Interactive Effects Of Motivation, Anxiety And Emotional Intelligence On Oral Performance Of English Majors

It is well acknowledged that oral performance is influenced not only by cognitive and social factors but by affective factors as well. Although researchers have now realized the important influence of affective factors on language learning, previous studies of affective factors on oral performance focused on the influence of one single affective factor on oral outcome. However, research has shown that affective factors do not operate independently of each other; instead, the interrelationships between them are complicated and warrant further investigation(Gardner, Tremblay, Masgoret, 1997). To find out how the three affective factors—emotional intelligence(EI), foreign language anxiety(FLA) and motivation operate together to have an impact on oral performance, the present study adopted Structural Equation Modeling(SEM) to examine the interrelationships between emotional intelligence, foreign language anxiety and motivation on oral performance.190 English major sophomores from three universities in East China participated in the study. The study employed three well-established questionnaires as the instruments of the research: TEIQue-SF(London Psychometric Laboratory), the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(Horwitz et al., 1986) and the speaking motivation scale based on the study of Schmidt’s et al.(1996).The major findings of the study are yielded as follows.1. The majority of the participants were of medium to high levels of EI and motivation, medium to low levels of FLA, indicating that most of them were able to control and regulate their emotions when they were faced with frustration and challenges.2. All of the three affective factors: emotional intelligence, foreign language anxiety and motivation had direct influence on oral performance. Through foreign language anxiety and motivation, emotional intelligence also indirectly influenced the oral performance. Foreign language anxiety also had indirect influence on oral performance through the mediation of motivation. Among the three affective factors, emotional intelligence had the strongest predicting power(.717) for oral performance.Based on the above findings, some pedagogical implications are offered; research limitations and suggestions for future studies are also provided.