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Advancing language teacher emotion research: a nuanced, dialectical, and empowering stance

  • Rui Eric Yuan

    Rui Eric Yuan is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Macau. His research focuses on language teacher education and English-medium instruction in higher education. He has published more than 100 research works, including journal articles and book chapters, in over 20 international journals, such as TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching, and Teaching and Teacher Education.

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Published/Copyright: April 10, 2024

Abstract

This commentary presents a nuanced, dialectical, and empowering perspective on research pertaining to language teacher emotions, drawing upon empirical research papers featured in this special issue, as well as other relevant literature in the field of language teacher education. Recognizing the embodied, dynamic, and potentially contested nature of teacher emotional labor, the paper emphasizes the importance of presenting a nuanced portrayal, adopting a dialectical approach, and embracing an empowering mindset when investigating language teacher emotions. It also highlights important directions for future research, advocating for a conceptual shift toward examining teacher emotional labor as a distributed practice with a participatory and transformative orientation. Furthermore, the significance of both “looking inward” to delve into specific types of emotions and their interactions as well as “looking outward” to explore how emotions relate to other crucial dimensions of language teachers’ professional practices such as identity, mindfulness, and resilience, is emphasized.


Corresponding author: Rui Eric Yuan, Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Room 2023, E33, Av. da Universidade, Taipa, Macau, China, E-mail:

About the author

Rui Eric Yuan

Rui Eric Yuan is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Macau. His research focuses on language teacher education and English-medium instruction in higher education. He has published more than 100 research works, including journal articles and book chapters, in over 20 international journals, such as TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching, and Teaching and Teacher Education.

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Author contributions: The author has accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: The author states no conflict of interest.

  4. Research funding: None declared.

  5. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Received: 2024-03-30
Accepted: 2024-03-31
Published Online: 2024-04-10
Published in Print: 2024-09-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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