Enhancing EFL Learners' Emotional Intelligence through Fuzzy Thinking and Emotional Engineering

Among the major milestones in the history of psychological attempts and psycholinguistic investigations lies the inception and outbreak of the contentious field of emotional intelligence in the mid 1990s. Although subsequent to its advent a profusion of diverse probes from several neighboring disciplines have been devoted to disentangling the true nature of this rather avant-garde doctrine, some aspects of EQ still seem to have been given scant attention in L2 learning research. One such partially neglected facet is thought to be the investigation of the role of intervention studies in enhancing EFL learners’ emotional intelligence. Thus, the present study aims to somehow bridge this ostensible gap in the literature on the issue by resorting to two innovative techniques of fuzzy thinking and SAFE (Sign-Assisted Feeling Expression). The results gained point to significant leaps in EFL learners’ level of emotional intelligence with regard to some particular subscales of Bar-On's EQ-i which are attributable to the effect of treatment on participants.