Seite 110 [110]
EXTRAMURAL ENGLISH ACTIVITIES AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNER DIFFERENCES
L2 willingness to communicate, a statistically significant difference was found
between in-school and extramural L2 willingness to communicate (Table 24).
It appears that participants are more willing to communicate in English in
extramural contexts, such as purchasing tickets at museums and ordering food
in a restaurant, which is in line with the findings of previous research (Piniel¬
Albert 2018). This can be traced back to the fact that while students are assessed
and evaluated at school, their L2 errors and mistakes are corrected, i.e., they
are present there as language learners and they may not really wish to com¬
municate more than necessary. In contrast, when engaging in EE activities,
where successful communication or even financial matters (e.g., the price ofa
souvenir when bargaining) are at stake, students are present as language users
and may feel more motivated to communicate and use English. This resonates
well with the notions of functional practice (Bialystok 1981) and language-as-so¬
cial-practice (Barton—Potts 2013) found in the literature.
Even though several statistically significant differences were found between
the scales measuring individual differences in in-school and extramural con¬
texts, it is also important to examine the relationships between the different
scales. Therefore, in the next section, correlation analyses between the scales
and then regression analyses were run to examine causative relationships
among scales.
5.5.7 Correlations among scales
In this section, statistically significant correlations among scales are pre¬
sented (see Table 25). As for the strength of the relationship between variables,
the correlation coefficient may be between -1 and +1. Positive correlation coef¬
ficients refer to a direct relationship between variables; therefore, if the value
of one variable increases, so does the value of the other variable. Negative
correlation, however, refers to an inverse relationship, i.e., as one variable’s
value increases, the other variable’s value decreases (D6rnyei 2007). Based on
the literature (Hinkle et al. 2003), if the correlation coefficient is between .00
and 0.30 (-.30), there is only a negligible positive (or negative) correlation;
between .31 (-.31) and .50 (-.50), there is a low positive (negative) correlation;
between .51 (-.51) and .70 (-.70), there is a moderate positive (negative) correla¬
tion; and between .71 (-.71) and 1.00 (-1.00), there is high positive (negative)
correlation.
First, the different EE activities (altogether eight activities) were correlated
with one another. It can be seen from Table 25 that there are a number of
significant correlations among EE activities, yet most can be found between
online reading and other activities. It is not surprising, however, that there is
a moderate correlation between online reading and paper-based reading (.55),
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