Emotional Intelligence Cognitive

Styles and their Contribution to

SLA.

Lecture 4.
Educational Psychology
for TFL students
Emotional Intelligence (EI) Defined

Using this
Ability to recognize awareness to
and understand manage yourself
emotions and relationships
with others

Intellect accounts for 20% of success in life (emotional intelligence, social class,
and luck make up rest)

-Research at Yale in the early 1990s was conclusive that the EQ is a major
indicator of achievement, which helped explain why two people with the same
intelligence could attain vastly different levels of success in their work and
personal lives.
 4 Skills of Emotional Intelligence
WHAT I SEE WHAT I DO

PERSONAL
COMPETEN Self-Awareness Self-Management
CE

Emotional
Intelligence

SOCIAL Relationship
COMPETEN Social Awareness Management
CE
 Summing up:
WHAT I SEE WHAT I DO

Self-Awareness Self-Management
• Ability to accurately perceive your • Ability to use awareness of your
own emotions emotions to stay flexible and
• Stay aware of your emotions as positively direct your behavior
PERSONAL
they happen • Managing your emotional
COMPETEN
• Keep on top of how you tend to reactions to all situations and
CE
respond to specific situations and people
people

Social Awareness Relationship Management

• Ability to accurately pick up on
emotions in other people
SOCIAL • Understand what is really going on
COMPETEN • Understanding what other people
CE are thinking and feeling even if you
don’t feel the same way
• Ability to use awareness of your
emotions and emotions of others to
manage interactions successfully
• Ensure clear communication and
effective handling of conflict
Educational video
Emotional intelligence and academic achievement.

1. What is emotional intelligence?

2. How can teachers understand kids’ emotions?
3. What is a misleading tendency among parents who have kids at
school?
4. Which challenges can learners with higher EI cope with better?
5. Which methods can be used to improve EI?

 https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFuEKbC_gLI&ab_channel=TheM
entalBreakdown

5/36
What is a style ?

Cognitive, affective, and

physiological traits of how
learners perceive, interact
with, and respond to the
learning environment.

Mediator between the emotion

and cognition
 What is cognitive style?

 It is the individual’s natural, habitual, and

preferred way of comprehending, processing
and retaining new information and skills.
Individual cognitive differences

Learners
How does one
differ in the Attend to some
accommodate
way they needs of all
these
process learners
differences in
information (Galloway &
the L2
(perception, Labarca, 1990)
classroom?
speed, …)
Types of Styles
• Field independence Vs Field
1 dependence

• Reflectivity and impulsivity

2 • Ambiguity tolerance vs. intolerance

• Brain Dominance
• LEFT BRAIN
3 • RIGHT BRAIN
What do you see?
 COGNITIVE STYLES
Field Independence: Field dependence
Ability to observe parts and Ability to observe the whole
details from a whole. picture and general ideas.

Personality: Personality:
independent/ social/ empathetic/ derive
confident/competitive their self- identity from
people around them
SECOND LANGUAGE SECOND LANGUAGE
LEARNING: successful learning LEARNING: successful
through class exercises, activities, learning through
drilling and other focused communication.
activities.
12/
36
 Strengths and weaknesses
Field Independent: Field dependent:

Strengths: Strengths:
• Help to concentrate more on • They can see the whole picture of a
something. problem or an idea.
• Help to analyze separate
variables without being effected by
other factors.

Weaknesses: Weaknesses:
• Cognitive ‘tunnel – vision’ forces •A person may get distracted easily,
you to see only the parts and fail to and may not be able to see details or
see their relationship to the whole. variables.
(You can’t see the forest for the
trees)
 Field Independence/Dependence Relationship
of FI/FD to L2:
Hypotheses
How does all this relate to L2 learning?
 First hypothesis:
 FI is closely related to classroom learning that involves analysis,

attention to details, and mastering of exercises, drills and other

focused activities.
 Second hypothesis:
 Because of their empathy, social outreach, and perception of other

people, FD persons are more successful in learning L2

communicatively. (Mainly anecdotally supported – little empirical
evidence)
 FI and FD styles are equally important.
 The two hypotheses deal with two different kinds of learning:
1. Natural, face-to-face communication.
2. Classroom activities: drills, exercises, tests.
 Natural L2 learning in the “field” requires FD style.
 Classroom L2 learning requires FI style 14/
36
 Strategic techniques for teachers
Both styles are important.
Learners can have both FI and FD. They might prefer one style over the other regarding the
context available for them.

encourage understand the

students to preferred style
expand their of each learner
style and sow the
preference and seeds for
try other styles. flexibility.

realize that there is help student become

no one perfect aware of their
method or textbook learning styles (by
for all types of using
learners. questionnaires,
informing)
 Reflectivity vs. Impulsivity

Reflectivity
• In a problem solving situation, the student prefers to spend
more time collecting information. Reflective person has
systematic style, weighing all the considerations in a
problem, extensive reflection
Impulsivity
• In a problem solving situation, the student responds quickly
with little collection or analysis of information. Impulsive
person has intuitive style making a number of different
gambles on the basis of ‘hunches’ immediate reflection.
 Strategic techniques for teachers :
Reflectivity and impulsivity

• Don’t judge mistakes too harshly, especially with

1 impulsive style learners;

• Allow more time for a reflective style learner to struggle

2 with responses

• Remember, impulsive styles go through a number of

3 rapid transitions of semi grammatical stages

• Reflective persons require larger leaps from stage to

4 stage.
 Strengths and weaknesses
Ambiguity tolerant: Ambiguity intolerant:

Strength: Strength:
free to entertain a number of guards against the wishy-
innovations and affectively washiness
not disturbed by uncertainty
and ambiguity
Open-minded

Weakness: Weakness:
linguistic rules may not be close the mind and become too
effectively integrated into a whole narrow to be creative
system and become meaningless
chunks Close-minded
Strategic techniques for teachers:

recognize the style of each learner

exercise certain tolerance of ambiguity, not
too much for it may be perceived as a
threat and become harmful in SLA

remember :tolerance of ambiguity -

success in SLA
high tolerance of ambiguity - more success
in certain language task
 Left-Right Brain Dominance
The left hemisphere is associated
with logical, analytical thought,
with mathematical and linear
processing of information.
•FIELD INDEPENDENT
Second language learning
•Deductive teaching in the
classroom.
(better in producing separate
words, classifications, labeling, and
reorganization)
The right hemisphere perceives and
remember visual, tactile, and
auditory images, and more efficient
in processing holistic, integrative
and emotional information.
•FIELD DEPENDENT
Second language learning
•Inductive teaching.
•(better when dealing with images,
generalizations, metaphors, and
emotional reactions and artistic
expression)
 Cognitive Styles Summary

Every person, student or teacher, has a

Research
cognitive style; therefore, there is no
particular teaching or learning
findings and
method that can suit the needs of all
learners.
implications

Very little research has examined the

interaction between different cognitive
styles and success in L2 learning; however, Cognitive learning styles are
students should be encouraged to value-neutral; that is, no one
“stretch” their styles so that they will be style is better than others.
more empowered in a variety of learning
situations.

25
BUILDING EXCELLENCE…The Learning Individual®
Self-Awareness — “Know Thyself”

If learning is fundamental
to everything we do, then
understanding one’s
unique cognitive style
is fundamental
to learning.
 Problem solving 1.
part 1 Field dependent or independent learner?
One odd out ?

1. I think classroom study is the key to effective

language learning.
2. Receiving feedback from other people really
doesn't affect my learning at all.
3. I feel I must understand every word of what I
read or hear.
4. I really enjoy working with other people in pairs
or groups.
 Problem solving 1.
part 2 Field dependent or independent learner?
One odd out ?

1. I need a quiet environment in order to concentrate

well.
2. I prefer working alone to working with other
people.
3. I don't mind reading or listening in the L2 without
understanding every single word as long as I 'catch'
the main idea.
4. I find feedback useful as a means of understanding
my problem areas.
 Problem solving 2
Reflective or impulsive?
1. I tend to weigh pros and cons when I learn
2. I am slow but accurate
3. I am impatient
4. I am low risk-taker
5. I need immediate feedback
6. I generally make more mistakes
7. I can guess easily
8. I need to prepare before I speak
Problem solving 3
Strengths and weaknesses of left and right dominant
students. Find three errors :
It’s not easy for learners with left brain dominance:
1. to use metaphors
2. to control feelings
3. to be fluent and spontaneous
4. To use body language
It’s not easy for learners with right brain dominance:
5. To use body language
6. To guess unknown words
7. To solve a language problem logically
8. To do multiple choice test
 Test portfolio

learning style o Visual

  o Auditory
o kinesthetic
 
Left-Right brain dominance o Left
o Moderate left
o Middle brain
o Moderate right
o Strong right

Field dependent/ Field independent o Field dependent

o Field independent

Reflective/Impulsive o Reflective
o Impulsive
Ambiguity tolerant/ Ambiguity o Ambiguity tolerant
intolerant o Ambiguity intolerant