Research note: the role of willingness to communicate in cross-cultural adaptation

ABSTRACT

Despite widely reported ‘Mainland-Hong Kong conflicts’, recent years have witnessed progressive growth of Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong universities. This study aims to explore the role of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the cross-cultural adaptation of such a group of sojourning students. Structural equation modelling showed that the competence in L2 communication played a significant role in L2 WTC, which had an influential effect on academic adaptation, which was itself identified as a mediator between psychological adaptation and socio-cultural adaptation. Implications for curriculum design and instructional practice on international students are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• L2 willingness to communicate
• competence in L2 communication
• psychological adaptation
• socio-cultural adaptation
• academic adaptation
• structural equation modelling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the block research grant from the Education University of Hong Kong [Reference numbers: RG79/2013-2014R & RG89/2014-2015R].

Notes on contributors

Baohua Yu

Dr. Baohua Yu is currently an assistant professor at the Education University of Hong Kong. She obtained her PhD from the University of Hong Kong and conducted her post-doctoral research at the University of New South Wales on an Endeavour research fellowship sponsored by the Australian government. Her major fields of research are cross-cultural psychology of international students, intercultural communication, self-regulated learning, motivation in second language learning and education and research methods.