EP 12. Willingness to Communicate (WTC)

In this episode, I talk about a concept that I honestly believe has the power to really transform the way you approach every opportunity to speak Gaelic in the future!

Also, a couple of life updates - enjoy!

Instagram and Tiktok: @MichelleLovesGaelic

Music By: Ó hEadhra, Brian & Mackenzie, Fiona: "Latha Dhan Fhìnn am
Beinn Ioghnaidh" (A Day for the Fingalians of Beinn Ioghnaidh)
Performed by Ó hEadhra (vocals), Brian, Mackenzie, Fiona
(vocals) and Vass, Mike (fiddle)

Licensed courtesy of Naxos World

Transcript

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If you are anything like me, I bet nobody can make you do something you don't want to. Or at least not very easily and without some pushback. However, sometimes you have to be the one to make yourself do the thing you don't want to. Today, we're gonna talk about talking. Hello Akadegin. It's Mr. Michelle Hughes, I guess show Michelle Learns Gallic. In this episode, I'm going to draw on only one source for the topic at hand, but given the reliability of the studies referenced within, and while frankly the fact that I believe the assertions to be well founded based on my own observations of other L2 learners and of myself, I'm not too worried about not being broader with my research. Besides, I'm doing this for fun and to help us all, not reporting as an expert or anything. As always, you may or may not find this useful, but while I'm inclined to think that it has a real chance of changing your perspective, motivating you to go beyond fear, anxiety, or nervousness when it comes to speaking in Gaelic. In fact, that reminds me of something else. But given that I've actually scripted this episode out, consider yourself safe from that particular ADHD tangent. At least for now. There's a book called Willingness to Communicate, published by Multilingual Matters. And actually, the very title of this book is what I want to talk about: the willingness to communicate. According to a paper by Tomokoyashima in 2002, the willingness to communicate, quote, appears to be a powerful predictor of success, end quote, in terms of the likelihood of actually reaching a high advanced level of language competence, or that even rarer fluent level. Willingness to communicate has been defined by P. D. McIntyre in a 2007 paper as, quote, the probability of initiating communication given choice and opportunity, end quote. So many of us say that we want to be able to talk more frequently with others in Gaelic. But how often do we actually do so when the opportunity presents itself? Therein lies an important distinction. As stated by WP Wen and R. Clement in a 2003 paper, desire and willingness are not the same thing. The researchers observe that the desire to communicate does not immediately implicate willingness to communicate, since such a desire implies a preference or choice, while willingness to communicate denotes readiness to take action. So what factors influence our willingness to communicate? How can we address those to increase our willingness in any given situation, if we can at all? A quick aside, if you hear me referring to WTC throughout the episode, it is simply shorthand for willingness to communicate. Honestly, I was just sick of like typing it out so many times in full length. This is actually much more complicated than it may seem at first. Picture this it's Monday morning, and you've signed up to go to a Gallic conversation circle on Thursday. You are super excited, even though you've never been to the circle before, nor to the place it's being held at. You only just started learning Gallic a few months ago via Duolingo, but the flyer said that beginners are welcome. Your copy of Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks is supposed to be delivered today, and you plan on spending as much time as possible after work before Thursday to prepare. Now it's Thursday. It has been a hell of a week at work. You've not gotten home until late every night this week, and you're rushing to get out of work to be able to make it to the conversation circle in time. You've been sure to do a lesson or two on duo every night just to keep your streak intact, but you haven't had a chance to even crack open the book. You are anxiously making your way through traffic, worried about being late and making a bad impression. When you finally get to the conversation circle, miraculously on time, you walk in the door and see all these people talking to each other. They all seem to already know each other, and the room falls a little silent when someone who must be the host welcomes you in Gaelic and shows you over to a table full of people. As introductions begin around the table, you start to feel really out of your depth. Oof. What a huge difference between the elation and motivation you would have been feeling on Monday and the nervousness and feeling of unpreparedness you would be having on that Thursday. And actually, maybe you're a bit shy or an introvert, so making this plan was already a big step, which adds to the stress or anxiety you might have been feeling leading up to the event. And I suspect we've all been in this kind of situation before. On Monday, you would have definitely given a go to any kind of conversation, even a wee one in Gaelic, and probably would have handled any feelings around mistakes you might have made with little distress. You might have even felt proud of yourself and have been looking forward to the next opportunity. On Thursday, though, already in a poor headspace, worries about first impressions, comparisons between your level of Gaelic and that of others, your ability to make conversation and follow what is happening, mistakes you are making, your pronunciation, and so on could very likely overshadow any of the positive takeaways you might have had from the event. As a result, you may wonder if you're really ready to speak with anyone in Gaelic, and you might even feel a bit embarrassed or ashamed. There are so many variables that impact our willingness to communicate at any given moment. The number of studies that have been done on this topic at both a macro and micro level is incredible. And at the core of each of them, in my humble layperson's opinion, is the idea that communication and conversation in any language is so highly dynamic and fluid, whether your native language or an L2, that trying to control for all of these variables so that one's WTC remains as high as possible at all times is impossible, or or at least incredibly difficult. Because, as we all know, communication requires at least two people at a minimum. Both need to have a reasonable level of WTC in general, then with each other, then about whatever topic is at hand, and then potentially in front of a class or a teacher, and so on. So then why even bring it up if it's nearly impossible to control all these different variables? Well, because nearly impossible implies that there is still room for us to influence our own WTC in any given situation. It just requires some self-reflection, honesty, and adaptation. Let me provide some examples, talk about some of the variables, and then explain how I intend to work on raising my own WTC, especially when it's quite low, because ever since I read it, I've not been able to forget that comment from Tomoko Yashima's paper, the paper that I cited earlier. They say that the willingness to communicate, quote, appears to be a powerful predictor of success, end quote, in terms of the likelihood of actually reaching a high advanced level of language competence or that even rarer fluent level. And I will become fluent, dang it. So I guess I'd better be willing to communicate. The first example I can think of where I could actively feel my WTC drop precipitously in the moment was in one of my second or third year Japanese classes. Have I mentioned this before? I can't remember. So apologies if so. Anyway, someone in the class was just having a hard time messing up something super basic that we had learned early in the first year. And the teacher said to them in front of the whole class that they needed to go back and review chapter one in the first course book. The mood of the entire class shifted instantly in that moment. We all felt secondhand embarrassment for our classmate, also completely demotivated to have to answer any questions or participate in any exchanges with the teacher for the rest of the class, out of fear of her tearing us down in front of everyone else in the same way. We didn't have any choice but to participate. But there was a collective anxiety that permeated the atmosphere for the rest of the class time, and honestly, the rest of the year with her. Her name was Kuwaii Sensei, but she had the nickname Kauai Sensei, meaning Mrs. Scary. This was not the last time I would hear a teacher do this though. In my Uncursor Urdish Module 4 class at Solomorovsky this year, I had made a mistake and didn't understand the grammar point. And the tutor said, essentially, that we had learned it in Module 1, the implication being that I should already know this by now, which made me feel stupid and incompetent and embarrassed. I absolutely hate when those in a position to educate others say things like this because it carries the whiff of you should know better, why are you still making this mistake, etc.? And doesn't actually help. And if you're an overthinking ADHDer with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, you will probably take this really hard. Another time was in a different class, and honestly, I just didn't vibe with the tutor's method or correction style, so I just stopped showing up to class. For some reason, I also didn't have confidence in what she was doing, so I was resistant to whatever she presented to us. Why did I feel like that? I don't know. Honestly, she was a very nice person, so it might have just been a touch of personality clash. But as such, I just really didn't interact in class as much as might have been useful for me in the greater scheme of things. Finally, I paid for a block of 10 lessons with a really lovely one-on-one tutor. Like we super get along. I think we even have literally the exact same birth date, like day, month, and year. And I have about four lessons left with her, but I've become avoidant and haven't scheduled my next one yet. Why? I don't know. I mean, I always enjoy our conversations, and we spend pretty much a whole hour in Gaelic, which is fantastic. But I always feel like I really have to motivate myself to go to s or to schedule the hour. I think it's because I get afraid that I won't have anything to talk about, or I'll do badly, or perhaps I won't have enough vocabulary to get through a conversation, or who knows what. So my WTC is so low even prior to a session that I can't get myself to schedule the next one. And how my I've kind of ghosted her a bit. It's so lame, I know. And that makes my willingness to communicate even lower. I am ashamed, but I guess that's where strategizing for how to address a low WTC can help. Good lord. I've said the phrase low WTC enough now to feel like I'm running an ad for a prescription drug or something. Anyway. This list is in no particular order. So here we go. One, fear. Like literally of anything, of embarrassment, making mistakes, whatever. Two, general shyness. Three, not having a topic that feels comfortable to talk about. Four. Overall mood. Five. Sense of preparedness. Six boredom with topic. Seven, not feeling like you have something to contribute. Eight. Extreme gaps between language competence levels. Nine. Too many people in a conversation or too few. Ten. Some performance aspects, such as speaking with someone in front of a group or a class. Eleven. Introversion or extroversion. Twelve. General or specific anxiety. Thirteen. Time of day. Fourteen. Location. Fifteen. Volume of ambient noise. Or type of ambient noise. Sixteen. Level of familiarity with conversation partners. Seventeen. Sense of psychological safety in the environment. Eighteen. Whatever has happened to you in your day up to that point. 19. Ability to concentrate. Twenty. Self-evaluation of language competence regardless of accuracy of said evaluation. Twenty-one. Overall self-esteem. Twenty-two. Your conversation partner's own willingness to communicate. Twenty-three. Motivation. Both immediate and longer term. Twenty-four. Goals. Both immediate and longer term. Twenty-five. Perceived consequences of communicating or not communicating. Twenty-six. How much you actually believe in your ability to improve in your target language and how much this particular occurrence contributes to that. And so on. And that's already quite a list. What number did you tune out at? Right. So if you already feel overwhelmed thinking about trying to manage all these variables, just think about the fact that your brain is managing all of that and more at every single microsecond. And how that would affect your decisions as well as your goals. Honestly, the brain is an incredible thing. I know that seems obvious to say, but let's just like take a minute and thank it for doing all that it does for us. Okay, so back to our discussion. I should mention that according to researchers James C. McCrosky and Virginia P. Richmond in a 1991 paper, willingness to communicate is a regular tendency across situations versus a readiness to communicate depending on mood or time of day, etc. However, there is a more recent model that suggests that WTC is not a persistent tendency, but rather more context dependent. I suspect the answer lies somewhere in between, along with a lot of other variables. I think at a functional level, that is, you and I as non-researchers, trying to get something useful and actionable out of all this research that has been done, we can kind of equate our willingness with our readiness to communicate, or at least consider them so strongly linked to one another as to be mutually inclusive. And also to think of it as something we can have both short-term and long-term influence over, insofar as we can build a habit around increasing our own WTC in any given moment. And as such, we strengthen that proverbial muscle so that we can flex it almost automatically in the future, so as to be more likely to embrace or even create situations in which we can utilize our target language. Alright, alright, alright, enough dithering. I think we're gonna lay this out as a series of steps to make it more easily digestible, but of course, take what works and feel free to arrange it in whatever way makes the most sense to you, even if it is just in the spirit of the exercise. Add to it, change it, do whatever suits. After all, your learning journey and mine won't be exactly the same, no matter how similar our goals or destinations. I do recommend doing something like this every time you consider registering for an event, class, whatever, and then actually prior to that said thing. I mean, that's what I'm gonna aim for anyway. Also, I'm gonna treat events and classes as separate things because they require a different level of thought, I think, when it comes to commitment. So let's think about an event where you will likely need or want to speak in Gaelic with someone before committing to an event. Consider the following. How many people might be there? Would speaking opportunities be one-on-one or in small groups, large groups, or in front of others more formally? Is there a topic of interest at the center of the event? What time of day is the event? Are you a morning or afternoon or night kind of person? How well does the timing align with this? If you're someone who needs to feel well prepared, will you have sufficient time to study your practice a little beforehand? How closely does the language level of the event align with your own feeling about your competence level? Do you know anyone who might be there, or is someone you know coming along with you who is also learning or speaking the language? What is your current frame of mind? How well have you slept lately? And how well are you likely to be able to rest beforehand? Will you have to rush to make it to the event or rush to leave it? Are you excited about the event or nervous? If nervous, can you identify what makes you nervous about it? What is your current level of motivation? How does attending this event help you get closer to achieving your goals? Are you willing to cancel without feeling guilty for doing so? If you find that you simply aren't up to it on the day of? I'm sure there are more questions I can put up here, but this should give you a general idea of what I think we should think about before we consider committing. And if we do decide to commit, we should keep checking in with ourselves to see where we are and how we're feeling. I know it sounds like a lot, but in reality, this is just making sure we can get a sense of what might hold us back or what might make us more reticent when it comes to taking advantage of the opportunity to practice in Gaelic. You'll notice that I didn't mention how we should be answering these questions or like what we should do if we have a particular type of response to any particular question. I think the reason for this should be obvious. I mean, we all tolerate different discomforts well differently. So that means that not getting much sleep may not impact my own WTC, but being super stressed out or overwhelmed certainly will. And thus, if that's how I'm feeling, perhaps I ought not go. Because if I try to force myself to communicate with others and I make mistakes because I'm not in the right headspace, then I'm personally likely to relive my embarrassment over and over again later. And that might contribute to an overall lower WTC in any future situation. I hope this is making sense and that you can see the value of this exercise. When it comes to a class, a lot of the same questions apply, but also think about the following. What's the class format? Are you currently able to commit to the work necessary to get out of it what you want to? And how likely is it that you will be able to sustain that commitment? Is the class at an appropriate level? How will this class help you meet your goals? Are you familiar with, or do you need to know the tutor or teacher? If so, how well does their style of teaching suit your needs? Some of these you may not be able to answer before attending a couple of classes, but if it's a new course or teacher, you may be able to reach out and see if you're able to attend the first one or two before committing, or if you'd be able to get a prorated refund if you chose not to continue. It never hurts to ask, and the worst that can happen is the organization or teacher or whomever says no. So now you've committed to doing a thing. The day is here, and you're en route to whatever it is, if it's in person or you're about to log on if it's online. Take a second and check in with yourself. How are you feeling about speaking with other people in Gaelic? If you're not feeling great, if your WTC isn't that high, what are some things you could maybe do to adjust this? Would remembering how motivated you felt when you signed up help? How about thinking of your goals? You know, maybe just keep in mind that it's important to be kind to yourself and that sometimes showing up is the hardest part. You know, that whole thing where simply putting on your shoes can be enough to get you out the door and on that run or to the gym. Maybe you just commit to speaking up at least once, or doing introductions, or asking one question throughout the course of the event or the class. Give yourself one teeny tiny goal related to speaking in the target language, ensuring you have something to congratulate yourself for later. So in this book that I read, there was something else that really resonated. And that was that you have to actually believe you can close the gap between yourself and the other people with whom you are communicating with that might have a higher degree of competence in the target language than you do. They don't actually say in the book why this is critical, but I suppose to some extent it goes without saying. But I'm gonna say it anyway. If you don't believe you can progress, you won't. Because you won't put in the work, you won't seek the opportunities to use the language, and that's what helps you get better. So ask yourself right now, do you actually believe you can improve and achieve whatever goals you have in the language? If not, if your answer was no, good Lord, please don't give up. That's not at all the point of me asking this question. Rather, it's an opportunity to take a look at your goals and perhaps resize them for a while. Maybe your overarching goal is to be confluent like mine. But the goal you need to be evaluating in this exercise is just carrying on one conversation in Gaelic for like five minutes without breaking into English, or perhaps it's getting through a five-week Gaelic course, something like that. It's it's really to say that you need to focus on that next most achievable goal. And when you've reached that one, do the next and the next. Something else that they mentioned as being valuable for both your goals and raising your overall WTC is visualization. Think of something you want to do in the language. For me, and I suspect for many of you, it's to be able to actually communicate with someone you have in mind completely in Gaelic, perhaps a friend or a family member, or a loved one. I mean, I also want to work in and with Gaelic, which may be another goal some of you have. Every time you're preparing yourself for something where the Opportunity to speak in the language might present itself. Take a minute or two to daydream what it would be like to be fluently speaking in that situation or with that person and how you will feel, knowing you can do it with ease. And then think about your goals and how they help you get to that point. This type of visualization is said to be extremely powerful. Like, no woo-woo here, just actual research backing this up. Try it. Nobody has to know that's what you're doing in the car or on the subway or whatever. You don't have to feel silly about doing this unless feeling silly or being silly is a motivating feeling for you. I mean, honestly, being silly is one of my favorite ways to be. So actually, that would work for me. Ooh, I need to think about what's it like to be silly and gallic. Hmm. Anyways, now I can hear some people thinking, my God, aren't you overthinking this a bit? Welcome, Macharic, on this show. Your host, Ms. Michelle Hughes, is a certified overthinker and a big emotions kind of gal. So maybe not everyone needs to go through these kinds of processes or rituals. But what I will say is that I absolutely believe everyone has the potential to achieve their goals with Gaelic. However, there are so many wonderful, lovely, and capable people that I've chatted with on my own journey who have expressed a desire to speak Gaelic, but underlying that is a low willingness to communicate, whether it be because they're nervous, have a low sense of competence, are true beginners, have received a lot of negative feedback or internalized error correction as negative feedback, have had bad experiences, whatever. This is just simply the truth. Whenever we have felt a hesitance to speak when presented with the opportunity that had nothing to do with our trying to gather our thoughts or to work out how to say something, is because there are variables that are engendering a low willingness to communicate. And reverse engineering that feeling to understand and address the most commonly occurring variables within our control so that we can try to raise our WTC at any given time just seems to be the logical strategy, in my opinion. And thus, as with most of my podcast episodes, it seems the overarching theme here might actually be know thyself and then find ways to outsmart thyself to get what thy wants. I digress a lot. So to put everything I just mentioned into some practical steps, I think what will help is thinking about how these sessions help me reach my goals. Remembering that I actually enjoy my sessions. Remembering the fact that it's a space where I actually feel safe enough to make mistakes. Remembering that consistency is really important, even though that's something I can struggle with a lot of the time. You know what? I could prepare topics and research some vocabulary on those topics so I don't have to worry about coming up with things to talk about in the moment. I'm feeling underprepared and caught off guard. I can schedule it for a time when I will likely feel well rested and unhurried. I should remember that my mistakes are not a reflection of my intelligence or capabilities. They're just mistakes. And I should visualize myself as a fluent speaker and as someone achieving the things that I want to. It's interesting because I've literally said at least like, I don't know, how many episodes in are we? Like 13 different times I want to do interviews with people I know on sagalic for this podcast, using Mukutch Gallic, no matter how bad, for as long as we can before flipping into English, and yet here we are, and I still haven't done that. Why? Because I am such a coward, for real. I am extremely anxious and nervous about it. But like, I have friends who are fluent who I've asked to do this with me, and then I've never followed up on it because I'm scared of just like sucking terribly and embarrassing myself. I don't know if you're like me in this regard. I literally could not care less about what strangers think of my Gallic, but friends, like my friends and teachers' opinions, oh my god, dying just even thinking about it. But on the other hand, when I did my interviews for my silver card for the mod and for the Gallic immersion year, I was like super nervous. I also felt like I want this so bad, give me what I want. I would do whatever I have to, I will do my best. So I don't know. I guess I've suppose I felt like those things may have been more obtainable than the positive opinions of my friends. Well, even even I see the flaw in that logic. So I guess welcome to my new podcast. Michelle faces her fears and stops being irrational and just does the thing, dang it. Because now that I've said it out loud, I can't let this continue to be true. Ugh. And on that note, a few final things I want to mention. My GoFundMe for the Gallic immersion year. Oh my god, guys, it's not like almost 2300 bucks. For real. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far. And if you haven't, but are able and willing, I would be so grateful. And if you haven't and can't Totally super cool and super fine. Listen, I understand. Um, especially after all, as I am the one asking for help here. Um, so it's not like I I'm thrown around the big bucks either. Uh also, you know, I did write emails to both Unique Glasgow and the Scottish Parliament advocating for home fees at all higher education institutions for Gaelic immersion programs like these, not just for myself, but any international student who has demonstrated sufficient Gaelic skills to be accepted into such a program. I am happy to go into details on my thoughts about that and why I think that should be the case. But I mean, I think it's a sensible and reasonable suggestion. On that note, I am holding a fundraising concert in Columbus, Ohio on August 15th from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at what are we? Eastern daylight. I don't know. At the Swain Studio. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'll be performing my mod songs, I'm gonna have a raffle. I'm making like these best cookies ever um secret recipe from my homie, Kyle. But yeah, anyways, I'm gonna perform those songs um that I've got memorized so far anyway. I have like two verses. No, I have like one verse of one song left, or one whole song left, and my Porsche set. So, like, that's pretty great. I'm super happy, but I gotta start working on the choir songs too. Anyways, the concert. I've had some questions as to whether it will be streamed. I will confirm for sure, but it seems like the answer to that will be yes. I just know that it will be kind of late for those in different time zones, and I will keep you updated. But I also super appreciate y'all who would like to attend anyway. Love you punches. Finally, I'm thinking of starting some online conversation circles. Would you be interested? Maybe a book club as well. And I might have something regarding pronunciation training. If I can find my darn second copy of my Bible, aka Blos Nagalic. I swear I didn't take it to Grandfather Mountain, but I can't find it anywhere. And listen, that sucker's huge, it's really hard to lose. Actually, that reminds me. Grandfather Mountain Gaelic Song and Language Week was super baller again this year. If you were there, you know. If you weren't, please join us next year. It's fantastic. It's so much freaking fun. We learn so much, we we get to share our interests and our and our and our and our knowledge and and just everything with just the most fantastic group of people. It's always the first week, well, the first full week of July at Lee's McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina, and goes along with the Grandfather Mountain Highland games that weekend. Speaking of which, I won second place women's and second place overall at the Grandfather Mountain mod. Bye, Muy Cow. I mean, I happily and graciously lost to the inimitable Mary Triwick, but I have been trying to place in this darn thing since I started attending back in 2022. So it just makes me feel a lot of validation in terms of how far I've come. If you'd like to see a video of my performance, it's on the Michelle Learns Gallig YouTube channel. Alright, that's it. Awesome. Let's get better together.