Comparison of Emotional Intelligence of Monolingual and Bilingual Students and its Role in Attitudes toward Learning English

Background and Bilingualism means that the person is trained in a language other than his native language, and this situation provides problems for minority languages, especially in education. The present study aimed to compare the emotional intelligence of monolingual (Persian) and bilingual (Persian-Baluchi) students and its role in the attitude toward learning english.
The present research is a causal-comparative study. The statistical population consisted of all students in the second grade secondary school of Chabahar city in the academic year 2012-2013. The sample was 240 students (Persians and 120 Baluchis) were selected by stratified sampling and completed emotional intelligence questionnaire (Schutte et al., 1998) and motivation and attitudes toward learning english scale (Gardner, 1985). Data were analyzed using independent T-test, multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis.
The results showed that bilingual students had higher emotional regulation compared to monolingual students. There was no significant difference between student's attitudes toward learning English in monolingual and bilingual students. Also, there was no significant difference between student's emotional intelligence of monolingual and bilingual students (p Attitude toward english learning is a predictor of student's academic achievement, but emotional intelligence variable does not predict academic success in English lesson; as a result, changing attitudes of Persian students about the importance of learning English language can be useful.