EFFECTIVENESS OF STUDENTS’ EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN TEACHING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

EFFECTIVENESS OF STUDENTS’ EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN TEACHING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Bagzhan Uais

Master student, Korkyt Ata Kyzylorda University

Kazakhstan, Kyzylorda

Madina Akeshova

PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Pedagogical Foreign Languages, International University of Tourism and Hospitality,

Kazakhstan, Turkestan

ЭФФЕКТИВНОСТЬ ЭМОЦИОНАЛЬНОЙ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТИ УЧАЩИХСЯ В ПРЕПОДАВАНИИ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА

Багжан Уайс

магистрант, Кызылординский университет имени Коркыт Ата,

Казахстан, г. Кызылорда

Акешова Мадина Мурзахановна

д-р филос. наук, доц., м.а., старший преподаватель кафедры педагогических иностранных языков, Международный университет туризма и гостеприимства,

Казахстан, г. Туркестан

ABSTRACT

Emotional competence is presented in a complex way as a combination of the following components: emotion management, emotional awareness, emotional self-motivation, empathy and recognition of the emotions of others in the process of teaching English. The authors considered the phenomenon of emotional competence as a factor in the academic development of students in terms of teaching English. The results of the work are of interest to foreign language teachers and psychologists dealing with the problems of forming students' personal qualities, including emotional competence. The authors showed the functions of the pedagogical culture of the teacher and his technologies for the formation of emotional competence. The research is focused on creating the basis for emotional competence and understanding and control of students’ emotions and motivation in learning the English language.

АННОТАЦИЯ

Эмоциональная компетентность представлена сложным образом как сочетание следующих составляющих: управление эмоциями, эмоциональная осознанность, эмоциональная самомотивированность, эмпатия и распознавание эмоций других в процессе обучения английскому языку. Феномен эмоциональной компетентности авторы рассматривали как фактор академического развития студентов с точки зрения преподавания английского языка. Результаты работы представляют интерес для преподавателей иностранных языков и психологов, занимающихся проблемами формирования личностных качеств учащихся, в том числе эмоциональной компетентности. Авторы показали функции педагогической культуры учителя и его технологии формирования эмоциональной компетентности. Исследование направлено на создание основы для эмоциональной компетентности и понимания и контроля эмоций и мотивации студентов в изучении английского языка.

Keywords: foreign language education, students, emotional competence, teaching English, motivation in learning

Ключевые слова: обучение иностранному языку, студенты, эмоциональная компетентность, преподавание английского языка, мотивация в обучении.

The relevance of the article is determined by the goal of higher education, which is to prepare professionally and socially successful graduates. Nowadays, interest in the study of emotional competence and its impact on the academic performance of students is growing steadily.

The problems that arise in the process of social interaction are solved faster and more successfully by those people who are able to control their own emotions, analyze the feelings of others, and also empathize and provide support. Such people often demonstrate a higher level of self-awareness and the ability to generate innovative ideas. That is why the formation of emotional competence can reasonably be considered one of the key factors contributing to the successful learning of a person and, in particular, the full development of the whole society as a whole.

In this connection, foreign researchers of emotional competence offered various definitions for this phenomenon. The term itself was first used in 1990.  According to scholars emotional competence is also called emotional intellect. Modern authors Mayer J. D. and Solovey P. define ‘emotional competence as the ability to perceive, evaluate and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of other people and even groups’ [1].

According to Andreeva I. N.  emotional competence is “a set of cognitive abilities, competencies and skills that affect a person’s ability to cope with the challenges and pressures of the external environment” [2, p. 64].

In these and many other definitions of emotional competence, four basic components can be distinguished: the identification and management of one's own emotions, and the skill of recognizing and managing the emotions of other personalities. In the context of considering the results of studies on the influence of emotional competence on the success of emotional activity. It is very important to first dwell on the methods of diagnosing (testing) emotional competence. Practitioners and researchers use different methods for diagnosing emotional competence. The fact is that at present there is no common understanding of emotional competence, not only at the level of its verbal definition but also at the methodological level.

It is noteworthy is the point of view of Bar-On, R. [3], who distinguishes two main approaches to the diagnosis of emotional competence: as a personal trait and as an ability. Emotional competencies are directly related to the academic and social development of students. Among the many factors that cause students to experience difficulties in learning and even drop out of it, the following can be distinguished: negative emotions that arise in the learning process, strained relationships with teachers and classmates, as well as difficulties due to the need to adapt to new conditions.

According to Bar-On R., emotional competence is a certain set of social and emotional competencies that affect the level of a person's effectiveness in various aspects: self-understanding, self-expression, understanding from others, relationships with other people, and solving everyday problems [3, p. 118].

Methods for diagnosing emotional competence as an ability: Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), developed by Caruso, Salovey, and Mayer based on another test of the same authors - The multi-factor Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS). The test includes a set of tasks, the performance of which is assessed either by experts or based on the answers of most of the people who performed the tasks earlier. Other well-known questionnaires for diagnosing emotional competence as a personality trait should be noted, for example, the emotional and social competence questionnaires (Emotional and Social Competence Inventory (ESCI), Emotional Competence Inventory) (ECI) [3, 125].

Foreign and domestic researchers of emotional competence make it possible to draw an unambiguous conclusion about the presence of a positive correlation between a person's emotional intelligence and his academic performance. They characterize emotional intelligence as an integral dynamic phenomenon that provides optimistic awareness, understanding and control of one's own emotions and the emotions of other people, as well as influencing the success of socio-cultural interaction. If they have emotional competencies, it is easier for them to learn and effectively build interpersonal relationships.

In addition, students with higher emotional development scores achieve better academic results. In addition, J. Mayer (1999) considers emotional intelligence as a person's ability to control their own feelings and the feelings of others, recognize them and use the information received to control their thinking and their actions [1].

E.S. Ivanova also believes that emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to understand personal relationships represented in emotions [4, 93].  According to her definition, she distinguishes emotional, cognitive and behavioural components in the structure of emotional competence. A huge number of various myths are concentrated around human emotions and feelings. This is due to the fact that people have a poor idea of their diversity and importance. To learn to understand each other, it is necessary to understand what types of emotions exist and to know their characteristics. In addition, you need to learn to distinguish genuine feelings from the mere show. The emotional sphere of a person is a complex intricacy of elements that together allow you to experience everything that happens to him and around him. It consists of four main components:

- Emotional tone is a response in the form of an experience that sets the state of the organism. It informs the body about how satisfied its current needs are, and how comfortable it is now. If you listen to yourself, you can assess your emotional tone.

- Emotions are subjective experiences relating to situations and events that are important to a person.

- Feeling is a person's stable emotional attitude to some object. They are always subjective and appear in the process of interaction with others [4, p. 95].

The emotional state differs from feeling by its weak focus on the object, and from emotion by its longer duration and stability. It is always triggered by certain feelings and emotions, but at the same time, it as if by itself. A person may be in a state of euphoria, anger, depression, melancholy, etc.

According to Salovey, P., Stroud, L.R., Woolery, A., Epel, E.S.  emotions to a greater or lesser extent regulate the life of each of us. They are generally recognized as having four main functions:

- Motivation-regulating, designed to encourage action, guide and regulate. Often, emotions completely suppress thinking in the regulation of human behaviour.

- Communicative is responsible for mutual understanding. It is emotions that tell us about the mental and physical state of a person and help us choose the right course of action when communicating with students. Thanks to emotions, we can understand each other, even without knowing the language [5, p. 618].

A person with developed emotional intelligence will be able to effectively use his mood for the most successful solution to the tasks facing him. In addition, emotional intelligence implies the ability to understand the language of emotions and distinguish shades of feelings. It is very important that emotional intelligence is manifested in the ability to control, first of all, one's own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. We relied on the point of view of Bezborodova M.A. who emphasizes that it is wrong to consider emotional intelligence as an exclusively cognitive ability by analogy with spatial or verbal intelligence [6]. It can be reasonably assumed that the ability to understand emotions and manage them is closely related to the general orientation of the individual to the emotional sphere (that is, with an interest in the inner world of people, including one's own inner world), as well as with a tendency to the psychological analysis of behaviour and with the understanding of the values attributed to emotional experiences. As a result, emotional intelligence can be represented as a phenomenon that has a dual nature and is associated, on the one hand, with cognitive abilities, and, on the other hand, with the personal characteristics of a person.

Comparative characteristics of the main methods for diagnosing emotional competence were presented in 2004 by R.D. Roberts, J. Matthews, Salovey, P., Stroud, L.R., Woolery, A., Epel, E.S. (Table 1) [7].  Based on this, we use four parts of emotional competence, focused not only on the cognitive component but also on personal characteristics (Figure 1).

Picture 1. Components of emotional competence

As we see in Figure 1, the development of emotional competence includes the ability to identify and recognize emotions expressed by certain behaviour, cognition, communication, activities, and emotional-evaluative components. The effective use of emotions contributes to the formation and development of various cognitive and communicative abilities. In the following table 1, we classified a model of emotional competence in teaching foreign languages.

Table 1.

Model of emotional competence in teaching foreign languages

In the process of forming emotional competence, it is necessary to use special technologies that ensure the integrity of the emotional and rational-logical processes of cognition. Pedagogical technologies are suitable for solving this problem, the main distinguishing features of which are personalization, the creative nature of the activity and the desire to comprehend the nature of the emotional expressiveness of the individual.

These technologies form the motivational and value attitude of students to the content of the educational process. Emotional perception of the material contributes to fixing attention and maintaining interest. Students experience a feeling of relaxation, freedom, and empathy for the interlocutor, they develop the ability to turn knowledge into personal experience, a positive creative state develops, and a feeling of health and inspiration appears. This takes into account the integrity of the individual, including the formation of life values, intercultural and communicative competence, creative and personal self-realization, inner sense and responsibility. Art as a special form of culture determines not only the artistic laws and individual psychological characteristics of a creative person. It also includes their compliance with the socio-cultural trends of the era as a guideline for the formation of contextual connections of the individual with society and artistic culture as a whole.

The content of technologies is formed based on the need to solve the following tasks:

- support for teaching staff in developing the principles of mutual assistance, tolerance, responsibility and self-confidence, as well as in gaining or developing the ability to actively interact without violating the rights and freedoms of another person;

- revealing the universal possibilities of art in terms of development, knowledge and information; development of ways to use these opportunities in the framework of the educational process;

- preparation and implementation of individual sociocultural adaptation programs that contribute to the full emotional and intellectual development of students;

- training in the application of positive strategies for the adaptation of the individual in culture and society.

The motivational function is carried out during the preparation for classes and during the classes themselves. At this stage, a high cognitive motivation for learning is formed, which makes it possible to link the actual acquisition of knowledge with its emotional perception. Technology development is based on the following principles are:

1) priority of life, health, and universal values;

2) attitude to education as an emotional and intellectual process aimed at dialogue and cooperation of its participants.

The success of the formation of the communicative component of emotional competence is ensured by a complex of communicative effects: the effect of a visual image and the first phrases, imagination and discussion. The effect of the first phrases is designed to consolidate or correct the first impression. The main criterion for the effectiveness of the impact of the first phrases is the presence of interesting information in them. The effect of information transfer is one of the effective methods of rhetoric aimed at keeping the attention of the audience. The effect of the visual image is due to the impressions of the appearance of the speaker. It is based on the rational distribution of emotional thoughts and arguments in speech. The purpose of the discussion effect is to present students with an interesting problem, to “engage” them in an exchange of opinions, and to provide skilful management of the discussion. This effect helps the teacher create two images: the image of cooperation and the image of interviewing. The imagination effect is the activation of the intellectual activity of students with the help of an emotional challenge to their imagination. Students should present their hypotheses, assumptions, fantasies and dreams.

In conclusion, we make the following results on the efficiency of the development of emotional competence in teaching:

- Studies of foreign and domestic scientists devoted to the problems of emotional competence indicate a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and the academic performance of students.

- A detailed study of emotional competence made it possible to clarify this scientific concept and characterize emotional intelligence as an integral dynamic phenomenon. It provides optimistic awareness, understanding and control of one's own emotions and the emotions of other people, as well as influencing the success of communicative interaction.

-Technologies have been developed to improve the effectiveness of the formation of emotional competence by ensuring the integrity of emotional and rational-logical processes of cognition.

In the future, it is planned to study technologies based on two areas of scientific knowledge (learning and pedagogy). They should be involved in the formation of emotional competence, the components of which are focused not only on cognitive and communication but also on the personal characteristics of students.

References:

1. Mayer J. D., Solovey P. What is Emotional Intelligence? // Emotional development and emotional Intelligence – New York: Harper Collins, 1997. – P. 3–31.
2. Andreeva I. N. On the formation of the concept of "emotional intelligence" // Questions of psychology. - 2008. - No. 5. - P. 83–95. 3. Bar-On, R. The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): Rationale, description and summary of psychometric properties // Measuring Emotional Intelligence: Common Ground and Controversy - New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc, 2004. - P. 115-145.
3. Ivanova E. S. Remote Internet simulator - the latest way to develop emotional competence - 2013. - No. 4. - P. 93–97.
4. Salovey P., Stroud, L.R., Woolery, A., Epel, E.S. Perceived emotional intelligence, stress reactivity, and symptom reports// Psychology and Health. - 2002. - Vol. 17(5). - P. 611-627.
5. Bezborodova M.A. Motivation in teaching English // Young scientist. - 2009. - No. 8. - P. 156–160.
6. Offermann L.R., Bailey, J.R., Vasilopoulos, N.L., Seal, C., Sass, M. The relative contribution of emotional competence and cognitive ability to individual and team performance // Human Performance. - 2004. - Vol. 17. - P. 219-243.