The mediating role of willingness to communicate: Linking dialogic teaching to student discursive engagement in L2 classrooms

While teachers bear the responsibility for facilitating discourse in second language (L2) classrooms, this study examines a specific pathway linking pedagogy to student participation. We investigated the relationship between a representative dialogic teaching strategy, academically productive talk (APT), and students’ discursive engagement in class. Using a sample of 490 students from seven primary and secondary schools, we analyzed associations among students’ perceptions of their teachers’ APT, students’ willingness to communicate (WTC), L2 learning motivation, L2 communication confidence, and their discursive engagement in L2 English classrooms. Structural equation modeling revealed that student-perceived teacher APT was positively related to both students’ WTC and their discursive engagement with peers. WTC partially mediated the relationship between student-perceived teacher APT and students’ discursive engagement. WTC was also found to mediate the relationships of L2 motivation and communication confidence with engagement. Student learning motivation was indirectly linked to their discursive engagement, mediated by communication confidence and WTC. These findings highlight the role of teachers in fostering productive classroom talk and student engagement. This study also provides evidence on how students’ WTC may relate to their discussion behavior, and WTC’s partial mediating role between teacher APT and student discursive engagement with classmates. The cross-sectional, self-report data suggest relationships that warrant future multi-method, longitudinal, or experimental investigation.