The Influence of an Orientation Program on Willingness to Communicate and L2 Anxiety

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of a two-week English-language orientation program at a Korean university on first-year students’ perceptions of English. This quantitative study contributes to the local literature by documenting the changes on a pre-and post-course survey that measured participants’ willingness to communicate, foreign language anxiety, attitudes towards English, and perceptions of English as a global language. Key results of independent-samples t-tests indicated that student perceptions showed statistically significant changes on five of the six scales, and that the biggest influences of the program were on willingness to communicate and lessening student anxiety. The study also investigated the link between program satisfaction and experience of studying English abroad, finding that there was no relation between them. However, a one-way ANOVA and correlation analysis indicated that there was a relationship between program satisfaction and students’ self-rated proficiency, finding that the lower-proficiency students were slightly less satisfied than those rating themselves as “average” or “good” English speakers. The study concludes with recommendations for future studies and for planning English-language orientation programs in Korean universities.