The Relationship Between Senior High School Students’ Emotional Intelligence And English Performance

The three years in senior high school are vital for the students to grow up bothphysically and mentally, and these three years are also the key period for the studentsto develop their emotions and personalities. English is a school curriculum that aimsto develop students’ ability to communicate with others in English. Inevitably, theprocess of communication with language is always accompanied by different kinds ofemotional exchanges. Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceiveself-emotions and others’ emotions correctly, to manage self-emotions and others’emotions capably in order to help have better communication. This study aims toexplore the relationship between senior high school students’ emotional intelligenceand their English performances.A survey was carried out among912students from Qingxin No.1Senior HighSchool through the self-report questionnaire Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS). Thedata gathered were analyzed from quantitative with the aid of the computer softwareSPSS16.0. The Independent t-test was employed to analyze students’ genderdifference on EI. The One-way ANOVA analysis was carried out twice to analyzestudents’ grade difference on EI, and the differences of students’ English proficiencyon EI. The GLM Multivariate analysis was done to analyze the interaction of genders,grades on EI. Pearson Correlation was done to analyze the correlation between theEnglish performance and the EI. Regression was carried out to analyze therelationship among EI, genders, and the English performances. And the findings areas follows:Firstly, generally speaking, senior high students’ EI are on the positive trend. Thefour dimensions of EI are not developing evenly but with the order of emotionutilization> self-emotion management> others’ emotion management> emotionperception. In terms of genders, there is significant difference on EI, and schoolgirlshave significantly higher scores than schoolboys on three dimensions of EI, except thedimension of emotion utilization. In terms of grades, in general, students from different grades do not develop evenly on EI with the rising trend, but with the orderof grade1> grade3> grade2, and there are no significant differences among thethree grades. However, there is no significant interaction between grade and genderon EI.Secondly, the students’ English proficiency have great effect on their EIperformances with the order of high level group> medium level group> the low levelgroup. Specifically, there are significant differences on the dimension of emotionperception, self-emotion management, others’ emotion management, with the order ofhigh level group> medium level group> the low level group. On the dimension ofemotion utilization, the differences between high level group and low level group,between the medium level group and low level group are significant. However, thedifference between high level group and medium level group is not significant.Thirdly, there is significantly positive correlation between the students’ Englishperformances and their EI. As for Senior One students, the dimension of emotionperception has greater effect on their English learning performances while as forSenior Two students, the dimension of self-emotion management has greater effect ontheir English learning performances. As for the Senior Three students, the dimensionsof emotion perception and self-emotion management have greater effect on theirperformances.Fourthly, EI can predict English performance. The combined three variables ofemotion perception, gender, and self-emotion management can predict a lot of theEnglish performance. So it is necessary to enhance students’ abilities to perceiveemotions and manage their own emotions in learning English. The role that genderplays in learning English can not be ignored. EI plays a more and more important rolein school education, because it is not only the requirement of quality-orientededucation, but also it can improve students’ school performances. Therefore,emotional intelligence education should be put to the equally important position as thecognitive intelligence.