UNDERSTANDING THE BELIEFS AND EMOTIONS OF A LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATOR: A CASE STUDY / Compreendendo as crenças e emoções de uma professora formadora de línguas: um estudo de caso

Abstract

Language teacher educators play a pivotal role in teacher education, since their decision-making, actions and methods can influence student-teachers’ careers. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on language teacher educators, or on their beliefs and emotions. This qualitative study is part of a larger study (GODOY, 2020) [1] which aimed at investigating the beliefs and emotions of a language teacher educator about language teacher education. Visual and written narratives and oral interviews were used as data collection instruments, and then subjected to content analysis. The results suggested that the language teacher educator believes that language teacher education should include students’ mental health and Psychology as key elements, as they can help both professors and student-teachers understand and deal with the emotions underlying the language learning process. In addition, the teacher educator reported experiencing emotions of happiness and passion related to her profession and her relationship to students, but also frustration towards some aspects about the undergraduate language major where she teaches. Implications of this study point out to the need of investigating language teacher educators’ beliefs and emotions in relation to their pedagogical practices. Keywords: Visual narratives. Beliefs. Emotions. Language teacher educators. [1] This study is part of the Master's Thesis in Applied Linguistics by GODOY (2020). It was partially financed by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.