| The junior high school is a key place for learners to acquire English basic knowledge.It is an important stage for emotional intelligence training,and during the stage the improvement of English oral proficiency is the key goal of English teaching in the compulsory education.However,in the course of the implementation of the English curriculum,English achievement became the focus of teaching,and the learner’s emotional experience and willingness to communicate（WTC）in spoken English classroom were not fully valued.Given the shapeability of emotional intelligence,teachers are expected to improve the students’ emotional intelligence（EI）,thereby promote learners’ English oral autonomy and expressive initiative.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct a special study to explore the correlation between EI and students’ WTC.This study aims to provide some reference for front-line teachers in cultivating the psychological ability and Oral English proficiency of junior high school students.Based on positive psychology and control-value theory,this study conducted a questionnaire survey among 248 second graders of a junior high school in Fujian Province,and examined EI and WTC in the English classroom.The auther used Epidata3.1 to analyze these quantitative data through SPSS26.0 in order to explore the relationship between EI and WTC.The research explored the following questions:（1）What is the overall situation of EI of junior high school students?（2）What is their overall situation of WTC in English classrooms?（3）What is the correlation between EI and WTC ?It was found that:（1）EI as a whole ranged middle,and the EI of different individuals varied greatly.Four dimensions of EI ranging from decreasing order,were sociality,happiness,self-control,and emotionality.Among them,the mean of sociality and happiness values ranked top,the emotionality mean did the lowest,and the learners’ emotional perception,expression and empathy ability were relatively weak.In the secondary dimension of EI,the average value of trait optimism ranged top,and the learner’s attitude towards life was more positive.The mean of relationships ranked lowest,and learners felt difficulty maintaining satisfactory relationships.（2）The overall level of WTC was not high,in the four types of communicative classroom contexts ranking from decreasing order were:teacher-whole class communication,paired communication,group communication,and teacher-individual communication.The average value of the teacher-class communication situation ranked top in which students performed better based on the one-to-many communication situation between the teacher and the whole class.while the average value of teacher-individual communication ranked the lowest.It was shown when the teacher and the student interact one-on-one,the students were less willing to join the English oral communication activities.In addition,students were more motivated to participate in collective English classroom games and sentence pattern exercises,and less willing to ask the teacher for help when they had questions about the tasks assigned by the teacher.（3）There is a significant positive correlation between EI and willingness WTC.In the four dimensions of EI,self-control and happiness were significantly related to WTC,while emotional and social communication are little correlated with WTC.Self-control was the greatest predictive factor of WTC,while emotional and sociality which cannot significantly predict WTC.Finally,based on the results of the questionnaire and the problems found during the internship,the author puts forward the following teaching suggestions concerning cultivating EI and WTC:（1）Teachers are expected to create a good family emotional atmosphere and enhance learners’ self-confidence in oral expression.（2）Teachers are asked to integrate emotional intelligence education into the oral classroom to create a positive communicative situation.（3）Teachers are supposed to offer group psychological counseling and help students actively engage in oral communication activities. |
