An Investigation into the Influences of Anxiety in Non-English Major Tertiary Learners’ Willingness to Communicate Orally in Vietnamese EFL Classrooms

This paper scrutinized the impact of foreign language anxiety on tertiary Vietnamese students’ willingness to communicate orally in EFL classrooms. The study had two research questions: 1) Which is the most common type of foreign language anxiety experienced by non – English tertiary Vietnamese students in EFL classrooms, and 2) What is the correlation between foreign language anxiety and Vietnamese students’ willingness to communicate orally in EFL classrooms. The data was collected from 176 non-English major tertiary students learning in a public university in Ho Chi Minh City by facilitating the Willingness to communicate Scale and Foreign Language Anxiety Scale. The study’s results analyzed in a quantitative descriptive approach indicated that communication apprehension was the most common type of anxiety experienced by the students in the English learning process. The study found that language anxiety negatively correlated with willingness to speak. It means the students were more anxious, they could not engage in the in-class communicative activities, which might affect their academic performance. The present paper hopes to provide educators and school managers who might encourage students’ readiness to join speaking activities in Vietnamese EFL classrooms with a comprehensive understanding of the influence of foreign language anxiety on students’ willingness to communicate.