Language teachers’ emotions: Emerging from the shadows

Abstract

The human brain is an emotional brain. Emotion “functions as an amplifier, providing the intensity, urgency, and energy to propel our behavior” in “everything we do” (MacIntyre 2002: 61), including language teaching. The nature of emotions in general and the role of emotions in foreign and second language learning have been frequently discussed. Compared with the great attention researchers and theorists have shown toward language learners’ emotions, especially anxiety (Horwitz 2017), language teachers’ emotions have been in the shadows, invisible to most researchers and theorists and largely undiscussed in public by teachers themselves. This chapter intends to draw teachers’ emotions out of the shadows by means of narrative research. The first half of the chapter briefly presents selected theories of emotion from biopsychology, ecology, educational psychology, positive psychology, and universalist (sometimes called universal) humanism. The rest of the chapter describes the methodology for our narrative research; offers the narrative of Lila, a teacher of Chinese; and analyzes and interprets the narrative. After results and conclusions, we offer key questions and annotated sources for readers.