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ACQUIRING SECOND LANGUAGE SUCCESSFULLY IN TERMS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Sharipov Feruzjon Isor o'g'li Teacher, Department of Methods of Teaching English, Uzbekistan State University of World Languages, Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan
Abstract: This article explains the impact of Emotional Intelligence on language learning achievement. Individuals are diverse in their mental capacities; thusly, their thinking capabilities, appreciation and capacities of character contrast from one another. Language learning process incorporates the interest of Emotional Intelligence. Students regularly experience numerous issues while gaining second language (L2), which can be connected not exclusively to their mental abilities, yet additionally to their enthusiastic state. A student might be ineffective in learning language as a result of the absence of self-administration or mindfulness, which might be happened due to the family, social or different foundations, that lead the student to deal with issues with perceiving and understanding his own feelings and genuine capacity specifically task.
Key words: Emotional intelligence, successful learning, failure, anxiety, optimism, competence, mental ability, self-awareness, self-management.
Аннотация: В этой статье объясняется влияние эмоционального интеллекта на успеваемость по языку. Люди разнообразны по своим умственным способностям; таким образом, их мыслительные способности, понимание и способности характера контрастируют друг с другом. Процесс изучения языка включает в себя интерес эмоционального интеллекта. Студенты регулярно сталкиваются с многочисленными проблемами при овладении вторым языком (L2), что может быть связано не только с их умственными способностями, но и с их энтузиазмом. Студент может быть неэффективным в изучении языка из-за отсутствия самоуправления или внимательности, что может происходить из-за семьи, социальных или иных оснований, которые заставляют студента решать проблемы с восприятием и пониманием своих собственных чувств. а подлинная мощность конкретно задача.
Ключевые слова: эмоциональный интеллект, успешное обучение, неудача, тревога, оптимизм, компетентность, умственные способности, самосознание, самоуправление.
sharipovferuzion21 @gmail.com
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INTRODUCTION
Learning English as a Second Language is continuing to be important through decades, causing different questions being raised on it. People are different in their mental capabilities; therefore, their thinking competences, skills, comprehension, abilities, and other aspects of personality differ from each other. There all these components are gathered by one concept: intelligence. From this aspect, among variety of questions and beliefs about SLA there comes the notion of the relationship between intelligence and language learning success. Emotional Intelligence (EI) should be placed in the center of the concept of intelligence, according to Gardner (1998). Language learning process includes the participation of Emotional Intelligence. Learners often encounter some problems while acquiring L2, which can be related not only to their mental capabilities, but also to their emotional state. For instance, a learner may be unsuccessful in learning language because of the lack of self-management or self-awareness, which may be occurred because of the family, cultural or other backgrounds, that lead the learner to face problems with recognizing and understanding his own emotions and real capability in particular task. Here some questions arise: how well are related Emotional Intelligence with Language Learning and does the EI help learners to be successful in particular language? These were main questions to be investigated in current case study. For this, I chose to observe an English Language Learner and tried to understand from the learner's point the influence of Emotional Intelligence (or Emotional Quotient) in her learning process and overall success in language proficiency. The subject's family background, language learning history, classroom atmosphere and individual characteristics were taken into consideration. In addition, EQ tests, interview, English proficiency tests on reading, listening and grammar were conducted in order to analyze these questions, a conclusion was made and further suggestions were given.
The theory of Emotional Intelligence and its measurement, the Emotional Quotient (EQ) were developed in the 1970s and 80s, but gained popularity by the help of Daniel Goleman in the mid-90s. There is a clear notion that emotional intelligence is one of the key factors, which may not only influence the quality of our lives but the chances of successful performance in any area of attempt. Emotional Intelligence was defined by Goleman (1995) as "the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those feelings in and of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing well the emotions in ourselves and in our relationships". Emotional
LITERATURE REVIEW
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Intelligence (EI) refers to the ability of understanding and regulating emotions in interpersonal and intrapersonal scopes. Goleman states that EI can be as much powerful, and sometimes, even more powerful than Cognitive Intelligence (IQ) in predicting success in different challenges throughout lifetime (Goleman, 1998).
At its essence, emotional intelligence affects how we approach our life and how we deal with what happens to us. People with higher emotional intelligence (EQ) are typically able to be comfortable with themselves and are more relaxed generally, they can express their feelings easily; they are not reticent about showing who they are; deal with negative emotions such as fear, worry, guilt, shame and embarrassment. They can notice what else people are saying, balance feelings with intellect, are more independent and self-reliant. According to Lawson (2011), "emotions are the relay stations between sensory input and thinking. When the input is interpreted positively, we are motivated to act and achieve a goal. When the input is interpreted negatively, we do not act and do not learn. Negative emotions (Anxiety, depression and anger or frustration) can interfere with learning and can result from problems with learning, creating a maladaptive and self-defeating pattern of behavior, which prevents learning and stunts mental/emotional growth". Consequently, it can be assumed that emotions and Emotional Intelligence play a crucial role in our language acquisition process in general.
A number of researches were conducted in order to clarify the influence of Emotional Intelligence on language learning success. Muhammad Umar Farooq (2014), in his case study on this very issue conducted an empirical study on ELLs at Taif University English Language Centre, confirmed that EI training decreases language anxiety and enhances learners' self-esteem showing better communication proficiency, and concluded that Emotional Intelligence and language competence are connected effectively and positively. However, a study conducted by Fatema Shahmohamadi and Ramezan Hasanzadeh (2011) among 111 Iranian English language learners at intermediate levels aged between 18 to 40 years old revealed that there is no correlation between total EI and language achievements, but some subcategories of EI have relationships with language achievement. Moreover, they concluded that emotional intelligence increases with age.
One more study, investigated by Mehrdad Zarafshan and Mahsa Ardeshiri (2012), was focused on the effects of Emotional Intelligence and of language learning strategies usage among 135 Iranian EFL university students. The researchers concluded that there was a negative relationship between emotional intelligence and
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English proficiency contrasted to a positive connection between English proficiency and language learning strategies' application. English proficiency was affected more by metacognitive and affective strategies, while social strategies tended to be the least effective.
Among other studies, there is one more study that attracted my attention, which was done by Gülten Genf et al. (2016). It investigated: firstly, whether EI related to gender and age, secondly, the role of Emotional Intelligence in SLA and its efficiency on writing and speaking among 150 students, who were asked to complete the EQ-i (Emotional Intelligence Inventory). Then researchers matched the results with the students' academic scores in writing and speaking, and found that: age has only correlated to such component of EQ adaptability as problem solving, and gender has a positive relationship with optimism, which is presented as general mood EQ component. Overall conclusion was that EQ is connected positively and closely to foreign language proficiency.
Emotional Intelligence, which is supposed to correspond cognitive tendencies with emotional ones, appears to be essential to the interrelatedness of the learner's composition of Multiple Intelligence and learning strategies. Thus, EQ may be utilized in teacher's materials and tasks development to fit into learner's abilities and priorities, leading to a further success. According to Ciarrochi & Mayer (2007), Emotional Quotient (or EI) is implicitly responsible for rational use of emotion and existing information to make further settlements. Put differently, decision making process can be incorporated by our emotions and cognitive judgments, which, consequently, are managed by Emotional Intelligence.
Different results revealed from a number of studies can be a subject of investigation for many SLA researchers. In addition, the correlation between EI and successful learning has been of great impact to recent studies. However, results illustrate different outcomes, putting the notion of positive correlation between EI and successful language acquisition into uncertainty.
For this case study, I have chosen to work with a 16 years old girl, who is learning English as a second language. According to privacy policy and her personal request, her name will be replaced with "the subject" or "subject" in further notifications. The subject is studying at school at 10 th grade and learning English only at school.
PARTICIPANT PROFILE
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Her nationality is Uzbek and she brought up in a typical Uzbek family. She is the only child in her family and her family members do not speak English, they speak mainly in Uzbek language. Her family consists of her mother, grandmother and uncle. They have a great influence on her studies, the main part of motivation she receives from her uncle. The uncle is an advanced user of English, but as the subject noticed, he is impatient to speak with her because of her mistakes. Now she lives apart from her family in her another uncle's home in Tashkent.
The subject studied her primary classes (1-4) in Tashkent, after she moved to another school in a rural area of the country and studied from fifth to eighth grade. Then she came back to her initial school in Tashkent to continue studying in ninth grade. Now she is in a Russian language-specified class, and there are 32 pupils in her class, 21 males and 11 females. My subject has been learning English for 6 years so far. Average number of hours spent for learning English is about 4 hours at school and 4 hours at home per week. She is an audial learner, who learns mainly from listening to the teacher, peers, also she loves listening to music, which has a big impact on her learning process.
The subject is a sensitive and perceptive girl, who gets along with her classmates very well. However, she is not very sociable and avoids getting into new relationships with strangers. When asked about her common mood, she responded as "normal, but easy to shatter". She tends to be nervous about what other people think of her.
The subject were asked to take part in case study research, the main topic of which is whether Emotional Intelligence helps the learner to achieve success in second language learning process. For this, the subject took The Global Emotional Intelligence Test - GEIT, which utilizes 40 questions that are derived from the Global EI Capability Assessment instrument, which contains 158 items. These are based on Goleman's four quadrant Emotional Intelligence Competency Model (2002). The questions require the subject to choose one statement in each pair of statements that describes him best in the form of short sentences and have two options. It takes approximately 10 minutes to complete the test. The subject's answers are evaluated by reflection to capability level within each of the EI quadrants. EI Quadrant Descriptors consist of four items, namely Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management. The ten-point scale for each quadrant is applied in the test.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Oriental Renaissance: Innovative, R VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 4
educational, natural and social sciences O ISSN 2181-1784
Scientific Journal Impact Factor SJIF 2021: 5.423
After the EI test, I took an interview from my subject about her grades, achievements and problems with learning English. There were 15 questions and they were made up by myself, and included such interrogatories as "How do you feel yourself when you communicate in English?", "Would you describe yourself as a persistent learner?", "What is your average rating from English at school?" etc. The full list of questions and replies to them are given in Appendix. The main aim of this interview was to evaluate the subject's feelings about herself and to match the responses with GEIT results.
One more checking was made by giving the subject a test on English grammar, listening and reading, in order to have an approximate level of language proficiency. Grammar test consisted of 30 tests with 5 options in each. The main grammatical patterns were tested to observe the overall result of the subject's proficiency in grammar as a category of English language. Listening test consisted of 15 questions based on 7 recordings and the number of reading test questions were 5.
Data Collection and Findings
The Global Emotional Intelligence Test
The overall results of the subject's GEIT revealed low indexes of Emotional Intelligence, based on 4 EI Quadrants: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social-Awareness, and Relationship Management. The maximum point for each Quadrant is 10. The following table illustrates points from the assessment of answers given by subject.
Self-awareness Self-management Social-awareness Relationship -management
4 4 4 4
Table 1. Results of the GEIT in points.
Self-Awareness. The core of Emotional Intelligence is self-awareness. Three competencies make up self-awareness: emotional self-awareness, where one can read and understand his emotions in equal level as understanding their effect on work performance and relationships; accurate self-assessment, where one has an ability of evaluating his strengths and limits; and self-confidence, where a person positively and strongly feels and knows his self-worth.
According to test results, the subject exhibited low level of self-awareness showing 4 out of 10, which can be a reason to subject's hesitations about learning language, inability to assess her power and weaknesses while learning, difficulties in understanding her own emotions that leads to a lower grade of performance.
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However, taking into account her age and maturational state, it can be supposed that this kind of indexes are normal, because teenagers usually face problems with self-acceptance and awareness at that period.
Self-Management. Self-management consists of five qualifications:
1. Self-control, which means controlling riotous emotions and impulses.
2. Transparency, which is supporting standards of honesty and integrity, dealing with oneself and responsibilities.
3. Adaptability, which means being flexible in adapting to changing situations and overcoming obstacles.
4. Achievement orientation, which is guiding aspiration to meet an internal standard of excellence.
5. Initiative, which is the easiness to possess opportunities and act.
This parameter also showed the index 4 out of 10 based on the subject's choices. Main reason for this manifestation might be the subject's family background. In the process of gaining information about my subject, I detected that she has no father in her family and her mother suffered from derangement during the subject's childhood; therefore, the lack of parents' position in her family might cause such negative outcomes as scarcities in support, care, protection, that led to severities in self-management. Bringing up in an insufficient family can seriously affect the child's intrapersonal psychology and Emotional Intelligence. Children who systematically get emotional coaching from parents experience better physical health, more positive feelings and get higher grades in academics compared to those children who do not obtain such guidance from their parents. From this point, her grades from English in early classes were lower than current ones, displaying about 3.5-4 at that time.
Social Awareness. Social Awareness is comprised of three competencies: empathy, which is understanding others and being actively interested in their concerns; organizational awareness, which refers to being able to read the currents of organization, decision networks development and politics navigation; and service orientation, which is being able to recognize and meet customers' demands.
Social awareness marks are below median indexes, pointing out 4 out of 10. That means that the subject orients in understanding other people, organizational issues and service orientation at a quite low level. Such a low ability can interfere learner's communicative skills, which causes difficulties in both learner and teacher in the language learning process.
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Relationship Management. It consists of seven competencies:
• visionary leadership, which is inspiring and guiding people and individuals;
• developing others, which is the ability of giving feedback and guidance that strengthens and supports others' abilities;
• influence, which refers to being able to train a wide range of strategies with integrity, and also includes listening and sending clear, convincing and well-tuned messages;
• change initiator, which is the proficiency in initiating new ideas and leading people in a new direction;
• conflict management, which is resolving disagreements and effectively developing decisions;
• building bonds, which is building and maintaining relationships with others;
• teamwork and collaboration, which is the promotion of cooperation and building of teams.
The highest index among others, according to the subject's responses, is on Relationship Management parameter. It is 5 out of 10, which means that the subject can quite well take her bearings in the processes of interpersonal acts. Still the subject may have problems in social contexts, in-class teamwork activities, developing relationships with strangers, etc.
Grammar test was composed of 30 questions, in which the subject exhibited 16 points. Most errors were made in such grammatical categories as Perfect Tenses, Word Order, and Superlatives. Listening and Reading tests were given to obtain even more information about the subject's English language proficiency. The subject exhibited these scores: for listening - 7 out of 15, for reading - 1 out of 5. Overall level of English proficiency was evaluated as Elementary.
Despite the fact that subject has been studying English for 6 years, she demonstrated poor results in these three tests. Such manifestation may be due to the low levels of Emotional Intelligence, which has contributed to inefficient learning, inability to develop language skills, anxiety, self-reproach in the process of learning, etc.
Grammar, Listening and Reading tests
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Interview Findings
The subject's responses to the interview questions were analyzed and came up to the conclusion that her EI is not fully developed, exhibiting hesitations, fear, inner uncertainty about strengths and doubtfulness. For instance, subject stated that she is stressed while speaking, getting along with people is quiet difficult and she is worried whether mistakes are made in speech or not. Low results of reading might be because she is an audial learner and she cannot fully concentrate on reading. In addition, the subject said that her difficulties in language learning may be because of not having enough motivation at all, and she noted that sometimes, when she feels uncertainty about achieving goals, she has nobody to share her feelings with, and she misses her mother a lot. These factors might led to backwardness of Emotional Intelligence or declines of it.
According to the subject's answers and reported average scores, it is possible to presume that the EI and Language Learning Success (LLS) have a positive relationship in case of learner that has been analyzed. In this work, I tried to observe the link between EI and LLS from the learner's perspective. The subject was a 16 years old girl, who passed Global Emotional Intelligence Test, tests based on grammar, listening and reading and took an interview. The data were collected through the results from these tests, moreover, family, cultural, personal background were taken into account in order to obtain the complete picture of the subject's personality and past language learning experience.
The subject's GEIT results illustrated that her EI is not fully developed, causing difficulties through her life in general. Besides, her EQ might be correlated to her problems in L2 acquisition. 6 years of persistent work on L2 does not demonstrate her as a competent user of the language. When asked about difficulties in L2 acquisition, she replied as "I am very nervous and stressed while speaking in English, because I have no idea how to impress people and show myself as a trustworthy person". In addition, she noticed that she is afraid of criticism, which indicates that she is not ready for challenges, new experiences and acquaintanceships.
Setting up the link between EI and successful language learning is among the aims of this case study. Emotional Intelligence researchers (Goleman, Bar-On, Mayer and Salovey) claim that EI can be enhanced and taught, whereas IQ is connatural. It can be concluded from the data provided above that the subject, being a learner of language, should improve her EI to achieve even more success in her L2. Therefore,
CONCLUSION/FURTHER IMPLICATIONS
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several suggestions were made in order to develop specific Emotional Intelligence areas:
1. Improving self-awareness. This can include learning vocabulary related to feelings and emotions, role plays and dialogues, working on a reading text and character analysis activities, paragraph and essay writing, personal descriptions and debates which force learners to express their point of view.
2. Development of self-management. This category consists of task based or problem solving activities as well as group work or pair work, which can help the learner to work in certain tasks and engage roles (for example, group leader role), which gives the learner responsibility and commitment. These tasks bring the learner into specific situations, which require solving and cooperative work with other group members.
All these activities would be beneficial to the subject in further learning process, developing and improving parameters that construct Emotional Intelligence.
Since this study was conducted with only one participant, who is an English Language Learner, these findings cannot be generalized across any larger scopes, and conclusions were made after observing and analyzing subject's results, personal, cultural and educational backgrounds.
1. Ciarrochi, J. & Mayer, J.D. (2007). Applying emotional intelligence: a practitioner's guide. New York: Psychology Press.
2. Genf G., Kulu§akli E. & Aydin S. (2016). The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Productive Language Skills. The Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal, Volume 16, Number 1.
3. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. USA: Bantam Books.
4. Goleman, D. (1998). Working with Emotional Intelligence. Bantman: London: Bloomsbury.
5. Muhammad Umar Farooq (2014). Emotional Intelligence and Language Competence: A Case Study of the English Language Learners at Taif University English Language Centre. Studies in Literature and Language, 8(1), 6-19
6. Shahmohamadi F. & Hasanzadeh R. (2011). Emotional Intelligence and its Predictive Power in Iranian Foreign Language Learners' Language Achievement. International Conference on Social Science and Humanity IPEDR vol.5, IACSIT Press, Singapore.
REFERENCES
Oriental Renaissance: Innovative, R VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 4
educational, natural and social sciences 0 ISSN 2181-1784
Scientific Journal Impact Factor SJIF 2021: 5.423
7. Zarafshan M. & Ardeshiri M. (2012). The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Language Learning Strategies and English Proficiency among Iranian EFL University Studies. Journal of Educational and Instructional Studies in the world. Volume: 2 Issue: 3 Article: 11 ISSN: 2146-7463
