English Language Performance and Emotional Intelligence of Senior High School Students
Palompon Institute of Technology, Philippines
ABSTRACT
Language is one of the most important characteristics of any culture and proficiency in it is significant to augment a person’s status in life aided with the best education and varied relevant opportunities to utilize it especially in his/her day-to-day interfacing with people. It is a way to vent out thoughts and emotions in an appropriate and manner. Such premise prompted the development of this study which aimed to determine the association between the English Language Proficiency and Emotional Intelligence of the students. It tried to investigate whether learners with higher emotional intelligence have better performance in English. Descriptive-correlational method was utilized in this study since the relationship of variables is being discussed. Written and speaking tests (interview) were done to generate data from the respondents. Findings revealed that respondents had average GPA in English subjects, (just a little above the arbitrary scoring used) moderate proficient language performance, but moderate emotional intelligence level only. Further, respondents were found to perform better in the speaking than in the written test in the English language performance test conducted. Significant relationship between English language proficiency and emotional intelligence was manifested with a moderate positive correlation. This implies that respondents’ emotional intelligence was a dominant factor in their better second language performance especially in speaking where they found it a more free-flowing activity. They are not overly conscious of the structure and have the tendency to be in control of their emotions. Further, a sample mini-module with varied communicative language activities was designed for classroom utilization purposely for the enhancement of students’ emotional intelligence while using the second language, thus, development of higher emotional intelligence for an improved second language performance can best be achieved.
KEYWORDS
Emotional intelligence, English language proficiency