Wahyuni, Yayuk. 2019. Willingness to Communicate as a Mediator of the Relation between Speaking Anxiety and Speaking Achievement of EFL Students (under supervisors of Prof. Dr. Susilo, M.Pd and Dyah Sunggingwati, Ph.D). Samarinda: Unpublished Thesis. Mulawarman University.
Foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA) is an affective factor together with willingness to communicate (WTC) which influenced speaking performance of the students. As speaking is the goal of language learning for communication,understanding the role of both affective factors become an issue for teacher and students. Therefore, the researcher intended to investigate the role of WTC as a mediator of the relation between FLSA and speaking achievement of the students.
This study is a kind of correlational research in the purpose of prediction. The population of this study was the third semester students of Mulawarman University. The number of sample was 50 students, chosen by simple random sampling. The data of this study were the result of FLSA and WTC questionnaire as well as speaking test. Simple linear and multiple regression were used to analyze the data.
The result of this study revealed that both FLSA and WTC level ofstudents fell within moderate category. Also, FLSA significantly predicted speaking achievement and WTC respectively. Afterwards, WTC significantlypredicted speaking achievement allowing the multiple regression to be conducted. Finally, it was concluded by multiple regression result and confirmed by Sobel test that WTC partially mediated the relationship between FLSA and speaking achievement of the students. WTC took dominant role as mediator between FLSA and speakingachievement. Therefore, teacher should facilitate classroom atmosphere forstudents to speak more often. It will be beneficial for future researchers to elaborate the factors of either WTC or FLSA as well as implementing suitable teaching procedure to enhance WTC in the classroom.
Keywords: Willingness to Communicate (WTC), Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety (FLSA), Speaking achievement