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Our findings show that adsorbed glycine at the alumina surface prefers specific surface sites and adopts preferred orientations following the lattice direction of surface oxygen atoms, particularly in long chains with high n. Water also plays an important role. Glycine in long chains has fewer coordinated water molecules than it does as an isolated monomer in solution, indicating the necessity of water removal to form long chains during the assembly of adsorbed glycine. Although questions pertaining to the thermodynamics and kinetics of interfacial peptide condensation reactions necessitate further investigations using quantum mechanical approaches, this work reveals how oxide surfaces promote pre-reaction assembly and accelerate the prebiotic formation of life’s building blocks because of high local density and surface templating effects.