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Teacher emotion, emotional labor
and teacher identity
Paul A. Schutz (University of Texas, USA)
Mikyoung Lee (University of Munich, Germany)
A growing number of researchers suggest that teachers leave the profession at high
rates during the first few years of teaching (Achinstein, 2006; Kersaint et al., 2007).
These estimates are even higher in schools that serve minorities and English
Language Learners (ELL) (Jacob, 2007). Excessive teacher turnover is costly to
society, schools, and most importantly to students. Researchers have suggested that
one explanation for this exodus is the emotional nature of the teaching profession
(e.g., Schutz and Zembylas, 2009). They suggest that teaching involves considerable
emotional labor, which involves the effort, planning, and control teachers need to
express “appropriate” emotions. Emotional labor has been associated with job
dissatisfaction, health symptoms and emotional exhaustion, which are key
components of professional burnout. In this chapter we will discuss how teachers’
emotional experiences and emotional labor associated with those experiences are
intimately related to their emerging teacher identities. In addition, we will discuss the
importance of social, emotional, contextual factors and how those factors may
influence teachers’ identity development and their decisions to stay or leave the
profession.
[I was talking to a] kid last night and I told him about my experiences, my
life, and I told him this is one of the hardest jobs I have ever done, being a
teacher. And he looked at me and was like, really sir, and I was like yeah I
never realized how difficult it is to be teacher. And I think it’s because of all
those things, those emotions that you deal with. (Mr. Guerrero quoted in
Schutz et al., 2012)
1 Introduction
Every year a large number of early career teachers enter classrooms around
the world. Like Mr. Guerrero, these early career teachers enter the teaching
profession armed with, among other things, their goal to be a teacher, the
training they received, and an emerging idea of whom they are as a teacher
(Schutz et al., 2001). Unfortunately, there are also a number of reports that
suggest that many of those same teachers are leaving the profession at high
rates (Achinstein, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 1999; Kersaint et al., 2007;
Ulvik et al., 2009). In the USA these reports suggest that nearly 30% to 50%
of teachers leave the profession within the first five years (Alliance for
Excellent Education 2004; Ingersoll, 2003; Quality Counts 2000). Even more
problematic, these attrition rates tend to be higher in schools that serve
students of color and English language learners (Jacob, 2007).
170 Paul A. Schutz and Mikyoung Lee
A number of researchers are now suggesting the high level of teacher exodus
may be related to the emotional nature of the teaching process (see Schutz
and Pekrun, 2007; Schutz and Zembylas, 2009). Teaching, among other
things, involves managing complex emotional classrooms transactions that
tend to be even more pressing for novice teachers who are rarely prepared to
manage the emotional events that are an endemic part of teaching and
working within school contexts. Therefore, it is not surprising that many
teachers leave early in their career: some are simply ill equipped to deal with
the emotional transactions involved in their profession. As such, this exodus
tends to be higher among early career teachers in part because of the potential
emotionality of teaching, which may lead to job dissatisfaction, health
symptoms, and emotional exhaustion (Jackson et al., 1986; Maslach, 1982;
Morris and Feldman, 1996; Schaubroek and Jones, 2000).
Excessive teacher turnover during the first few years is problematic for many
reasons. First and foremost, it hurts students. It takes years for teachers to
fully develop their craft and yet too many students (especially our high needs
students) repeatedly encounter newer, less prepared, and less knowledgeable
teachers. In addition, teacher turnover also results in lost revenue from the
cost of professional development for new teachers; it results in the
dissolution of relationships with families, the community, and the school;
and, finally, high turn over makes long-term educational reform efforts
difficult (Schutz et al., 2012). As such, Cowie (2011), who explored how
language teachers experience their teaching environment, contended that the
emotional aspects in language teaching is important to consider and a key
aspect of becoming a successful teacher.
In this chapter we discuss how teachers’ emotional experiences and
emotional labor associated with those experiences are intimately related to
their emerging teacher identities. In addition, we will discuss emotions
episodes in the language classroom and how those episodes may influence
teachers’ identity development and their decisions to stay or leave the
profession. Finally we will offer some conclusions regarding teacher
emotions.
2 Teacher emotion episodes
Generally researchers suggest that emotional episodes consist of cognitive
appraisals, physiological responses, affective feeling, and behavioral
tendencies (e.g. Frijda, 2000; Izard, 2007; Russell and Barrett, 1999; Schutz
et al., in press; Smith, 1991). Schutz et al., (2006) further elaborated on this
view by also emphasizing social and historical aspects that shape an
emotional episode. They described emotional experiences as “socially
constructed, personally enacted ways of being that emerge from conscious
and/or unconscious judgments regarding perceived successes at attaining
Teacher emotion, emotional labor and teacher identity 171
goals or maintaining standards or beliefs during transactions as part of socialhistorical contexts (p. 344).”
As indicated emotions involve judgments or appraisals about what is
occurring during a particular classroom event (Pekrun et al., 2007; Schutz et
al., 2007). Basically, teachers’ goals, values, and beliefs, act as referent
points used to judge where they are in relation to where they want to be
(Carver and Scheier, 2000; Schutz and Davis, 2000). These goals, values,
and beliefs represent ways teachers’ position themselves during classroom
activities (Schutz et al., 2010).
These appraisals involve teachers’ perceptions of how the activity is going,
related to their goals and plans for that activity. In most cases, these
judgments occur outside of awareness, yet they are key to an emotional
episode (Frijda, 2000; Lazarus, 1991; Pekrun et al., 2007; Schutz and Davis,
2000; Smith, 1991). Researchers have found it useful to make a distinction
between primary and secondary appraisals (Lazarus, 1991; Schutz and Davis,
2000). Primary appraisals are related to how important teachers perceive the
outcome to be. For primary appraisal, Lazarus (1991) talks about judgments
related to goal relevance (i.e., is it important to the teachers’ goals?), goal
congruence (i.e., is the activity going how the teacher thought it would?), and
the type of ego or identity involvement (i.e., how much of the teachers’ self
or one’s identity is involved?). For example, if a particular teacher thinks
that preparing students for standardized tests is an important aspect of their
role as teacher -- a student’s slight off task behavior during an “important”
test preparation activity may be scrutinized more closely resulting in
judgments that the event was not going as planned, which may result in the
emergence of unpleasant teacher emotions. On the other hand, if the test
preparation activity was going as planned, it is more likely that pleasant
emotions would emerge.
Secondary appraisals are judgments that teachers make about their potential
to handle what is occurring during a particular activity. Two secondary
appraisals that are key to our discussion here are perceptions of autonomy
(Lazarus, 1991; Schutz & Davis, 2000; Pekrun et al., 2007) (i.e., Am I in
control of this situation?) and problem efficacy (Schutz and Davis, 2000),
(i.e., Am I confident I will be able to handle this situation?). These secondary
appraisals help differentiate among potential emotion episodes.
Consequently, a situation that has been appraised as goal important (i.e.,
‘‘It’s important for my students to do well on this standardized test’’) and
goal incongruent (i.e., ‘‘My students did really badly on that practice test’’),
with secondary appraisals of self-blame (i.e., ‘‘I knew I should have done a
better job of teaching’’) may result in shame. Alternatively, the same
situation with secondary appraisals of other blame (i.e., ‘‘These standardized
tests don’t measure what my students know’’) may result in anger. In terms
of pleasant emotions, if the situation was appraised as goal important (i.e.,
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172 Paul A. Schutz and Mikyoung Lee
‘‘It’s important for my students to do well on this standardized test’’) and
goal congruent (i.e., ‘‘My students did really well on that practice test’’),
with secondary appraisals of being in control and able to handle any
problems (i.e., ‘‘I thought those teaching strategies would help my
students!’’) may result in pride and enjoyment.
It is important to also indicate that these emotions are also related to teacher
motivation. Schumann (2001) argued that teacher motivation is, in part
related to how language teacher appraisals events in the classroom. For
instance, appraising oneself as being in control and able to handle the
situation tends to facilitate successful outcomes and pleasant emotions such
as pride and joy, whereas appraising oneself as not able to handle the
situation may facilitate failure outcomes and unpleasant emotions such as
frustration and anger; thus, influencing to the potential for success in second
language learning classrooms.
3 Emotional labor
As indicated, for teachers as well as students, the classroom has the potential
for a variety of emotional episodes that range from the overwhelming
enjoyment of seeing your students understand a difficult concept to the
intense frustration of attempting to deal with the constraints of a student’s
challenging home life. However, Williams-Johnson and her colleagues
(2008) also found that teachers sometime find it necessary to suppress or
avoid displaying certain emotions in the classroom. Other researchers have
also suggested, that within the context of classroom activity settings, teachers
are expected to display emotions in particular ways (Morris and Feldman,
1996; Williams-Johnson et al., 2008; Zembylas, 2003, 2005). These
emotional display rules can be defined as the standards or norms for the
appropriate emotional expression during classroom transactions. Thus,
emotional labor is the work or effort teachers use to present various roles or
identities during school related transactions. Which means that, during
transactions in the school context teachers’ express, repress, or generate
emotions based on perceived needs during particular activities (WilliamJohnson et al., 2008). In other words, there are certain expected socialhistorical based ways of expressing emotion. For teacher this generally
means that during most transactions with students, they are expected to show
pleasant emotions and suppress their unpleasant felt emotions (Schaubroek
and Jones, 2000; Williams-Johnson et al, 2008).
The expectation to that teachers expected to show some emotions and
suppress others creates the potential for emotional dissonance or a conflict
between what a teacher is actually feeling and the perceived display rules
expected to follow. Hochschild (1983) referred to act of having feeling one
way while trying to portray a different feeling as “surface acting.” In other
Teacher emotion, emotional labor and teacher identity 173
words, when teachers try to wear a “mask” in a effort to show their students
one emotions, they are suppressing their real feelings and, instead, present a
facade as if they feel them. On the other hand, deep acting refers to the
teachers attempt to actually feel the emotions that they need to express and
spend effort to regulate their own genuine emotions.
The expectation that teachers are obliged to follow particular display rules
has been associated with the idea of emotional labor (Morris and Feldman,
1996; Zembylas, 2005). Morris and Feldman (1996) define emotional labor
‘‘as the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally
desired emotion during interpersonal transactions’’ (p. 987). In the area of
occupational psychology, researchers have suggested that emotional labor is
related to emotional exhaustion (a key component of burnout), job
satisfaction, and health symptoms (Maslach, 1982; Jackson et al., 1986;
Morris and Feldman, 1996; Schaubroek & Jones, 2000). Research into
emotional labor in teaching and other aspects of teachers’ emotions is
becoming increasingly important not only because of the growing number of
teachers leaving the profession, but also because unpleasant classroom
emotions have considerable implications for student learning, school climate
and the quality of education in general. In addition, these emotional episodes
and the emotional labor associated with them have the potential to influence
how teachers see themselves as teachers – or their teacher identities.
4 Teacher identities
Teachers’ identities involve both the ways in which teachers perceive
themselves (as teachers) and the ways they portray themselves to their
students (Schutz et al., 2007). These identities continuously change, evolve,
and emerge as teachers transact among social historical contexts over the
course of their teaching lives (Danielewicz, 2001; Zembylas, 2003; Cross and
Hong, 2009; Hong, 2010). This construction and reconstruction of their
identities is based not only on the continually changing self-knowing of
teachers, but also on teachers’ continually changing perceptions of the
profession itself. Thus, what teachers know about themselves, their
perception of the characteristics and nature of the teaching profession, and
their beliefs about their roles are all interrelated in forming and transforming
their teacher identities.
A key aspect of teachers’ changing identities revolves around the emotions
associated with the teaching process. For example, Nias (1996) indicated
that teachers invest their “selves” in their work. This investment includes
emotional episodes that provide salient evidence regarding one’s evolving
identity commitments. During emotional transactions, teachers’ emerging
identities not only influence their actions and emotions, but their actions and
emotions also influence their professional identity formation. As such,
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174 Paul A. Schutz and Mikyoung Lee
teacher identities and emotion are not linear or unidirectional; rather, they are
inextricably related to each other through an ongoing, multidirectional,
transactional process. For example, some unpleasant emotions may represent
a challenge to existing identity-related beliefs and goals about student
learning, whereas, pleasant emotional episodes about student learning may
suggest a confirmation of emerging identities. In English language class,
teachers may feel frustrated when students’ performance did not reach
teachers’ academic goals for their outcomes, especially given that
performance in English is important for students’ academic careers. In this
situation, teachers might reconsider their teacher identity, by asking
themselves: ‘‘can I do good job as an English teacher?’’ On the other hand,
teachers may experience enjoyment or pride, when they see their students
being successful while explaining difficult vocabulary items using the words
they learned in class, without giving up. These successes might provide
teachers with an opportunity to reinforce their identity as English teacher.
New teachers begin with beliefs and goals about their students and the roles
they will be “playing” as a teacher (Cross and Hong, 2009; Van Veen and
Sleegers, 2009; Hong, 2010; Schutz et al., 2012). These beliefs and goals
can range from being useful to not useful and yet they act as reference points
or standards used by teachers to judge what happens during classroom
transactions. For example, students’ actions and reactions may be compared
to idealized versions of how students “should” act in the classroom (Flores
and Day, 2006). When students’ behaviors are in line with teachers’
perceptions of how the classroom should be and are associated with pleasant
emotions and those salient identities may be strengthened. However, when
there is a discrepancy among a teacher’s current identity beliefs and what is
actually occurring in the classroom, there is the potential for those identities
to be challenged, resulting in potential changes in those identities (Schutz et
al., 2007; Cross and Hong, 2009). When students are compliant, it confirms
pleasant emotions about being respected. When students are defiant,
frustration can lead to doubt about emergent teacher roles. Thus, it is
important to keep in mind that it is difficult to separate teachers’ professional
identities from teachers’ emotional experiences, how they display those
emotions, and the contexts in which those emotions arise (Schutz et al.,
2007).
Recently, scholars have elaborated on the role that emotions play in changing
and maintaining teacher identities (Carlyle and Woods, 2002; Flores and
Day, 2006; Schutz et al., 2007; Cross and Hong, 2009; Schutz et al., 2009;
Schutz et al., 2012; Van den berg, 2002). These researchers provide
evidence for relationships between unpleasant emotions and the adjustment
of teacher identities. In one example, Carlyle and Wood (2002: 77) quote
Morag, a 25-year-old arts teacher, who said, ‘‘the stress of teaching splits you
up so you don’t know who you are any more.” Thus teachers’ identities can
Teacher emotion, emotional labor and teacher identity 175
be constructed and reconstructed through changing beliefs related to the
experience of pleasant emotions such as enjoyment and pride in one’s student
accomplishments as well as unpleasant emotions, such as anger and
frustration leading to feelings of being burned out.
In language education, Varghese and colleagues (2005) argue that, ‘‘in order
to understand language teaching and learning we need to understand teachers:
the professional, cultural, political, and individual identities, which they
claim or which are assigned to them’’ (p. 22). As mentioned, recently
researchers have investigated language teacher identity. For example, Miller
(2009) ‘‘places identity and discourse at the heart of language teaching and
learning’’ (p. 172). Yet, teacher identity related to English language learning
has received little attention by researchers (Varghese et al., 2005; Reeves,
2009; Farrell, 2011). Existing studies have heavily focused on novice
teachers (e.g., Amin, 1997; Varghese et al., 2005; Park, 2007; Farrell, 2012),
while scholars have paid little attention to the identity of experienced
language teachers. Consideration of language teacher identity for both novice
teachers and experienced teachers is important in professional development
since their identities are fundamental to the beliefs, assumptions, values, and
practices (Farrell, 2011), which will be also crucially taken into the preservice teacher training.
In particular, the issue of teacher identity in relation to English language
learners may need to be considered differently compared to other subject
areas, given that English language learners may be a more heterogeneous
group (Reeves, 2009). For example, their students are linguistically as well as
cultural newcomers from potentially a variety of countries, creating
multilingual and multicultural classroom environments.
In fact, the
enrollment of English language learners to public schools in English speaking
countries (e.g., the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia,
New Zealand) is rapidly increasing (Reeves, 2009). These dynamic situations
demand that English language teachers change their instructional practices,
which in turn generates dilemmas in that they may not been prepared during
their professional training (Arkoudis and Davison, 2002). Without question,
English language teachers will experience challenges to their emerging
identities from their unique circumstances.
Recently, Farrell (2011) categorized three main clusters in professional role
identities of English language teachers: Teacher as Manager (Attempt to
control everything that happens in classroom), Teacher as Acculturator
(Helps students get accustomed to life outside class), and Teacher as
Professional (Teachers dedicated to their work; take it seriously). Probably
the identities of, Teacher as Manager and Teacher as Professional, can be
applied to teachers of all subjects. However, the role identity of Teacher as
Acculturator is something that may make English language professionals
somewhat unique (Farrell, 2011). To illustrate, when students move to a new
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176 Paul A. Schutz and Mikyoung Lee
country, they tend to start with language learning, as such, language teachers
may be the students’ first contacts and tend to be expected to provide advice
and support to students on top of the language lessons. Thus, these teachers
may also develop a caregiver role for students in this respect, which may be a
less likely expectation for other subject teachers who may not be fluent in the
student’s first language.
In addition, Duff and Uchida (1997) describes language teachers as cultural
workers, because teachers ‘‘play a key role in the construction of the
learners’ views of their homes; their understandings of unfamiliar belief
systems, values and practices; and their negotiations of new social
relationships’’ (Hawkins and Norton, 2009: 32) for students who just come
into their new school and new community. In essence, the role of “Teacher
as Acculturator” is not just for the long-term educational needs of their
students but also the short-term entry into a new culture – a role that teachers
of other subjects may not feel as acutely.
As such, it is evident that in order to understand English language teaching
and learning as well as to help students learn their target language (English)
more effectively, understanding teachers in the first place is essential. In
order to understand teachers, we should have a clear perspective of who they
are: ‘‘the professional, cultural, political, and individual identities which they
claim or which are assigned them’’ (Varghese et al., 2005: 22). In other
words, we have to pay attention to comprehend how language teachers shape
their identities among others in their teacher education program, and with
students in their schools and classrooms (Varghese et al., 2005).
5 Emotions episodes in the language classroom
Consideration of the importance of affective factors in students’ language
learning is not new (Arnold, 2011). In fact, two affective domains have
received considerable attention from researchers in the field of language
learning: student language anxiety and second language motivation. First, in
foreign language learning anxiety has been considered as an influential
emotional factor (Oxford, 1999); accordingly, numerous studies on language
anxiety have been conducted (e.g., Gardner, 1985; Horwitz et al., 1986; Aida,
1994; Truitt, 1995; Price, 1999; Horwitz, 2001). For example, Horwitz and
colleagues (1986) defined foreign language anxiety as “a distinct complex of
self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom
language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning
process” (p. 128). They proposed that three components of foreign language
anxiety are communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative
evaluation. Most studies on foreign language anxiety demonstrated negative
impacts of anxiety on performance in language learning, focusing on
emotions from students’ perspectives. Nevertheless, we can assume that
Teacher emotion, emotional labor and teacher identity 177
teacher emotional experiences will be affected by student emotional
sufferings in language class, which might lead teachers to reconsider about
their roles as teachers. To illustrate, if teachers face students suffering high
test anxiety, they might feel sympathy or caring for these students, and
accordingly considering themselves as a caregiver role.
Another area of research on affective factors in foreign language learning is
second language motivation. Scholars in second language motivation
research have concentrated on the combinations of two motivation
dichotomies: integrative (learning a second language to integrate into a
community or a cultural group where the second language is being spoken)
vs. instrumental (learning a second language for specific purposes, for
example, to get admitted to a post-secondary institution), and intrinsic
(learning a second language with enjoyment for one’s own self-fulfillment
without any external pressure) vs. extrinsic motivation (learning a second
language forced by others such as parents, society, or schools, and often
influenced by some sort of rewards such as grades) (Gardner and MacIntyre,
1993; Dörnyei, 1998; Noels et al., 2001). These researchers suggest that
integrative and intrinsic motivation constructs are the most important
predictors for successful language learning, because learners with high
integrative and intrinsic motivation demonstrate more positive perceptions of
their academic competency, perceived autonomy, persistence, lower language
anxiety and positive attitudes towards language learning, which influences
their academic achievement positively. When teachers have the highly
motivated students in their class, they might experience more pleasant
emotions such as enjoyment or pride in themselves and their students,
whereas they might have sympathy, frustration, or anger for students with
lower motivation. According to students (with higher motivation or lower
motivation), teachers will have to adapt their roles differently.
However, as noted, these studies focused on affective variables from
language learners’ perspectives and not the teachers’ side. In fact, although
recently researchers are beginning to pay attention to teacher emotions (e.g.,
Hargreaves, 1998; Sutton and Wheatley, 2003; Cross and Hong, 2009;
Frenzel et al., 2009; Schutz et al., 2009), they have been implementing
studies in general education contexts rather than within the ELL context
(Cowie, 2011). With a few exceptions (Horwitz, 1996; Stanley, 1999; Bress,
2006; Mousavi, 2007), there has been little research on investigating
comprehensive emotions and English language teaching. For example,
Horwitz (1996) and Mousavi (2007) investigated the anxiety of nonnative
speaker teachers due to their possible language deficiency. Stanley (1999)
maintains that unpleasant emotions can have a negative influence on
teachers’ teaching abilities. In addition, Bress (2006) found that English
language teachers experience stress mainly because of lack of time, unwanted
classroom observation, and uncooperative relationships with colleagues.
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178 Paul A. Schutz and Mikyoung Lee
However, even from these studies it is difficult to understand a clear research
outline or consistent approach (Cowie, 2011).
With a few exceptions, there has been little empirical research investigating
how language teachers’ approach or perceive the affective domain in the
classroom. For instance, Aydin (2009) demonstrated that English language
teachers in Turkey gave importance to the affective side in their classes in
general, but this study has a limitation to demonstrate whether the teachers
really apply what they believe to make effective language teaching. More
recently, Saeidi and Jabbarpour (2011) explored the relationship between
teachers’ social and affective strategy use and students’ academic
performance in English language class. They argue that language teachers
should use affective strategies (e.g., sense of humor, positive attitude,
fairness, encouragement, and politeness) in order to lead successful teaching
and to improve students’ achievement.
As such, there is a gap in studies on the affective domain focusing on
teachers’ perspectives, although it is clear that investigating how teachers
approach the affective domain of language teaching will provide
understanding their attitudes toward students, which greatly influences the
way they teach to promote more efficient learning and teaching
environments. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that researchers pay
more attention to studies on how teachers approach the affective domain, in
particular emotions, in the language classroom.
6 Conclusions
Overall it is clear that classrooms are emotional places and the language
learning classroom, because of it unique role in the education process, is no
exception. As indicated, over the last ten years there has been increased
interest in the teacher emotion in the classroom. As a result of these research
efforts, we are beginning to develop some understandings of emotions,
emotional labor and their influence on teachers’ developing identities.
As noted earlier, although recently researchers have investigated teacher
identity related to English language learning, existing studies have mostly
focused on novice teachers with a conspicuous lack of research on the
identity of experienced language teachers who may be useful in
understanding how to be successful in those classroom. For future studies,
researchers might give more empirical attention to language teacher identity
for not only novice teachers but also experienced teachers, since teacher
identities are central to their beliefs, assumptions, values, and practices
(Farrell, 2011), which will be also crucially taken into consideration for the
professional development training for pre-service teachers.
In particular, the professional training for language teachers might be
considered differently compared with the training for other subject teachers,
Teacher emotion, emotional labor and teacher identity 179
given that English classroom environments are more dynamic with
multilingual and multicultural learners. English language teachers should be
prepared to deal with these dynamic situations because these special teaching
environments might require English language teachers to modify their
instructional practices a great deal. We suggest that most of all, it would be
important to make some sort of collaboration (e.g., connection programs)
among language teacher educators, teachers, and school administrators.
Through this collaboration, teachers can be better supported for more
successful management in these dynamic teaching environments (Farrell,
2012). This consideration might be even more crucial for novice teachers
who suddenly have no further connection with their previous educators. If
they still have contacts with teacher educators, the support from their
educators can help make a smooth transition of their challenging first years
teaching and experience joy of teaching, before they think about leaving their
teaching career.
Teachers also need to be encouraged to share their experiences, especially
with their fellow teachers, their teacher educators, and school administrators.
As it is shown in a Cowie’s (2011) recent study, teachers reported that
although sometimes they wanted to change or leave their profession as an
English language teacher, they have decided to stay because they
collaborated with their colleagues, and shared some sense of identity as a
fellow professional, which means were getting emotional support from one
another. Writing reflective stories about their own experiences in real
classrooms also could be a good way to make sense of their experiences
(Farrell, 2011, 2012). These reports can be used in pre-service teacher
training so that pre-service teachers can be better prepared for their teaching
in real classrooms. This would be possible when there exists effective
collaboration between teachers and teacher educators.
In addition, it might be necessary to include a supplementary course in
language teacher programs that especially explores these kinds of dynamic
classroom environment, given that there is still no agreement for what
specific courses to be offered in the field of teaching English as a second
language (Farrell, 2012). In this supplementary course, for example, the
reports from in-service teachers can be used as part of course materials.
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Teacher emotion, emotional labor and teacher identity 185
8 Recommended reading
Farrell, T. S. C. (2011) Exploring the Professional Role Identities of
Experienced ESL Teachers through Reflective Practice, System: An
International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics
39 (1): 54-62.
The author describes the role of identity development of experienced ESL
teachers, therefore providing insights into the influence of identity and
reflective practice on the teaching process.
Frenzel, A. C., T. Goetz, E. J. Stephens, and B. Jacob (2009) Antecedents
and effects of teachers’ emotional experiences: An integrated perspective
and empirical test. In Schutz, P. A., and M. Zembylas (eds) Advances in
teacher emotion research: The impact on teachers’ lives, New York:
Springer: 129-152.
The authors provide strong theoretical and empirical evidence for the
emotional lives of teachers.
Hong, J. Y. (2010) Pre-service and beginning teachers’ professional
identity and its relation to dropping out of the profession, Teaching and
Teacher Education 26: 1530-1543.
The author provides evidence and insight into the beginning teachers
identities and how those developing identities transact with feeling and
thoughts about dropping out of the profession.
Schutz, P. A., D. I. Cross, J. Y. Hong, and J. N. Osbon (2007) Teacher
identities, beliefs and goals related to emotions in the classroom. In
Schutz, P. A., and R. Pekrun (eds) Emotion in education, San Diego, CA:
Elsevier Inc.: 223-241.
In this chapter the authors unpack the relationships among identities, beliefs
and goals and how those transactions are related to classroom emotions.
9 Questions for reflection and discussion
-
Do you know people who have left the teaching profession? What sort of
reasons did provide as to why they decided to quit teaching?
The authors suggest that emotions emerge from how we think about and
make judgments about our daily events. Think about the last time you
were angry – what appraisal or judgments did you make?
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186 Paul A. Schutz and Mikyoung Lee
-
When you think about your own identities – Who are you? How have
your identities changed over time? Would you describe yourself the same
way as you would have ten years ago?
What are some of the reasons why you think the emotions that emerge in
a language classroom are different then a regular classroom? In what
ways are they the same?
Notes on contributors 361
technology-enhanced context. She has published in French and in English, as
a single author and with other researchers. She was recently invited to give
lectures in India (Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar), London
(King’s College) and Tucson (The University of Arizona).
Nicos C. Sifakis is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities of the
Hellenic Open University. He holds a B.A. in Computational Linguistics and
a Ph.D. in language and linguistics from the University of Essex, UK. He has
been involved with postgraduate distance education for ESOL practitioners
since 1998. He is founding editor-in-chief of Research Papers in Language
Teaching and Learning (http://rpltl.eap.gr/). His research articles appear in
TESOL Quarterly, ELT Journal, ESP Journal, International Journal of
Applied Linguistics, Language and Education, System. His research interests
include intercultural communication and pedagogy, teaching and researching
English as an international lingua franca, language teaching methodology,
distance education, adult education and teacher education.
Sophia Papaefthymiou-Lytra is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the
Faculty of English Studies, University of Athens. She is also Head of the
M.Ed. in TESOL programme at the Hellenic Open University. Her
publications include six books, numerous articles in journals and edited
volumes dealing with issues in learning and teaching English as foreign
language and teacher education. Her current research interests include
classroom discourse analysis and learning, learning and communicating
strategies, linguistic and cultural awareness and learning, self-access,
autonomous and distance learning, the role of L1 in FL learning, assessment
and certification, adult foreign language education as well as teacher
education and training.
Paul A. Schutz is currently a professor in the Department of Educational
Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio (USA). His research
interests include the nature of emotion, emotional regulation, and teachers’
understandings of emotion in the classroom. He is a past president for
Division 15: Educational Psychology of the American Psychological
Association and a former co-editor of the Educational Researcher: Research
News and Comment, a lead journal for the American Educational Research
Association. He recently published two co-edited books that highlight current
research on emotion: Emotion in education (2007) with Reinhard Pekrun
(Academic Press) and Advances in teacher emotion research: The impact on
teachers’ lives (2009) with Michalinos Zembylas (Springer Publishing).
Mikyoung Lee is a PhD student in the Department of Educational
Psychology and a member of the Doctoral Training Program in the Munich
362
Center of Learning Sciences at the University of Munich. She has
experiences in teaching English for seven years in South Korea. Her main
areas of research interest are foreign language acquisition, English education,
achievement goals and achievement emotions, and teachers’ emotion and
emotional regulation.
María E. Torres-Guzmán is a Professor of Bilingual Education at Teachers
College, Columbia University (USA). She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford
University. Her latest book is Freedom at Work: Language, Professional and
Intellectual Development. In addition, she has published numerous books,
journal articles and book chapters.
Patricia Martínez Álvarez is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the program
in Bilingual/Bicultural Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
(USA). Her research interests include how culture influences language and
content development, and how technology mediates this learning and is a tool
for agency and identity development. She looks at implications for teacher
preparation.
Juan de Dios Martínez Agudo is Associate Professor of EFL Teacher
Education at the Faculty of Education of the University of Extremadura
(Spain) and Head of the Research Group in English Language Teaching and
Learning. His current research interests include second language acquisition,
English language teaching and L2 teacher education. He has published
several books and research articles on these areas in national and
international publications. His most recent edited books are Oral
Communication in the EFL Classroom (2008), Errors in the Second
Language Classroom: Corrective Feedback (2010) and Teaching and
Learning English through Bilingual Education (2012).
Ian Robinson is a lecturer in English Language at the University of
Extremadura (Spain). Graduated from the University of Coventry (U.K.) in
1971 with an Honours Degree in Modern Languages. Since that date he has
gained a Diploma in TEFL from the University of Brighton and a degree in
English Philology from the University of Extremadura (Spain).
Mª Sagrario Salaberri Ramiro is Lecturer at the University of Almería (Spain)
and teacher trainer. She was awarded her PhD in TEFL in 1997. Throughout
her career, she has been active in fostering teacher training and the teaching
of English as a foreign language. She has written many articles and books in
that field and has been involved in the development of curriculum design and
curricular material for EFL. Author of Classroom language, Sunshine and Our
Discovery Island, co-author of Story telling, English Club, Teamwork Starter
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