Listening Comprehension Performance Viewed in the Light of Emotional Intelligence and Foreign Language Listening Anxiety

Mohammad Reza Valizadeh,Parviz Alavinia

doi:10.5539/elt.v6n12p11

Abstract

The researchers in the current study were after probing the potential relationship between emotional intelligence, foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA), and listening comprehension performance of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 233 participants, studying English language and literature at three different Universities in Urmia, were initially selected. Successive to running homogeneity test, the number of eligible participants reduced sharply and only 160 out of the original number went on with the remainder of the study. To gather the data use was mainly made of two instruments, i.e. Bar-On’s (1997) emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i), and FLLA scale. Results of Pearson product moment correlation pointed to a strong relationship between listening comprehension performance of the learners and their emotional intelligence scores, with the strongest relationship belonging to the self-awareness subscale of EI. Furthermore, a strong negative relationship was found between FLLAS and listening comprehension performance. The results also indicated a strong negative relationship between learners’ FLLA and their emotional intelligence, with the strongest relationship belonging to the happiness component. The results of the multiple regression analyses for the predictability power of EI for listening comprehension performance and FLLA revealed that EI is a proper predictor of listening comprehension performance and FLLA of Learners. Finally, based on multiple regression analysis FLLA was deemed a proper predictor of listening comprehension performance of EFL learners.

Highlights

A pervasive catch term and a highly popular concept which has outlived most of its late-twentieth-century rivaling counterparts, emotional intelligence (EI) owes its emergence and growth to a number of distinguished and influential theoreticians, including Thorndike (1920) who popularized the notion of social intelligence, Gardner (1983) who put an end to the crystallized, static conception of intelligence as a general cognitive factor, and more importantly Goleman (1995) who gloriously unified the scattered outcries for the indoctrination of emotional side of life, and smothered the history-long divide between emotion and reason
The researchers in the current study were after probing the potential relationship between emotional intelligence, foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA), and listening comprehension performance of Iranian EFL learners
Results of Pearson product moment correlation pointed to a strong relationship between listening comprehension performance of the learners and their emotional intelligence scores, with the strongest relationship belonging to the self-awareness subscale of EI

Summary

Introduction

A pervasive catch term and a highly popular concept which has outlived most of its late-twentieth-century rivaling counterparts, emotional intelligence (EI) owes its emergence and growth to a number of distinguished and influential theoreticians, including Thorndike (1920) who popularized the notion of social intelligence, Gardner (1983) who put an end to the crystallized, static conception of intelligence as a general cognitive factor, and more importantly Goleman (1995) who gloriously unified the scattered outcries for the indoctrination of emotional side of life, and smothered the history-long divide between emotion and reason. Viewed as “an array of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures” While in Boyatzis, Goleman, and Rhee's (2000) Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI), Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, and Social Skills are listed as the core constituents of emotional intelligence, in Bar-On’s (1997) taxonomy of EQ scales, known as emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i), the overriding factors underlying an individual’s EQ are the so-called categories of intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, general mood, and stress management. As Bowkett and Percival (2011) observe, in most EI models and constructs a key role is played by awareness of self and others as the two focal cornerstones of EQ

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion