Impact of English Instruction Amount on Omani Students' Willingness to Communicate in English

Abstract

This study examined the role of English instruction on students' willingness to communicate (WTC) in Oman's English foreign language (EFL) context. WTC in a second language (L2) is a multi-faceted construct that integrates psychological, linguistic, and communicative variables to describe, explain, and predict students' communicative behaviour in an L2. This quantitative study employed a survey to assess L2 WTC key variables of informants from Year 1 (116) and Year 4 (88) English major students in higher education. A t-test analysis revealed that Year 4 students had higher WTC in English than Year 1 students, and they also had less communication anxiety than Year 1 students. Conversely, Year 1 students had higher self-perceived communication competence and tended to communicate more frequently than Year 4 students. They also tended to be more motivated than Year 4 students and had higher positive attitudes toward their learning situation, English- speaking community, and interest in foreign language learning. Surprisingly, the data revealed no significant differences in all those variables between Year 1 and Year 4 students.