Extending earlier research on the concept of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) (e.g., MacIntyre et al., 1998), this paper tests the WTC concept on a secondary school in Singapore where English is used as a lingua franca. In doing so, a layer of complexity is added to the WTC concept. By focusing on classroom interactions involving one immigrant student from China and examining how her WTC changes over the course of a school year, this paper argues that the sociolinguistic notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) can enhance earlier conceptualizations of WTC. Such a theoretical and methodological renovation of WTC is vitally important in order to take into account the lived and learning experiences of immigrant students in an increasingly globalized education landscape.