the role of achievement emotions and l2 grit in efl learners’ willingness to communicate in online classrooms

Much of the last 25 years of investigation into willingness to communicate in a second language (l2 wtc) has been dominated by a focus on in-person language classes, yet little is known about how learners’ tendency toward communication has been affected in online classrooms. to contribute to this nascent line of research prompted largely by the covid-19 pandemic, the present study investigates the role that achievement emotions (i.e., boredom & enjoyment) and l2 grit which comprises two lower-order constructs of perseverance of effort (poe) and consistency of interest (coi), play in english as a foreign language (efl) learners’ l2 wtc in online language classrooms. the data collected through an online survey from 243 iranian efl learners were analyzed through correlation and regression analyses. overall, the analyses revealed that learners experienced low levels of l2 wtc in online classrooms. while both poe and coi predicted l2 wtc, boredom proved to be the strongest negative predictor, and enjoyment failed to exert any effect. in other words, bored individuals failed to enjoy the online classrooms and refrained from opportunities to enter or initiate communication. the findings invite the possibility that negative emotions tend to permeate online courses and barricade learners’ language acquisition journey toward their l2 goals such as communication. the findings are discussed in terms of implications for teachers to improve the experience of online english education by lowering negative emotions and encouraging positive emotions and l2 grit in the online environment. finally, suggestions for further research are presented.