the relationship among pronunciation anxiety, communication apprehension and willingness to communicate of iranian efl learners

the main aim of this study was to see if a significant relationship existed among pronunciation anxiety, communication apprehension and willingness to communicate of iranian efl learners. the rationale behind this study is that pronunciation anxiety (pa), considered a factor that contributes to communication apprehension (ca), can be an important determinant of efl learners’ willingness to communicate (wtc). to this effect, 230 female efl learners studying in various english language institutes from intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced proficiency levels were selected based on convenient nonrandom sampling procedure. they completed the pa, ca and wtc self-report questionnaires. from the initial 230 administered questionnaires, only 210 answered all three questionnaires. data was analyzed using pearson product-moment correlation. the results indicated that a statistically significant relationship existed between pronunciation anxiety and communication apprehension and with the willingness to communicate of iranian efl learners. the results showed that both pa and ca can similarly affect wtc of iranian efl learners as the strengths of the relationships between pa, ca and wtc were similar. thus, this study identifies another important contributing factor of wtc in the efl context to be learners’ pa. thus, this study not only provides statistical evidence of the relationship among these variables but it also stresses the importance of efl learners’ pronunciation anxiety to their willingness to communicate.