Event Report, Ibaraki Chapter December 2016

IBARAKI: December—Butterfly wing flaps and second language acquisition
by James A. Elwood. In this presentation, Elwood explored the effects of emotional factors on learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in their second language. From his character-transforming experience as a puppeteer, Elwood hypothesized that three factors – perceived distance to the target language, ego permeability, and extroversion – might play a role in WTC. After studying the cases of 300 college students, he concludes that extroversion is a likely cause of WTC, while the influence of the other two is not evident.
Reported by Naomi Takagi