A Survey Of Medical Undergraduates’ Willingness To Communicate Verbally In English

This study surveyed 200 medical undergraduates of a university, aiming at knowing about the general condition and characteristics of Chinese medical undergraduates’ willingness to communicate in English, and to explore whether there is group difference in it, as well as the possible reasons which result in this kind of difference. The data, collected by a questionnaire and semi-structured interview, was analyzed using SPSS 13.0, and the four major findings are concluded as follows:Firstly, the participants’ willingness to communicate in English was relatively modest, and they were more willing to speak English in class than out of class, preferring less interactive communicative situations.Secondly, the participants’ willingness to communicate in English was significantly related to their self-perceived communicative competence, and the relation was positive, at medium level in general as well as in class and out of class.Thirdly, city participants’ willingness to communicate in English was significantly higher than that of country ones; but the gender difference in the participants’ willingness to communicate in English was very small.Fourthly, city participants showed significantly higher willingness to communicate in English than country ones did was probably due to city participants’ significantly higher self-perceived communicative competence and country participants’ high group cohesiveness. However, there was little gender difference in these participants’ willingness to communicate in English probably because though female participants had higher self-perceived communicative competence, their high communication apprehension reduced their willingness to communicate. Namely, females’ willingness to communicate was more influenced by their communication apprehension,whereas males’ willingness to communicate was more affected by their self-perceived communicative competence.Based on these findings, the researcher provided several suggestions for oral English instructions of Chinese university,especially for medical university.In the first place, put the increase of students’ willingness to communicate into English teaching syllabus.Moreover, satisfy students’ psychological needs, especially increase self-perceived communicative competence.Additionally, care more about country students’ oral English practice, and provide them with affluent resources for English communication.Finally, take different measures to increase different genders’ willingness to communicate.