Willingness to Communicate and Confidence in English Discussion Classes

This paper describes a study which sought to determine whether students became more positive toward using English for communication in class during the first semester of a compulsory English discussion class.Questionnaires of willingness to communicate (WTC) and communicative confidence using English were administered four times over an academic semester.3,185 students completed all four administrations of the questionnaire.Results indicated that 1) students made significant gains in WTC and confidence over the semester, and 2) while some differences were found, these gains were largely independent of the subject in which the student was majoring.These results contrasted with other studies conducted in Japanese educational settings.