On the Impacts of Emotional Intelligence Enhancement on Developing Speaking Skill among EFL Learners; an Empirical Study

English language as one of the most important international scientific languages used in Iran is of crucial importance and a great amount of time and expenses are being invested on learning and teaching it. Increasing the speed of learning this language is certainly an urgent need, as many common people and academicians spend a lot of time on learning it, sometimes without a major breakthrough. As affective factors play a role in learning in general and language learning in particular, the current study tried to empirically examine the influence of one of these factors namely Emotional Intelligence to check its influence on Speaking Skill. Participants were Intermediate level students who took an IELTS test, so that the researchers could evaluate their proficiency in speaking skill at the beginning of the project. Next, the Emotional Intelligence of them was calculated and afterwards Emotional Intelligence (EQ/I) was taught. After a one-educational-year course of simultaneously teaching EI and Speaking skill, the same IELTS along with the EQ questionnaire was administered in experimental and control group. To observe the development in each category, the difference in scores of both EQ and IELTS test (pre-test and post-test) were statistically calculated. Ultimately, it was found that both EI and speaking skill of the learners in treatment group were developed in a significant way whereas only speaking skill of control group progressed but it was not significant. The findings of the study can contribute in the promotion of the knowledge on the effect of emotional intelligence in language learning and also syllabus design.

Keywords:

EFL learners , Emotional Intelligence , Emotional Intelligence Development , Speaking Skill