A Comparative Study of the Iranian and Malaysian English Learners' Communication Anxiety, Communicative Competence, Willingness to Communicate (WTC), and International Posture

The purpose of the present study was to investigate several commonly used measures of communication orientations, namely communication anxiety, communicative competence, willingness to communicate, and international posture of Iranian EFL and Malaysian ESL learners. To this end, samples of Iranian EFL university students were selected to be compared with Malaysian ESL university students through non-probability convenience sampling method. The results of the study indicated that the differences between Iranian and Malaysian samples do exist, but the differences were primarily restricted to “communication anxiety” and “willingness to communicate”, and the other two measures of “communicative competence” and “international posture” were found to be not significantly different between the learners of the two groups. Hence, the Iranian EFL learners felt as competent to communicate as the Malaysian ESL learners. Furthermore, the Malaysian learners were documented to experience and suffer from more communication anxiety than their Iranian counterparts. However, the Iranian EFL learners expressed more willingness to communicate than those Malay ESL learners. Regarding international posture, however, the participants of both groups showed an equal tendency and readiness to relate themselves to the international community. The findings of the current study had specific implications for instructors, administrators, and learners in both ESL and EFL contexts.