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Emotions in Learning to Teach EFL in the Practicum Setting: Facing the Emotional Dilemmas and Challenges Associated with Professional Practice

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Emotions in Second Language Teaching

Abstract

Since L2 teaching, like all teaching, is an emotionally intense practice and the fact that emotions in the learning-to-teach experience have often been ignored by teacher educators (Golombek and Doran in Teaching and Teacher Education 39, 102–111, 2014), the present study explores various aspects of the emotional life of student teachers during the practicum experience relating to their emotional responses, tensions, dilemmas and challenges associated with professional practice. Although research into teachers’ emotionality has been conducted mostly in the field of teacher education, surprisingly little is known about the role of emotions in learning to teach and about how student teachers’ emotional experiences relate to their teaching practices, how they regulate their emotions and their relationships with students (Sutton and Wheatley in Educational Psychology Review, 15(4), 327–358, 2003). A quantitative as well as qualitative research design was employed to better identify and understand EFL student teachers’ observations, reflections and interpretations of their own emotional responses and/or experiences. Findings reveal that the informants experience a wide variety of pleasant and unpleasant emotions ranging from passion, enthusiasm, enjoyment, satisfaction and happiness to uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety, disappointment, anger, frustration, boredom and burnout. The factors influencing such emotional responses and/or experiences are also discussed in this study. Finally, the chapter concludes with implications for teacher education and future research directions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although affect and emotion are usually used synonymously in the research literature, the term affect is generally employed as an umbrella term which includes other affective states besides emotions. Overall, emotions have been viewed as complex and difficult to understand and, thus, define (Fried et al. 2015). Beyond traditional cognitive conceptualizations of emotions (Benesch 2012) and since there is an ongoing debate on the multifaceted nature of emotions, we see that defining what exactly is meant by emotion is still challenging and not straightforward. While emotion has been defined as “socially constructed, personally enacted ways of being that emerge from conscious and/or unconscious judgments regarding perceived successes at attaining goals or maintaining standards or beliefs during transactions as part of social-historical contexts” (Schutz et al. 2006: 344), Salovey et al. (2008: 535) described emotional intelligence as “the ability to perceive and express emotions, to understand and use them, and to manage emotions so as to foster personal growth”. Aside the aforementioned complexities involved in the conceptualization of emotions, the measurement of such emotions is also equally challenging (Zembylas and Schutz 2016).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Didactics of Languages, Faculty of Education, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

    Juan de Dios Martínez Agudo

  2. Department of Human Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Gabriele Azzaro

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  1. Juan de Dios Martínez Agudo
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  2. Gabriele Azzaro
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Correspondence to Juan de Dios Martínez Agudo or Gabriele Azzaro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

    Juan de Dios Martínez Agudo

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Martínez Agudo, J.d., Azzaro, G. (2018). Emotions in Learning to Teach EFL in the Practicum Setting: Facing the Emotional Dilemmas and Challenges Associated with Professional Practice. In: Martínez Agudo, J. (eds) Emotions in Second Language Teaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75438-3_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75438-3_20

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