The relationship between the Iranian university students’ emotional intelligence skills and English language speaking ability

The notion of Emotional Intelligence (EI) which deals with people’s feelings and emotions seems to be ubiquitous in learning. EI has a profound effect on various aspects of human lifeand plays a starring role in many language classrooms and contexts. Researchers have supported that learners’ cognitive and emotional features are prominent in the process of SLA and should be taken into consideration in EFL programs. The present study was carried out toexamine the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and students’ speaking ability. The research sample consisted of 30 male university students, aged 22-26, from Imam AliUniversity. They were selected based on their scores on the Michigan Test of English LanguageProficiency (MTELP) (1982). The participants took the self-report measure Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory which is a likert-type including 90 items (EQ-i, 1997). The results revealed that students who have high level of EI are more enthusiastic to participate in speakingclasses since they have self-esteem and manage to cooperate with others due to their social skills. It was also found that among five components of emotional intelligence,interpersonal and stress management had a strong relationship with oral performance and students’ speaking ability. Thus, the results could give a new insight to EFL teachers in orderto make them acutely aware of social skills required for a successful application of language learning in EFL context.

Keywords:

Emotional Intelligence , Speaking ability , Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory