Learners’ perceptions and attitudes: Implications for willingness to communicate in an L2 classroom Diane de Saint Le ´ger a,1 , Neomy Storch b, * a French, Italian and Spanish Studies, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia b Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia Received 14 October 2008; received in revised form 15 December 2008; accepted 18 January 2009 Abstract This paper investigates learners’ perceptions of their speaking abilities, of their contributions to oral class activities (whole class and small group discussions) as well as their attitudes towards these activities, and how such perceptions and attitudes influenced the learners’ willingness to communicate in the L2. The study employed a range of data gathering instruments, but the main source of data came from self-assessment questionnaires. Thirty-two students of French (L2) participated in this semester long study. The self-assessment questionnaires asked students to reflect on their immediate learning environment at various points in the semester and self assess their speaking skills. This study concludes that the students’ perception of the speaking activities and of themselves as learners in the foreign language classroom affected their willingness to communicate in a range of ways. In general, as learners’ self-confidence increased over time, so did their willingness to use the L2 in class. However, the learners’ desire to communicate with peers in small groups was not uniform and was affected by affiliation motives. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Self-assessment; Willingness to communicate; Self-confidence; Anxiety; Classroom interaction; Situated learning; Affiliation motives 1. Introduction The current communicative approaches to second language (L2) instruction emphasize the importance of learners using the L2 in oral and written tasks. These approaches to instruction are based on the premise that learners’ competence in the L2 is developed via performance and are supported by the dominant theories of second language acquisition (e.g., Long, 1996; Swain, 2000). This focus on the active use of the L2 in the lan- guage classroom has led to the emergence of an important construct in the field of L2 instruction: willingness to communicate (WTC). 0346-251X/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.01.001 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 8344 5208. E-mail addresses: ddsl@unimelb.edu.au (D. de Saint Le ´ger), neomys@unimelb.edu.au (N. Storch). 1 Tel.: +61 3 8344 6986. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com System 37 (2009) 269–285 www.elsevier.com/locate/system