In language learning, communication is essential, where learners’ desire and willingness to interact with others are significant in honing their communication capabilities alongside other necessary competencies. There are many factors that influence students’ willingness to communicate (WTC), among which the correlation between emotional intelligence and WTC still needs to be further researched. To investigate the emotional intelligence profiles of Chinese EFL college students and to examine different levels of their willingness to communicate, we recruited 476 Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners across 11 provinces to complete our questionnaire. Through latent profile analysis (LPA) and one way analysis of variance, we found that there were four EI profiles of Chinese EFL college students: Emotionally Challenged (EC), Emotionally Struggling (ES), Emotionally Average (EA), and Emotionally Proficient (EP), among which most students (63%) fell into the EA profile. The EC profile (17%) was the second largest profile. We also found that each of the four profiles had unique WTC characteristics, with and different dimensions of WTC including, speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension. Notably, the EC profile demonstrated the lowest WTC level among the four profiles, whereas the EP profile displayed the highest overall WTC level. These findings are meaningful for comprehending students’ emotional intelligence profiles within language learning environments, and they provide valuable insights for educators to address diverse students’ needs to enhance their WTC.
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