The Relationship between Willingness to Communicate in English inside the Classroom and Achievement in the Omani ELT Context

Abstract

Willing to Communicate in English (WTC) when choice is given to the learners has been explored in different ELT contexts. The current quantitative study aims at investigating the WTC in the Omani tertiary level in relation to the students' achievement in a public speaking course. Data were gathered by administrating a modified version of Wietelak and Pawlak (2016) WTC inside the class questionnaire. The questionnaire was answered by 50 post foundation students compromising 14 males, and 36 females who registered in the public speaking course in the second academic semester 2018 in Shinas College of Technology, Oman. Additionally, their marks in the progress test in the speaking course were obtained. The results of the correlational analyses revealed that there was no significant relation between students WTC and their achievement in the Public speaking course. Also the results indicated that students avoid communicating in English frequently because of their limited linguistic abilities more than the other cultural and psychological reasons.