Exploring the contribution of interpersonal emotion regulation to pre-service EFL teachers' sustainable professional development and wellbeing

Abstract

There is a large body of research endorsing the role of interpersonal skills and emotion regulation in English as a foreign language teachers’ professionalism and psychological states. However, scant research has been done on pre-service EFL teachers’ interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) and the way it can contribute to their sustainable professional development (SPD) and sense of wellbeing. To bridge the gap, this qualitative study examined the perceptions of 34 Chinese pre-service EFL teachers regarding such an interplay using a semi-structured interview. The results of content and thematic analysis revealed that IER strategies used by pre-service EFL teachers had different contributions to their SPD and wellbeing by establishing ‘a supportive learning environment’, ‘strong classroom rapport’, ‘interpersonal communication’, and ‘emotional literacy’. Furthermore, it was indicated that the participants used different activities and practices to regulate and balance their IER strategies to gain SPD and wellbeing including ‘self-oriented’, ‘other-oriented’, and ‘professional development’ activities. The study ends in a discussion of the findings and presents a number of conclusions and future lines of research considering the impact of interpersonal emotions and their regulation on EFL teachers’ professionalism and wellbeing.