Interactions of trait emotional intelligence, foreign language anxiety, and foreign language enjoyment in the foreign language speaking classroom

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the interactions of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI), foreign language anxiety (FLA), and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) in the foreign language speaking classroom. Data collected from 274 Chinese postgraduate EFL learners showed that the subjects generally had medium to high scores on global trait EI; in terms of the four trait EI factors, they scored relatively high on emotionality and well-being, followed in turn by self-control and sociability. They had high mean levels of FLE and moderate to high mean levels of FLA. Significant small to medium correlations were found between trait EI, FLE, and FLA. Regressions revealed that trait EI was a stronger predictor of FLA than of FLE. Trait EI played a fundamental role in its significant interactions with FLA and FLE. In addition, well-being and emotionality figured significantly to both FLE and FLA, while sociability only significantly predicted FLA. High levels of self-control hindered the effect of other significant factors. It is implied that fostering learners’ trait EI can potentially boost FLE and alleviate FLA. The findings also offer suggestions for the development of EI-based intervention programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Trait emotional intelligence
• foreign language anxiety
• foreign language enjoyment
• foreign language speaking classroom
• interactions

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their insightful comments and hard work. We thank our participants for providing us with the precious data. We also sincerely thank David Harries for his valuable suggestions and Robert Whitehouse for proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant sponsored by International Training Project for Outstanding Young Scientific Research Talents in Guangdong Universities in 2019, and by a grant sponsored by Guangdong Social Science Project (GD19CYY14) in 2019.