This study aimed to identify associations and predictors of willingness to communicate (WTC) of adult foreign language (FL) learners and whether they are contingent upon the FL being learned. To this end, our research investigated learner variables associated with WTC in adult FL learners of English and of French in an under-researched field of WTC studies in Spain. More specifically, the following variables were studied: gender, age, level of multilingualism, perceived relative standing in the class, language proficiency, teacher’s use of the FL in class, out-of-class foreign language use (OCFLU) and the two emotions of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA). Of the 9 independent variables examined, FLCA and language proficiency were found to be predictors of the WTC of both English and French language learners; additionally, enjoyment was found to be a predictor of WTC of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and OCFLU, of learners of French as a foreign language (FFL). Our findings indicate that the construct of WTC needs to be further studied as research may produce dissimilar results depending on the instructional setting, population and foreign language. Pedagogical implications for language teaching practices seeking to enhance adult FL learners’ WTC were also drawn from the study results.

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Background. Research interest in FLE and its associated factors has increased in recent years, especially regarding learner-internal factors. Happiness could potentially be one of the predictors of FLE. Purpose. This study aimed to investigate the link between foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and a measure of subjective happiness (SH). Methods. A total of 594 adult foreign language learners aged 16 to 72 participated in the study. Ten items extracted from the FLE scale and the SH scale translated and validated into Spanish were used to gather the data. Results. With a significant 3.6% shared variance between FLE and SH, the study found that participants with higher scores on FLE have higher scores on SH. However, the percentage of shared variance found is considerably higher for different subgroups (e.g., 6.7% for the older adolescent group and 10% for mature and senior adults). The results suggest that the relationship between personality variables and FLE may differ depending on learner-internal factors such as age, gender, competence level and foreign language. Implications. The study opens a new line of research into the interaction between FLE and happiness, and factors affecting it with a sample that, due to the wide range of participant ages and the number of participants beyond their twenties, is more representative of the adult foreign language learner population than is usually the case in studies of FLE.

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Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) has become one of the most extensively studied emotions in the FL learning field since the publication of Dewaele and MacIntyre's (2014) article, which included a measure of FLE widely used in later studies. The extension of the original instrument demonstrated the need to obtain a shorter measuring tool for this construct without compromising its validity and reliability. Given that, to date, no FLE measurement instrument has been validated in Spanish, this study had two objectives: the translation into Spanish and the cultural adaptationvalidation of the original FLE scale, and the comparative psychometric evaluation of FLE scales reduced and validated in different contexts. The participants were 184 adult learners of English, French, and German from the Official School of Languages in Lucena (Spain). The study concludes that the Foreign Language Learning Enjoyment Scale in the Classroom (EDALEC) in Spanish is a valid, reliable, and adequate tool to be used with adult FL students in Spain, and that the reduced scale with the most satisfactory model fit values to the data is the 11-item scale by Li, Jiang and Dewaele (2018). These findings open the door for the EDALEC in Spanish and the reduced scales derived from the original FLE measuring tool to be validated in other cultural and educational contexts in the Spanish-speaking world.