Emotional intelligence and language learning

Emotional Intelligence and Language Learning
Đỗ Thị Dung
1. Introduction
Variation in general abilities of human beings gave birth to the concept of
intelligence. Since 1990, when for the first time emotional intelligence was introduced, it
has become a buzzword in many fields including education, management studies, and
artificial intelligences. In the context of foreign language learning, it has been applied in
educational institutions for language competence. Learners vary enormously in how
successful they are in learning a second language. All people acknowledge that some
individuals learn a second language easily while some others with more difficulty.
Among many factors contributing to second language learning success, including
motivation, attitude or personality types, it seems that one important factor which
accounts for success in language learning is the degree of intelligence that individuals
possess. Research has demonstrated that EQ more than IQ accounts for success in life
and education (Goleman, 1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Much research findings
suggests that emotional intelligence is important for working settings (Carmeli, 2003),
and classroom (Petrides, Frederickson, and Furnham, 2004), and enhances performance
in interviewing (Fox & Spector, 2000), cognitive tasks (Shuttes, Schuetplez, & Malouff,
2001), and contextual performance (Carmeli, 2003)
2. Emotional Intelligence
The concept of emotional intelligence (EI) was first put forwards by Payne (1986). Then,
this concept developed formally by two pioneers in the field of psychology, Salovey and
Mayer (1990). Mayer and Salovey (1997) defined emotional intelligence as “the abilities
to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought,
to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so
as to promote emotional and intellectual growth”. EI discusses emotional, social, personal
and survival aspects of intelligence and its major concern is to help individual understand
one another. EI helps to comprehend the ways to adapt and cope with the immediate
surroundings in order to be more successful in various situations; i.e., better the
understanding of the situation, more the chance of success. Hence, it helps to predict
success. In other words, to measure EI is to measure the ability of a person to get along in

the world. Cognitive intelligence alone is not the key to determine and predict success
because many less cognitively intelligence individuals are more prosperous and
successful as comparing to many cognitive intelligent people (Bar-on, 2004).


The word emotional in EI distinguishes it from any other kinds of intelligences,
especially cognitive intelligence. Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2002) argue that EI is a
bunch of concepts: Intelligence involves the idea of most important ability to do abstract
reasoning, the field of emotions gives notion that emotions are cues which represent
meanings of associated relationship such as fear represents threats and happiness is
related to acceptance. Similarly, the idea that some emotions are universal has been
conceived by classifying basic emotional expression in human beings and other species
through extensive studies (p.6).
Bar-on (2004) defines EI as an array of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies, and
skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with situational demands and
pressures. The adjective “emotional” means intelligence to emotion related knowledge
and abilities used in life that separates its functioning from cognitive intelligence. He also
takes success as a set goal of a person for which one struggles to accomplish.
Goleman and Cherniss presented the idea of emotional competence which is “a learned
ability grounded in ET” (2001, p.28). It is the ability to understand, manage, express and
use emotions. EI affects the ability to learn practical emotional competencies and
develops emotional literacy necessary for satisfied better quality life and overral
happiness. Goleman (2000) has provided twenty competencies nested in four clusters of
general EI abilities which can be learned and applied in everyday life. Similarly,
Singh(2003) considers psychological perspective of EI as abilitiy of a person to be
emotionally competent; to gain emotionally maturity and have emotional sensitivity. It is
an essential social skill of relationship management.
In the same vein, Bar-on (2007) argues that people who are emotionally intelligent are
likely to be better in some parts of life when compared to people who are less
emotionally intelligent than them. After conducting his research on more than 23000

people, he concluded that emotional intelligence has a considerable effect on individual’s
performance. Brackett and Salovey (2004) study also reflected that there is a correlation
between EI and psychological health. It has been observed that learner feel more relaxed
when the educational environment takes care of their emotions into consideration. If this
qualitive atmosphere exists in the learning environment steadily, then it will be better for
the students’ not only personal but also academic development (Panju, 2008). Learning
consists of the following factors: interests, attention, memorization, schema, and
motivation. Different types of fears motivate learners such as fear of punishment,
failuare, career-loss, teacher, and in case of failure humiliation in friends and family.
These fears generate stress that makes association of learning with pain. Whereas, factors
of EI such as self-awareness, managing emotions, empathy, cooperation, communication


and resolving conflicts are vital not only for teaching – learning process but also for
lifelong learning and success.
3. Emotional Intelligence in Foreign Language Learning
Bar-on (2004, p.15), in the context of EI, defines the term success as “the end-product of
that which one strives to achieve and accomplish as such, it is very subjective and
potentially socially influenced.” For example getting admission in a “good” school and
abtaining “high” grades is success for someone. Regarding academic success Bar-on
(2004, p.132) cites the study of Amanda Swart who administered EQ-I to 448 students at
the University of Pretoria and concluded that academically successful students had
significantly higher EQ-I scores.
Learning to manage feelings and relationships develop a kind of EI that helps individuals
to be successful. Goleman (1995) regards EI responsible for success in almost every
aspect of person’s life. Students who think positively can concentrate for a long time and
attain academic achievement without any difficulty; such students are self – motivated,
capable and display strong personality traits. Goleman considers EI as a set of crucial
abilities for effective living and emphasizes teaching of its basics in school. According to
Cherniss, Goleman and Emmerling (1998), early life plays key role in shaping or

destroying emotional competency skills of an individual. There is a significant correlation
between specific EI skills and academic success of students. Children who consistently
get emotional coaching from their parents experience better physical health, more
positive feelings and score higher in academics as compare to those children who do not
get such guidance.
Chang (2008) argues that EI may be improved at any stage of life. Due to the fact that
emotions can be learned and controlled, teachers may help the students improve
themselves accordingly through strategies like role-play, problem-solving, critical
thinking and conflict management.
With the increasing attention in various educational fields, a high level of interest across
language teaching and learning also developed, as there are some studies conducted to
investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and language performance.
The extent to which emotional intelligence can be implemented and used to improve
language teaching and learning needs consideration. One question that can be asked is,
are intelligent people more successful at learning languages? When learning languages,
the interaction between the teacher and learner is important for both communication and
the physiological aspects between the two. An important factor in learning languages is


the ability to be emotionally intelligent by showing the capacity to recognize, employ,
comprehend, and manage emotions. These characteristics are much more important than
simply being intelligent. Every genius is not guaranteed to become successful in life, and
vice versa; the possession of a high IQ rating is not the sole indicator when it comes to
being successful in all fields (Goleman, 1995). It is even claimed that emotional
intelligence is a more important key to success, and not to cognitive intelligence, more
accurately predicts success in school.
The importance of emotional intelligence is often ignored. However, students learning a
foreign language look for and need emotional intelligence, between the teacher and
themselves and whether in the classroom or at a more personal level. Beginners need and
ask for tolerance and patience as well as an understanding from their teachers and fellow

classmates. Sometimes, the views of the teacher can make a student behave badly in the
classroom, a behavior that was created by the teachers’ own doing. In the world of
teaching English as a foreign language, emotional intelligence is still not widely known,
used, or studied although increased efforts to popularise this term have occurred in the
past two decades.
As previous stated, emotional intelligence involves the innate ability of a person and can
be improved by external factors such as the environment and experience. As area of
study, emotion and intelligence are tied together because emotion is viewed to contribute
to the ability to think intelligently. Therefore, the capacity for empathy and the
consideration of other people’s emotions would be the components of a balanced and
emotionally intelligent person. People who are lacking in these skills will be at a
disadvantage and will suffer socially and emotionally. It can be said that emotional
intelligence will help well-being, creativity, and for people to be better students
(Goleman, 1995).
Mayer and Salovey suggested the following ideas for using emotional intelligence with
education in the classroom: (a) express feelings instead of ordering the students to stop
when they misbehave, (b) take responsibility for feelings isntead of imposing them onesidely on your students. (c) be much more aware of feelings than the feelings of the
students, (d) try to understand the reasons behind students’ behavior before forming an
opinion about them, (e) find ways of voluntary cooperation instead of making demands of
students and (f) help students to express themselves openly and to solve any problems
they may have.
For foreign language teaching and other educational fields that usually include
interpersonal communication, emotional intelligence is benificial. Since language classes


are based on communication, it should be recognized that empathy is an important basic
element of effective communication. It seems as though developing emotional
intelligence in education systems would be beneficial, because emotional intelligence can
increase effective communication and learning in the classroom. It is also necessary that
both foreign language teachers and students cooperate to improve emotional intelligence

and to create a more effective language learning atmosphere; the sharing of cultures and
ideologies can be then happen successfully. Increasing abilities in foreign language
teaching can be through the creation of an atmosphere of communication and personal
sharing.
EI and achievement in foreign language learning has some direct and indirect links with
support for the direct link. For instance, it is thought that emotions can either increase or
suppress attention, which has an effect on the learning and retaining of information
(Sylwester, 1998). Thus, it can be said that emotions can affect one’s learning either
positively or negatively. It was abserved that negatively tended to be a hindrance in
students’ thoughts while writing (Kearney, 1998), while Boud, Keogh, and Walker (1985)
noted that the positive thinking and emotions greatly improved the retention of new
information and learning by keeping attention during the task.
EI will promote good study behavior, and make the learning experience more effective.
Morover, the attitudes of an educational place can motivate every one involved, with
positive thinking causing positive results. Elliot (2003) suggested that encouragement
was a factor in the outcome and study engaged would develop positive attitudes towards
learning. Emotional intelligence can be quite practical in the classroom. When students
are underperforming, teachers can find a way to promote emotionally inteligent as
afterwards. The students’ foreign language achievements will be enhanced, as they will
be able to improve on their intrapersonal and interpersonal relations and skills.
Emotional intelligence is among one of the variables that further shapes a student’s
language learning context, although academic achievement is also a matter of cognitive
ability. EI also creates effective family encouragement, study atmosphere, and English
achievement. EI seems like a concept worth investing in. Those with high emotional
intelligence are at a great advantage. Evidence shows that underlying emotional
capabilities are the roots of ethical strances in life (Goleman, 1995). Goleman feels that a
new version or perception of education would be to educate the student wholly, both in
mind and heart. Sucaramana(2004) looked at the relationship between different variables
that could affect English achievement in Thai students. The findings shows that
emotional intelligence had a direct effect through study habits, participation, effort, and

encouragement by family and peers.


It would be beneficial if teachers were aware of their own emotions and emotional
intelligence in addition to that of the students. Emotional intelligence stimulates learning
in many ways and improves language retentions. Also, it is suggested that emotional
intelligence can fill in the missing parts when acquiring a language, where students have
difficulty using or applying the learned language, so that teaching can be conducted in a
more efficient way.
It would be a ideal that teachers have emotional intelligence so that they could not only
facilitate a positive atmosphere in classroom but also influence students to enhance their
own emotional intelligence. Teachers have to handle emotions in a social setting and
adjust their own mannarisms and actions accordingly to be as effective as possible.
People have emotional intelligence naturally, but if the teacher has low emotional
intelligence, the development of student emotional intelligence would be minimal.
An emotionally intelligent teacher is necessary to have an emotionally intelligent
classroom atmosphere. A teacher with low emotional intelligence will not radiate
emotional intelligence to their students or influence them to raise their own emotional
intelligence. Is it possible for a teacher to give sound advice and to control a classroom
with bad behavior if the teacher has not developed emotional intelligence and cannot
control his/her own feelings?
Not only should students be aware of this ability, but so should teachers. The roles of
teachers’ emotional intelligence in increasing language teaching abilities can be achieved.
On the other hand, the role of students’ EI is that students who have emotional
intelligence will learn languages better than students who do not. Learning different
languages helps to serve an individual’s ability to communicate with others. Due to this,
people with higher emotional intelligence levels are seen to be more successful when
learning a language.
Taking care of the emotional intelligence of the student is equally important for the
teacher. It is important for language teachers to not only be trained in their subject matter

but to also be able to read the emotional signs and body language of the students in order
to make their learning experience as positive as possible. A teacher should also know
how to effectively handle troublesome students using emotional intelligence, while
keeping in touch with his/her own mood and temper. To improve the students’ behavior,
the teacher should express feelings about the bad behavior instead of giving orders.
4-Conclusions


The relationship between foreign language learning and emotional competencies is not
surpirsing, given the nature of English classes in English foreign language learning.
Learning a second language seems to be difficult, demanding and full of stress and
pressure for learners (Krashen, 1981), especially for adults, because learners have to
speak in another language which is not their mother tongue, make lots of mistakes and
may face setbacks.
English is considered a foreign language in Vietnam because it is spoken only in class. In
Vietnam, students, before getting into university, study General English for 12 years in
school, and then pursue their English studies in English for Specific Purpose course at the
university. It is prestigious to learn English in Vietnam and to acquire a native-like
accent, because people put more premium on learning English. Besides, many jobs in
Vietnam requires a good command of English. Due to the aforementioned reasons,
English language teachers in Vietnam are perfectionists, demanding the correct use of the
languges, putting much pressure on students to apply English accurately and
appropriately. English classes generally create a kind of threatening environment in
Vietnam; students’ errors are corrected immediately in a direct way. Students generally
suffer from error phobia, meaning that they do not write or speak until they think they are
perfect. Therefore, it seems to be natural that emotional factors, especially intrapersonal
competencies and stress management abilities, can be of great importance in this context
of learning.