The relationship between second language motivational self-system and willingness to communicate in teaching Turkish to foreigners

The main purpose of this research is to define the relationship between L2 willingness to communicate inside the classroom and L2 motivational self system of foreign students learning Turkish in Turkey. For this purpose, the data were collected from Hacettepe University and Gazi University Language Teaching, Application and Research Centers (TÖMERs) from a total of 170 participants consisting of 97 men and 73 women, from 43 different countries. A questionnaire created by combining the "L2 willingness to communicate inside the classroom" scale and "L2 motivational self-system" scale was applied to the participants. The findings of the research were first examined through descriptive analysis, and then the differences between the motivation of female and male participants and their willingness to communicate in the classroom were found to be statistically insignificant. Examining the relationships between the two structures which is the main aim of the research, was carried out by using Pearson correlations. According to the findings of the research, it is observed that there are strong relationships between these two structures. With these findings a contribution to the field was achieved by proving the applicability of the process-oriented motivation structure, which is, the motivational self system, in the context of teaching Turkish to foreigners. In addition, one-way ANOVA test was conducted to investigate whether there are significant differences between the Turkish levels of the participants and the levels of these two structures. According to these analyzes, significant differences were found in the Turkish levels of the participants according to their willingness to communicate in the classroom levels. Therefore, educators can contribute to the increase of the Turkish levels of the students by considering this structure while planning the education and training processes. However, in addition to this study, researchers can contribute further to the field by collecting data from different groups and larger groups. In particular, it can be said that performing qualitative studies besides measuring individuals' perceived motivation and willingness to communicate with scales, will contribute to filling the research gap in the field.