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Abstract

The internationalization of higher education has intensified linguistic and cultural diversity in English-language classrooms across the Gulf region, particularly within Foundation Year Programs. In such contexts, teachers' emotional intelligence appears to be an important factor associated with student engagement, teacher empathy, and classroom stress resilience, yet empirical evidence from multicultural English-language programs in the Gulf remains limited. This study examined the relationship between teachers' emotional intelligence and three dimensions of classroom functioning: student engagement, teacher empathy, and stress resilience. The sample comprised 83 English language teachers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates who completed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), supplemented by 300 student questionnaires linked to a subgroup of teachers and structured classroom observations of 10 instructors. Findings indicated statistically significant differences across emotional intelligence groups on all three outcome variables: higher emotional intelligence was associated with stronger engagement practices, more empathetic interactions, and greater stress resilience, with consistent patterns across institutions and countries, aligning with Bar-On's Emotional-Social Intelligence framework. The study provides performance-based, multi-source evidence on the role of emotional intelligence in multicultural second- and foreign-language teaching contexts and offers practical implications for teacher education and professional development in multilingual learning environments.

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