Foreign Language Enjoyment, L2 Grit, and Perceived Teacher Support in TESOL Contexts: A Structural Equation Modeling Study of L2 Willingness to Communicate

This research explores the roles of perceived teacher support, L2 grit, and Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) in willingness to communicate (WTC) in English among Pakistani university students, thereby filling a contextual gap in Pakistani multilingual society. It utilized a quantitative cross-sectional design based on the WTC pyramid model by MacIntyre et al. and positive psychology. Adapted scales were used to gather data on 1050 multidisciplinary Pakistani English learners, who were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The main findings can be summarized as follows: (1) perceived teacher support had a small but significant direct effect on L2 WTC; (2) L2 grit had a strong and significant direct effect on L2 WTC; and (3) more importantly, FLE had a significant mediating effect. Indirectly, teacher support was the key factor in improving the L2 WTC, as evidenced by a significant increase in FLE. Though the impact of L2 grit was mostly direct, it was also indirect through FLE. This model explained 45.9 percent of the variation in L2 WTC. These findings highlight FLE, a favorable emotion, as the key channel through which environmental support (teacher support) and personal resilience (L2 grit) are translated into communicative willingness. The results confirm the inclusion of positive psychology into the multi-layered L2 WTC model, which emphasizes the importance of FLE in connecting cognition and emotion. This has important pedagogical implications for EFL/ESL contexts in Pakistan, where teachers should create engaging learning experiences, provide multidimensional support, and foster learners’ perseverance to enhance communicative interaction.