The impact of extramural English on students’ willingness to communicate in an EFL context : A mixed-methods study with upper secondary school students in Sweden

Abstract: 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.