Preschool Children's Emotional Intelligence: Using Module in Malaysian Context

A preliminary study conducted by the researchers found that preschool teachers in Malaysia are having problems teaching the socio-emotional components due to the lack of specific teaching tools, guidance and structure. In this study, a teaching module was developed to help preschool teachers in pedagogy of emotional intelligence (EI) to enhance the preschool children's EI in Malaysia. This module was developed based on Gagne Information Processing Theory, Bandura's Social Learning Theory and The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Theory by Vygotsky. The module includes ten topics which cover all elements of EI: indentifying emotion, understanding emotion, controlling emotion and using emotion. Activities were designed for each of these elements and in-service teachers were the ones who taught the children using the module. The effectiveness of this module was examined through an interview among the preschools teachers (experimental group) who using the module. Results show both preschools teacher in experimental group satisfy with the effectiveness's teaching and learning module to enhance preschool children's emotional intelligence. It is significant increase of children's emotional intelligence in the experimental group. These findings suggest that the module can be a useful tool for preschool teachers to help develop preschool children's emotional intelligence.