Investigating the Effects of English Language Learning Classes on Learners’ Narrative Intelligence

Mateas and Sengers (1999) view narrative intelligence as an entity’s ability to narratively organize and explain experiences. Likewise, Graesser, Singer and Trabasso (1994) regard narrative intelligence as the ability to comprehend and make inferences about narratives that he is told. Other researchers state that narrative intelligence is the ability to produce affective responses such as empathy to narratives one hears (Mar et al., 2011). All cognitive processes in people’s lives depend upon narrative intelligence. According to Randall (1999), narrative intelligence is the ability to perceive and produce narrative structures. While the role of emotional and verbal intelligences has been the subject of many studies in the past decade, there has been a dearth of studies into narrative intelligence. As such, the present study aimed to investigate the extent to which EFL classes boost students’ narrative abilities in different educational contexts, namely, private language institutes and public schools. In addition, it is intended to see if there was a relationship between gender (male vs. female) and the narrative intelligence of students in the above mentioned educational contexts. The data were collected using the Narrative Intelligence Scale (NIS) and then fed into SPSS software. The results of the study revealed that EFL learners in private language institutes enjoyed a higher level of narrative intelligence compared to their counterparts in public schools. In addition, it was revealed there was a significant difference between gender and the narrative intelligence of students at the two educational contexts.