The Role of Cultural Intelligence in Learning English as a Foreign Language

The aim of the current study was investigating the role of cultural intelligence in learning English as a foreign language. Four hundred and seventy nine high-school students participated in the study. They filled in the cultural intelligence scale with metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioral dimensions. School achievement in English was established based on formal grades students received at the end of the academic year. The result of correlational analysis showed that there is a significant and positive relationship between English achievement and cultural intelligence in general (r=227). Three dimensions of cultural intelligence were found to have positive and significant relationship with English achievement including behavioral (r=.192), motivational (r=.172), and cognitive (r=140). However, metacognitive dimension was not found to be related to English achievement. The result of regression revealed that cultural intelligence is not a very strong predictor of English achievement and only around 5% of the variance of English achievement is explained by cultural intelligence. Behavioral dimension of cultural intelligence was found to be the strongest predictor of English achievement.

Keywords:

cultural , intelligence , English , achievement