| Description |
In foreign language teaching communication is both a means of communication and the content of teaching (Swain & Lapkin, 1995; Swain, 2005) therefore quality communication between a teacher and a student or students contributes profoundly to the process of learning. Factors negatively influencing L2 communication e.g., foreign language classroom anxiety, self-evaluation (Yashima, 2002), the fear of negative evaluation (Tum, 2015; Yan & Horwitz, 2008), teacher´s teaching style (Ballester, 2015), classroom atmosphere (Yashima et al., 2016) or learning styles (Yan & Horwitz, 2008) have been a subject to wide research. By contrast, teacher-student interaction ranks among the most significant predictors of students 'participation (Weaver & Qi, 2005) besides the teacher´s attitude and evaluation (Goodboy & Myers, 2008). Students' motives for communicating with a teacher depend on the student's communication style, how students perceive the teacher's communication style and the classroom atmosphere (Myers, Martin & Mottet, 2002). Following the research on mapping students´ motives for communicating with a teacher (Martin, Myerse, & Mottet, 1999) the presented study aimed at mapping students´ motives for communicating with an English language teacher during their lessons considering the specific context of a foreign language classroom. The sample consisted of non-major undergraduate students (n=350) of J. E. Purkyně University (Czechia) and a mix-methods design was employed using the Interpersonal communication motives scale (Martin, Myers, & Mottet, 1999), Willingness to communicate inside the classroom (MacIntyre, Clément, Baker & Conrod, 2001) scale and Foreign language communication anxiety scale (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). Further detailed information was gathered during a semi-structured interview with selected students. Based on the questionnaire data, seeking support from a teacher ranked as the most significant motive for students´ communication with a teacher e.g., more than 65% of the respondents would talk to the teacher when they need assistance with the class material and more than 67% expressed their agreement with the fact that they ask questions concerning course requirements. On the contrary, the least possible motives for their communication with a teacher included explaining themselves, making excuses or the need for creating a relationship with the teacher. Further, during a content analysis of semi-structured interviews, which allowed a deeper inside the students´ motives for communication during teaching, there appeared other four motives besides the teacher´s support i.e., I feel ready, I want to “rescue” my classmate / the teacher. The two strongest were quite opposing i.e., I enjoy participating and I must communicate, yet they appeared to be significant for active as well as passive students. Moreover, the two groups of students expressed similarly their motives against the communication as feeling negative pressure and not feeling to be ready to talk. Interestingly the motion of students´ empathy replicated in the motive of not wanting to disturb the talk of a classmate or the course of the lesson. It may be suggested that despite feeling negative pressure the students will participate if the offered topic is interesting, and they have had the opportunity to prepare and secondly, if they are urged by the teacher or the context.
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