A Positive Psychology perspective on Chinese EFL students’ trait emotional intelligence, foreign language enjoyment and EFL learning achievement

ABSTRACT

The influence of (trait) emotional intelligence (TEI) on academic achievement has been documented in literature, while its influence in the specific domain of L2 learning remains underexplored. The link between EI and negative emotions especially anxiety has been studied in different contexts including applied linguistics. However, it remains unknown how EI is related to positive emotions in L2 learning. Underpinned by theories and assumptions of Positive Psychology, the present study examined the complex relationships between 1307 Chinese high school students’ TEI, Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), and English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learning achievement. The following findings were obtained: (1) Most Chinese high school EFL students reported moderate to high levels of TEI, while low to moderate levels of FLE; (2) Small to medium correlations were found among students’ TEI, FLE, self-perceived English achievement and actual English achievement; (3) TEI was partially mediated by FLE to influence perceived achievement and actual achievement indirectly. The results were discussed in accordance with previous relevant findings as well as their theoretical and practical implications for L2 teaching and learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Trait emotional intelligence
• foreign language enjoyment
• Foreign language anxiety
• mediating effect
• positive Psychology

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my great thanks to the administrative staff, Mr. Zhengfeng Chen of Education Bureau of Lu’an City, Ms. Man Yang, Mr. Dengzhong Li, Mr. Qizhi You, and Mr. Yunfeng Chen of three participating schools, for allowing me to collect data there. I also thank all the head teachers and the EFL teachers in each class for allowing me to contact their students. Thanks also go to all the student participants for their collaboration in this project. Special thanks go to Yuling Wang for his generosity in time spent in the discussion of statistics. I appreciate the kindest help and valuable feedback from Prof. Jean-Marc Dewaele, Prof. Guiying Jiang, Prof. Lin Fan, Prof. Ping Zhang, and Dr. Shen’ai Hu in the related Ph.D. project. I am also grateful to the meticulous reviewers of JMMD for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ‘the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities’ in China [grant number 2019kfyXJJS150], Huazhong University of Science and Technology Special Funds for Development of Humanities and Social Sciences, China Scholarship Council [grant number CSC. NO. 201706310092] and National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 15BYY082].