Perceived teachers’ enthusiasm and willingness to communicate in the online class: The mediating role of learning enjoyment and group interaction for Chinese as a second language

Few previous studies have focused on the effect of online environment factors (teachers’ enthusiasm, group interaction, etc.) on learners’ willingness to communicate in the context of learning Chinese as a second language (CSL). To fill this gap, this study investigated 471 CSL learners (1) to explore the mediating role of online learning enjoyment and perceived group interaction on the perception of teachers’ enthusiasm and willingness to communicate in L2 in online CSL classes; and (2) to clarify whether gender, weekly self-online learning time and learning achievement moderate those relations. A moderated mediation structural equation model with good fitness revealed that both perceived group interaction and online learning enjoyment fully mediated the relationship between perceived teachers’ enthusiasm and willingness to communicate in L2, with perceived group interaction being a more vital mediator than learning enjoyment. The results illustrated that the structural mediating relationships significantly differ across genders, weekly self-learning times, and learners with different learning achievements. The findings advance the understanding of the pyramid model of willingness to communicate in online L2 learning and provide significant pedagogical implications.