TITLE:
The Relationship between Foreign Language Enjoyment and Students’ Willingness to Communicate in EFL Context
AUTHORS:
Shengliang Wang
KEYWORDS:
Foreign Language Enjoyment, Willingness to Communicate, Pedagogical Strategies
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.13 No.9,
September
15,
2026
ABSTRACT: Foreign language enjoyment (FLE), a key affective variable grounded in positive psychology, has received increasing attention in L2 acquisition in recent years. Based on a review of the conceptualization and classification of FLE, and drawing on theoretical models of willingness to communicate in the second language (L2 WTC), this paper explores the mechanisms underlying the relationship between FLE and L2 WTC. Findings indicate that FLE is positively associated with L2 WTC through pathways such as reducing communicative anxiety, enhancing psychological safety, and stimulating intrinsic learning motivation. Accordingly, this paper proposes pedagogical strategies from three perspectives: creating an emotionally supportive classroom environment, designing meaningful communicative tasks, and optimizing teacher feedback practices, aiming to provide implications for foreign language teaching practice.