness to write. however, high and mid vocabulary level students did not show a statistically significant difference in terms of willingness to write. the results further showed that it was unlikely that the students willingness to communicate was the same for the groups of participants with three different levels of vocabulary knowledge. in other words, it was found that the high group (of vocabulary level) was more willing to communicate than the mid and low groups, and the mid group also was more willing to communicate than the low group. moreover the differences among all groups were significant. this study has demonstrated that iranian students who learn english as a foreign language appear to have moderate level of wtc in english. one of the reasons for not having high degree of willingness to communicate may be students’ insufficient knowledge of vocabulary. to help iranian university students achieve more success in english learning, english educators in iran need to dedicate their efforts to design a program with applicable methods of teaching vocabularies which lead to enhancing students’ wtc in english. to sum up, this study can properly lead iranian language teachers to improve their students’ knowledge of vocabulary and as a result their willingness to communicate, thus promoting the improvement of english learning.