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REL0010.1177/0033688220927531RELC JournalRichards

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RELC Journal

Exploring Emotions in
2022, Vol. 53(1) 225–239
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DOI: 10.1177/0033688220927531
https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688220927531
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Jack C. Richards
University of Sydney, Australia

Abstract
Emotions are an important part of the experiences of both language teachers and language
learners, however their role has often been marginalized as a result of the focus on cognitive
rather than affective dimensions of language learning within the discipline of Second Language
Acquisition. The ‘affective turn’ in applied linguistics has refocussed on how teachers’ and learners’
emotions influence how they manage teaching and learning. This survey article explores the kinds
of emotions teachers and learners experience, the causes of these emotions, and the impact they
can have on teaching and learning. Theory and research is reviewed relating to emotions and the
teacher, emotions and the language learner, and emotions in teacher development. Suggestions
are given as to how teachers and learners can develop emotional competence, that is, the ability
to understand and productively manage emotions in language learning and teaching.

Keywords
Emotions, teacher learning, affective turn, emotional competence, professional development,
professional learning

Teaching and learning a second language are both emotionally-charged activities. So too
is the experience of learning to become a second language teacher. Emotions play an
important role in language teaching because teaching is not only a rational activity but
also a social one. It involves people coming together in a social space, one in which emo-
tions influence both the teachers’ instructional practices as well as the learners’ response
to the experience of teaching and learning (Dornyei, 2005).
Emotions can shape the way teachers teach and can influence learners’ willingness to
make use of what they have learned. Hence learning to teach involves not only mastering
how to communicate subject matter to learners but also how to manage the emotional
dimensions of teaching and learning. Teng (2017: 118) comments:

Corresponding author:
Jack C. Richards, University of Sydney, Australia.
Email: jcrichards1001@yahoo.com
226 RELC Journal 53(1)

Emotions are part of the very fabric that constitutes the teacher’s self, implying that teachers –
including pre-service teachers – at various times get angry, love, fear, worry, enthuse, become
irritable, doubt, brood, feel proud, joyful, anxious and despondent, and so on. As emotional
practitioners, teachers can decide whether to make their classroom exciting or dull by displaying
appropriate actions. Strong emotions may motivate a teacher to take actions that he or she
would not normally perform.

The renewed focus on the role of emotions in language teaching seeks to understand
teaching and learning from the viewpoint of the participants in the social space of the
classroom and to capture how teachers and learners experience and deal with its sub-
jective reality (Anttila et al., 2016; Benesch, 2012; Dewaele, 2005; Garret and Young,
2009; Martinez Agudo, 2018). The introduction of positive psychology in applied lin-
guistics has broadened understanding of the range of emotions language teachers and
learners experience and particularly the role that positive emotions can play in facili-
tating teaching and learning (Dewaele and Afawazan, 2018). In the language teaching
literature, emotions have traditionally been viewed as examples of ‘affective factors’.
Such features have often received limited attention in mainstream applied linguistics
due to the dominance of paradigms that emphasized the role of cognition in learning
(White, 2018). Emotions have been viewed as something fuzzy, difficult to tease apart
into its different dimensions, and difficult to research. They were often typically
regarded as ‘soft’ and irrational in comparison to the ‘hard’, quantifiable and rational
facts about second language learning and teaching that were the focus of much research
attention from the 1970s. However, the so-called ‘affective turn’ in applied linguistics
has prompted a re-examination of the role affective factors play in language learning
and teaching, including the role of emotions (Benesch, 2012). This has led to a focus
not so much on what emotions are (or are not) (e.g. Barrett, 2017) but rather on what
they do socially and how they affect second language (L2) teaching through daily
classroom transactions and interactions. Emotions are understood as a sociocultural
experience primarily determined not only by individual characteristics but also by
relationships and social contexts. They are not merely something that we ‘have’ but
something that we ‘do’.
In order to present a brief overview of emotions in teaching English to speakers of
other languages (TESOL), I will examine emotions as they relate to the experience of
teachers, language learners, and teacher-learners (student teachers). I will seek to clarify
the following questions:

•• What sort of emotions do language teachers, language learners, and teacher-

learners experience in their respective roles and teaching-learning contexts?
•• What circumstances prompt these emotions?
•• How do they affect the processes of teaching and learning?

Emotions and the Teacher

John Marshall Reeve (cited in MacIntyre and Gregerson, 2012: 194) offers a useful defi-
nition of emotions:
Richards 227

Emotions are short-lived, feeling-arousal-purposive-expressive phenomena that help us adapt

to the opportunities and challenges we face during important life events.

For teachers, the experience of teaching may involve both positive and negative emo-
tions. Positive emotions include feelings such as these: confident, curious, engaged,
enjoyment, enthusiastic interested, amused, glad, grateful, happy, joyful, passionate,
pleased, proud, satisfied.
Negative emotions include: angry, annoyed, anxious, bored, concerned, depressed,
disgusted, dissatisfied, exhausted, frustrated, jealous, mad, nervous, sad, stressed, tense,
uneasy, worried.
Emotions such as these are the outcome of interactions between teachers and their
teaching contexts and include feelings they have about themselves, their colleagues, their
learners, classroom activities, their teaching context and teaching resources, as well as
their feelings about the benefits and rewards of teaching. Emotions can influence the
teacher’s decision-making and future choices and actions. For example, they can affect:

•• The teacher’s use of English when teaching English.

•• The teacher’s interaction with students.
•• How she or he responds to unanticipated classroom incidents.
•• The rules and procedures the teacher makes use of for dealing with classroom
management issues.
•• The extent to which she or he makes use of activities that address classroom cli-
mate, such as games, songs, personal stories and jokes.
•• The choice of colleagues to work with in activities such as team teaching and peer
observation.
•• The kind of feedback the teacher provides.
•• A preference for group-based or individual teacher development activities such as
lesson planning and curriculum development.
•• The extent to which the teacher makes use of activities that involve collaborative
rather than competitive learning.
•• The extent to which the teacher considers emotional factors when teaching com-
mercial materials and resources.
•• The level of satisfaction the teacher derives from teaching.

What can be called ‘emotional competence’ refers to the teacher’s ability to develop and
maintain an emotionally-managed classroom, one in which there is neither too much nor
too little emotion on either the teacher or the students’ part (Benesch, 2012; Madalinska-
Michalak, 2015). Neither teachers nor students are encouraged to display negative emo-
tions such as anger, boredom, or anxiety. However, different contexts for teaching can
create either ‘favouring’ or ‘disfavouring’ potentials for teaching that influence the
teacher’s emotional experience of teaching (Tsang and Jiang, 2018). Nguyen (2018: 243)
describes how ‘ESL teachers’ interactions with the school community, including stu-
dents, colleagues and administrators, play a fundamental role in their emotional experi-
ences and in shaping the way ESL teachers do their work’. Favourable contexts include
motivated students, small class size, good facilities, resources and equipment, skilled and
228 RELC Journal 53(1)

supportive administrators who are open to new ideas, innovation and enquiry, a collabo-
rative school culture, good compensation, benefits, and reward system for teaching.
Disfavourable conditions that can lead to teacher stress and anxiety include large class
size, poorly motivated students, emphasis on book learning, rote learning and test scores,
lack of encouragement for innovation or creativity, limited teacher agency and autonomy
(de Costa et al., 2018), substandard and/or limited facilities, resources, and equipment,
unskilled and unsupportive administrators, little collaboration among teachers, poor
compensation, benefits, and reward system for teaching (Pennington and Richards,
2016). In many situations, factors such as these create a negative emotional experience
of teaching, preventing teachers from realizing their aspirational or ideal teacher identity
and leading to feelings of frustration and disappointment or even anger. As Dewaele
states, ‘teachers need an emotional thermometer so as to lower foreign language class-
room anxiety’ (cited in Martinez Agudo, 2018: 13).
In addition to the above, not having a confident grasp of one’s subject can also
cause feelings of frustration and insecurity, leading a teacher to feel unsure about her/
his identity and question who she/he is, as in this example of a teacher’s difficulty in
relation to teaching the passive. Helen, a Hong Kong Chinese English teacher in Hong
Kong, explains:

It’s easy if you ask them to rewrite the sentences, because they find it easy to follow. However
.  .  . they just don’t know when we are supposed to use passive voice and when we are supposed
to use active voice. And one of the students even asked me “Miss Wong, who do we have to use
passive voice in our daily life?” And I find this question difficult to answer, ha, and I “Oh, I’ll
tell you next time. . .” And then I asked my colleagues “Why do we teach and use passive
voice?” And no one can give me the correct answer. And then I go home and think about it. But
even now I don’t really know how to handle that student’s questions. I finish the worksheets
with them and they know how to rewrite the sentences. But I don’t know how to explain them.
It is very stressful (cited in Andrews, 2001: 76).

Using English to teach English can also create an emotional struggle for the teacher:

I think my English proficiency is not good enough. I really want to do my best in every lesson.
However, I often got irritated because I was not able to achieve my goals or meet the standard
that I set before class. I always practised my English lessons before the commencement of the
class because I did not want to lose face before my students (cited in Teng, 2017: 214).

As in the examples above, limitations in the teacher’s English or her/his professional

knowledge may lead to feelings of anxiety, frustration and guilt since they may not be
able to answer students’ questions and may be afraid of making mistakes in their English
when they use English during a lesson. For some teachers, negative experiences of this
kind may cause attempts to suppress or hide negative emotions. For others, it may prompt
them to pursue opportunities for further professional development, either through aca-
demic courses, language training, or through taking on different kinds of teaching expe-
riences. Collaboration with colleagues through participation in peer observation,
discussion groups, or on-line support groups may also serve to share and resolve emo-
tional issues they encounter in their teaching.
Richards 229

Teaching as a Source of Positive Emotions

Despite the frustrations and anxiety that teachers sometimes experience in teaching, for
many people, teaching is a source of positive emotions and experiences, and these sus-
tain their interest in and passion for teaching throughout their careers. Positive emotions
may include the warmth and affection teachers receive through their relationships with
their students, seeing the progress their students make, the positive response to their
teaching which they receive from their students, the pleasure they get from helping learn-
ers find successful ways of learning, and an awareness that they can help students build
self-esteem and believe in themselves and their ability to learn. A student-teacher in
Teng’s study (2017: 129) commented:

I think I have a sense of joy from being a teacher. I really hope I can do more as their teacher. I
want to help them improve their test results, and I also want to be their friend. I want to take
care of them and support them.

Teaching as a source of positive emotions is seen in the answers a young teacher in Iran
gives to the following questions. In an interview with the author, the teacher, Hamed,
gave these responses:

Why did you choose to be an English teacher?

Because I have received a lot of help from good people around me, and I want to pay it forward.
Helping people makes me feel wonderful and satisfied with my life, and teaching is the best
way to do so. Another reason for me is that I never had many well-educated and skilled teachers
so I value the good and inspirational ones I have. I want to be that inspiration for others, to be
a passionate teacher.

What do you like most about teaching?

Aside from helping others, I like getting to know different people with their varied personalities
and culture. I feel like the more I teach, the better person I become in my personal life. I under­
stand the people around me better, and as a result, I can treat them kindly and sympathetically.

Do you sometimes get frustrated or disappointed from teaching? If so, what do you do
when you experience these feelings?

For the most part no, but when I do, I look for something to learn about it – difficult students,
the institute's bad policies, etc. What helps me to do so is the belief that a classroom is an
environment to learn in, especially for the teacher. So when I face a challenge in my class, I'll
try my best to overcome it, and the feeling of success not only makes me feel better, but is an
incentive for my future probable challenges.

As the comments illustrate, part of Hamed’s passion to achieve emotionally-satisfying

teaching is driven both by his desire to provide a better experience of teaching than he
received as a student, as well as by the personal satisfaction teaching gives him. He also
takes active steps to manage and learn from negative experiences. Managing the
230 RELC Journal 53(1)

emotional dimensions of teaching and learning depends both on the teacher’s individual
qualities, beliefs, and experience as well as being aware of some of the options available
to the teacher. Positive interactions with colleagues and the ESL professional commu-
nity can also be a source of emotional strength and reinforcement, sustaining teachers’
motivation and commitment to teaching. The absence of such positive emotions can
lead to teacher burnout.
Effective teachers no doubt have many different ways of creating an emotionally-
supportive class, one where there is a climate of collaboration and sharing and where the
class see themselves as a learning community. In a study described by Mendez (below),
for example, learners gave several examples of strategies teachers used to manage the
emotional climate of the class:

in this class, we all participated. . .you cannot feel tension in the environment and everything
just flows. This teacher made everyone participate without showing you up when you made a
mistake.

When teachers tell me something good about my performance, I feel really happy and I was like
that all day in my classes. You feel good and motivated.  .  .I feel like participating more because
I know I am doing things right.

Well. . .this teacher gives you security, confidence and this has helped me a lot because I
participate all the time in class.  .  .the teacher always asks everyone in the group without making
any exceptions. Whereas other teachers . . . er. . . this teacher gives you the confidence to
participate without feeling you are being judged.

(cited in Mendez, 2011)

Another example is given by Anuwat Kaewma, a teacher and teacher educator, from
Sakon Nakhon

My learners’ interest level picks up when activities involve their personal thoughts and feelings, as
well as when they share ideas and feelings with their peers. They enjoy collaborating and helping
each other and, for this reason, mixed-ability groups work well. With mixed-ability levels, the
students create a community of trust and cooperation and enjoy learning from each other’s
differences. They share ideas and responsibilities, and I love to see this happening in my class. I can
see that they often feel more comfortable learning within a group than from teacher-directed
teaching. So this requires a shift in my role as a teacher – more to that of a facilitator than a presenter.

As this teacher demonstrates, an important part of a teacher’s work is creating conditions

for students to experience positive emotions and be willing to relax and take risks, or as
Borg (2006: 23) puts it, ‘an ability to communicate freely and to radiate positive feel-
ings’. The emotional climate of the classroom will depend on how the teacher sees her or
his role, how she or he interacts with students and builds rapport and trust, the responsi-
bilities students have during a lesson, the materials and resources the teacher makes use
of, and how students are grouped.
One example of support for an emotionally-supportive classroom climate is the teach-
er’s use of humour. Senior (2011) examined the role humour plays in establishing and
Richards 231

maintaining class cohesion. Teachers described a number of benefits that resulted from
the appropriate use of humour during teaching. It helped students relax and be more will-
ing to take part in lessons, giving them greater confidence and increasing their motiva-
tion. Senior has also examined how effective language classes function as groups and
how they developed (or failed to develop) a spirit of cohesion (Senior, 2006). Experienced
language teachers seemed to develop an intuitive understanding of the role of group
dynamics in creating a cohesive class, an important feature of an emotionally-supportive
classroom climate. In Senior’s research, teachers whose classes respond in an enthusias-
tic, collective manner to their personalities and teaching styles report lifting their own
performance and teaching in more energetic, creative, and engaging ways.

Emotions and the Language Learner

An affectively positive environment puts the brain in the optimal state for learning,
resulting in minimal stress and maximum engagement with the material to be learned
(Arnold, 2009: 146). For learners, emotions include feelings about themselves, about
their teachers, about other students, about using English in class, about the teachers’
command of English, about the instructional methods, and about the teaching resources
the teacher makes use of, such as textbooks or the internet. Thus, one can compare the
different emotions that arise in relation to activities such as these:

•• Using English with a native speaker versus using English with a non-native speaker.
•• Taking part in group-based classroom activities rather than individual activities.
•• Performing fluency activities rather than accuracy activities in a lesson.
•• Performing a spoken activity in front of the class.
•• Getting feedback from the teacher or from other learners.
•• Getting feedback publicly or privately.
•• Using English with classmates rather than on-line in a chat room.

For a language learner, emotions have been described as the driving forces of motivation
in second language learning (Dornyei, 2005). White (2018: 23) comments: ‘Positive
emotions serve to enhance the ability to be aware of and notice things in the environment
and in the case of language learning, enhancing awareness of language input’. Other
researchers (e.g. Dewaele et al., 2017; Fredrickson and Losada, 2005) argue that positive
emotions encourage curiosity, risk-taking, experimenting, willingness to interact and
communicate in the new language, and support autonomous learning. They can motivate
learners when they lead to feelings of success and achievement and enhance the learner’s
sense of self-esteem, encouraging them to invest further in learning and to make use of
the range of learning opportunities available through the media or the internet or through
opportunities to use their English out of class. In emotionally-managed classrooms,
teachers anticipate the emotions that language learning involves and look for ways of
helping students cope with negative emotions when they arise.
Negative emotions, on the other hand, can demotivate learners due to a sense of frus-
tration and disappointment when learners fail to achieve their goals, losing confidence in
their ability to succeed and discouraging them from investing further time and energy in
232 RELC Journal 53(1)

language learning. Learners can experience a range of negative emotions in classroom-

based language learning. These include:

•• Fear of being laughed at by their peers.

•• Fear of being negatively evaluated by teachers.
•• Fear of being embarrassed.
•• Concern that others in the class may be more proficient.
•• Hesitance to perform in front of peers.
•• Frustration by lack of vocabulary and grammar.
•• Frustration by not being able to use correct pronunciation.
•• Frustration by not being able to express what they wanted to say.
•• Concern that they misunderstood the teacher’s instructions and explanations.
•• Confusion about how best to improve their English.
•• Boredom with the class textbook and learning resources.
•• Boredom with the teacher’s teaching style.

(Hashimi, 2011; Mendez, 2017; Suleimenova, 2013)

However, apart from in studies of language anxiety, emotions in the language class-
room received relatively little attention within applied linguistics until the work of
researchers such as Dornyei, Macintyre, and Dewaele revitalized the study of emo-
tions in TESOL. Building on earlier research, Mariza G. Méndez López (2017)
explored the emotions Mexican students experienced during their English classes at a
Mexican university. Students kept a journal of positive and negative emotions and the
sources of their emotions over a 12-week language course. The findings were as
follows:

Positive emotions Negative emotions

happy, calm, excited, fearful, worried, nervous, sad, angry, frustrated, insecure,
confident, satisfied, relaxed, anxious, bored, stressed, disappointed, embarrassed, confused,
interested, relieved intimidated, guilty, unsatisfied, guilty, unsatisfied, depressed,
envious

The commonest emotions reported were fear, happiness, worry, calm, sadness and
excitement. Although these feelings were prompted by a number of sources, the most
frequently cited were learners’ insecurity about their speaking ability, the teachers’ atti-
tudes, comparisons with peers, the classroom atmosphere, and the type of learning activi-
ties. The public setting of a language classroom also poses issues related to self-image,
face, and identity as seen in these learner comments:

When I speak to my teacher and ask some questions to my teacher, I usually feel very anxious.
And when I [ask my teacher questions] in front of the class and speak some questions, I usually
feel very anxious. I can’t remember anything. I just ‘ah ah ah’.

(cited in Woodrow, 2012: 321)

Richards 233

Suleimenova (2013: 1864) describes the kinds of anxieties learners reported when per-
forming speaking activities in a language classroom in Kazakhstan:

•• Jumbled and confused thoughts.

•• Fear of performing in front of others.
•• Worried about being called out to the board.
•• Cannot perform well because of anxiety.
•• Anxious waiting for a turn to speak.
•• Loss of confidence while speaking.
•• Afraid to volunteer answers.
•• Fear of forgetting what had been prepared.
•• Cannot speak well because of tension and nervousness.
•• Afraid of the teacher correcting mistakes.

While responses such as these may reflect individual characteristics that differ among
learners (such as age, gender, personality, self-confidence, and previous learning expe-
rience), some sources of anxiety may reflect cultural factors. For example, in some
cultures, students may be more willing to communicate in front of their peers in the
classroom than in other cultures. Wen and Clement (2003) suggest that in China, group
cohesiveness and attachment to group members influence Chinese students’ willingness
to communicate (WTC) in the classroom. A student may believe that if he or she speaks
up in class, this may not be valued by other students, since it is judged as ‘showing off’
and an attempt to make other students look weak (see also Benesch, 2012: 33).
Studies of students in Iran have reported that an over-emphasis by the teacher on achiev-
ing a native-like (North American) use of grammar and pronunciation can cause anxiety
among learners, who become discouraged and feel they are not able to achieve the teacher’s
standard (Hashimi, 2011). The teacher’s role now becomes that of an authority figure who
monitors students’ language use rather than a facilitator. Silence is another response to emo-
tions such as embarrassment, frustration, annoyance or anxiety, which may be viewed by the
teacher as a refusal to co-operate and is hence viewed negatively. However for the learner,
silence may be a way of managing emotions: it can serve as a face-saving strategy since
others in the class can no longer judge the learners’ language ability (Smith and King, 2018).
Whereas classroom-based communication in English is stressful for many learners,
sometimes making them unwilling to communicate, other contexts create less of an emo-
tional challenge for learners.

When I first started to try to use my French as a student in a French-language university, I

avoided trying to use it with native speakers as far as possible and sought out situations where
I could use it with other second-language speakers of French – international students from
Vietnam, Laos and Africa. It took me another year before I began to feel comfortable using
French with native speakers.

(Author, diary note)

Research on chat-room communication among learners suggests it provides emotional

support for speaking since it is a stress-free context for the use of English. The
234 RELC Journal 53(1)

participants are not handicapped by their limited English proficiency or fear of making
mistakes in front of their peers. Consequently, chat room interactions often result in
more successful comprehension as well as a greater quantity of target language pro-
duction than classroom-based communication. Chat rooms and other forms of virtual
interaction may not only raise awareness of the language participants use, providing
opportunities for self-repair and negotiation of meaning, but can also provide opportu-
nities for learners to construct their identities as second-language speakers of English
(Jenks, 2010; Chik, 2014).
Hence teachers have to invest a considerable amount of emotional guidance to sup-
port learners’ attempts to use English in the classroom. Mendez comments:

Supporting students’ emotions in language learning classrooms can help students to cope with
feelings inherent to language learning experiences and to the development of a positive attitude
towards themselves as language learners (Mendez, 2017: 44).

Teacher-training textbooks and online sources offer a number of suggestions for teachers
seeking to achieve an emotionally-supportive classroom climate (Cavanagh, 2016:
Hashimi, 2011). Some ways to do this are as follows:

1) Introduce the notion of language anxiety and the role it plays in classroom-based
learning.
2) Help teachers recognize signs of negative emotions and strategies to respond to
negative emotions.
3) Emphasize the importance of an emotionally-supportive classroom climate and
how it can be developed.
4) Encourage collaboration rather than competition among learners.
5) Encourage students’ attempt to use the language they have learned without undue
concerns for grammatical or phonological accuracy.
6) Focus more on formative assessment (assessment for learning) and feedback
rather than summative assessment (assessment of learning) and feedback.
7) Have students share learning experiences where emotions were involved and
how they responded to them.
8) Make use of activities that students can enjoy and accomplish and which give
feelings of success and satisfaction. For example:
•• Activities that enhance positive motivation
•• Activities that are not too difficult
•• Activities with a demonstrable learning outcome
•• Activities that can be done in groups
•• Activities that are fun
•• Activities that give learners a sense of progress

Emotions in Teacher Learning

Emotions also play an important role in teacher learning, both in the experiences of nov-
ice teachers completing course work and a teaching practicum as well as for experienced
Richards 235

teachers returning to campus to complete a postgraduate diploma or degree. Kubanyiova

(2012) describes teacher development as an emotionally-charged process, one in which
‘emotional dissonance’ (the gap between the teacher’s aspirational identity and her/his
performed identity in teaching) plays a central role. Encountering for the first time new
and sometimes difficult concepts about language, teaching and learning may be a strug-
gle for many teachers in training, inhibiting their participation in a course (Teng, 2017).
They may be introduced to current theories of what makes a good lesson, principles of
best practice, the role of the teachers, and how to use English when teaching, but they
may find these difficult to reconcile with their own beliefs and practice, leading to frus-
tration and even anger at times (Golombok and Doran, 2014). In the following example,
Brian, an Australian teacher educator, describes how his attempts to teach creatively
were thwarted by the school:

Once I was teaching in a school and I was given a coursebook to use with a particular group of
students. When I said “Thanks, I’ll see what activities I can add to it” I was told in no uncertain
terms that I was not to do this. The students, I was told, measure their progress in terms of how
far they have got through the coursebook and the company that was funding the classes did the
same thing. If I added anything to my lessons, I was told, the students weren’t going to progress
and the Director wouldn’t be able to show the company how far they had progressed.

Student teachers experience a variety of emotions during their teacher-development

courses depending on the learning context as well as the activity they are engaged with,
and these emotions can influence their academic and teaching performance (Anttila
et al., 2016). Their teaching practicum will present a test of their ability to apply what
they have studied and whether they will be accepted as a competent teacher by their
students and supervisor. Student teachers may be totally unprepared for some of the
emotional issues that arise in the teaching, challenging their ability to manage their les-
sons as well as their attempts to realize their identity as a teacher. In addition, non-native-
speaking English teachers may experience emotional stress when they are in the same
learning community as native-speaker teacher-learners. These emotional struggles
include:

•• the feeling that they may have a sense of inadequate language knowledge;
•• limitations in their proficiency in English may impede participation in group-
based collaborative learning favoured by the course lecturer;
•• different cultures of learning may create culturally-specific expectations of the
roles of teachers and learners (Singh, 2004).

These issues are highlighted in Zacharias’ (2017) study of three Indonesian English
teachers participating in a US graduate TESOL programme. While the study focussed on
the teachers’ identity negotiations during their programme, it also revealed some of the
emotional challenges the teachers faced as they negotiated their participation in the
classroom during the course and illustrates the role of emotions in identity development.
One issue was sensitivity to their status as non-native speakers of English. Rather than
accepting this as a deficit, during the course, the participants managed their emotional
236 RELC Journal 53(1)

response to their status in a variety of ways, for example, by becoming active participants
in classroom discussions rather than being seen as restricted by their non-native speaker
status; by repositioning themselves as multilinguals in comparison to many of their
monolingual classmates; and by developing an awareness of themselves as producers
and not merely consumers of knowledge.
Teng (2017) explored the emotions experienced by six pre-service teachers complet-
ing their practicum in an English teacher education programme at a university in
Mainland China. He documented the emergence of five types of emotions among the
student teachers.

1. Anxiety: This resulted from several causes, including classroom management

problems involved in responding to disruptive and un-cooperative students that
led to a lack of confidence in their teaching ability.
2. Disappointment: The realization that they were considered outsiders with little
agency and autonomy and had no opportunity to change the rigid school culture
and teaching practices.
3. Doubt: They experienced doubts about their teaching ability or potential due to
concerns over their language proficiency and classroom skills. One student
teacher was told by a student: ‘Go home and practice more’.
4. Disillusionment: They felt that their opinions were not needed or respected since
they were treated like a temporary classroom assistant while the mentor was the
only real teacher in the room. As one student-teacher commented:

One thing that I did not like about my mentor was that she would stop my teaching and make
comments in class. I think she just wanted to assert her professional authority in front of the
students (Teng, 2017: 127).

5. Joy: The student teachers also reported positive experiences, particularly when
they received warm encouragement from their students. Such recognition helped
them manage their negative emotions as well as contributed to the development
of their teacher identity. One of the student teachers was very happy to receive a
card that said ‘Happy Mid-autumn Day, my dear teacher!’

Studies such as this demonstrate the need for a practicum course to include activities
that help novice teachers develop emotional competence, in other words, the ability to
anticipate and prepare for incidents that can arouse emotions during teaching and to
learn how to manage emotions that may arise during their practicum experience. As
noted above, these issues are often not addressed in teacher education programmes for
student-teachers, that more often focus on professional knowledge and teaching meth-
ods rather than how to manage and respond to complex social issues that arise in the
classroom. Anttila et al. commented:

In order to create emotionally-optimal learning environments in teacher education, both teacher

educators and student teachers would themselves benefit from developing an understanding of
the function of emotional patterns in learning in general, and particularly their impact on
student teachers’ learning during their studies (Anttila et al., 2017).
Richards 237

Conclusion
The review presented above emphasizes the need for the study of emotions to have a more
central position in theory, research, and practice in TESOL. The understanding and manage-
ment of emotions are an important dimension of a teacher’s knowledge and ability, while for
learners, emotions are crucial to how they navigate and process their learning. In teacher
education courses, teacher emotional awareness and competence can be the focus of proce-
dures such as peer-observation, journal writing, critical-incident analysis, role plays, case
studies, and teacher narratives. For language learners, rather than being a hidden dimension
of successful learning, emotions can be brought to the forefront through the use of activities
that encourage learners to reflect on the role emotions play in their own language learning
and in their responses to the emotional demands of learning and using English.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Jack C. Richards https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9746-0852

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