The Relationship between Attitude and Willingness to Communicate of Iranian IELTS/ TOEFL Candidates

چکیده مقاله

Abstract Nowadays, for many people learning English, who need to exhibit sufficient language proficiency, popular tests such as IELTS and TOEFL help them know how much of an expert they are in using the language. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive correlational study was to investigate the relationship between attitudes and thoughts of Iranian IELTS / TOEFL candidates and their willingness to communicate (WTC) while they took proficiency tests. To this end, two attitude questionnaires for IELTS and TOEFL exams and one questionnaire for measuring WTC of the candidates were prepared, whose validity and reliability were clearly established. The Attitude toward IELTS questionnaire was developed by Iman Rasti (2007). In attitude toward TOEFL questionnaire, items were revised and adopted in 2015 by Hanieh Davatgari Asl and Samineh Poorsoti from a questionnaire used by an Iranian researcher studying the IELTS test takers’ attitudes in Shiraz (Rasti, 2007). Willingness to Communicate questions were used to elicit the learners’ WTC. This scale was developed by McCroskey (1992). sixty participants were selected from an institute, those who had attended in IELTS or TOEFL classes and had taken one of these tests, to answer the attitude and WTC questionnaires. The results pointed to the fact that there were positive and negative relationships among attitudes, Willingness to Communicate, exam scores, age and gender of the Iranian IELTS and TOEFL candidates under study. It is believed that the results of this study will help institutes and teachers holding these classes to focus on humanistic factors, besides a good education, that have effects on attitudes which help learners communicate in English, which is the main goal of language learning.

Keywords: Attitude, IELTS, TOEFL, willingness to communicate.