When I became an English teacher

During the COVID-19, online teaching has become a popular way of teaching in the world. Previous research on English language teachers’ emotional labor has not focused on the changes brought about by online teaching. Unlike the traditional physical teaching space, the emotional labor of English teachers teaching online changes with the daily use of online technological conditions. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the factors influencing teachers’ emotional labor in online teaching and the emotional labor dilemmas. We took interviews with a group of English teachers in China (T1, T2, … T20) and found that their online teaching emotions were influenced by three main factors: the degree of adaptation to online teaching technology, the invisibility of the online teaching space, and the peripheral environment of the space in which the teachers were located. In addition, this study observed the online classrooms of the interviewees and found that the first two influences are at a priority level for Chinese English teachers, while whether the third factor can bring positive or negative emotions is often influenced by the nature of the emotions brought by the first two factors. In order to find a balance between norms and emotions, English teachers are often accompanied by emotional labor in their work. However, they face many dilemmas of choice and behavior during the emotional labor of teaching online: emotional rule dilemma, emotional expression dilemma and professional identity dilemma. The emergence of these dilemmas is directly related to the influencing factors. In conclusion, this article uses normative and emotional labor theories to explore how norms affect Chinese English teachers’ emotions when teaching online as a response to the question of why emotions need to be labored. Ultimately, this study offers some useful suggestions for language teachers’ emotional labor dilemmas.

<p style="text-align:justify">This study aims to evaluate the English language teacher training program which was put into practice in 2006, according to the views of lecturers and English teachers. This study aims to contribute to the studies on foreign language teaching by presenting an evaluation of teacher education, which is an important dimension of English as a foreign language teaching. The qualitative method was used in the study, which was designed in a descriptive survey model. The population of the research consists of 35 lecturers working at the English Language Teaching Department of different Education Faculties in the 2016-2017 academic year and 11 English teachers working in public schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education and who have not completed 5 years in the profession. NVIVO-11 program was used in the analysis of the data. The results of the study were compared with the 2018 English teacher education program renewed by the Council of Higher Education. English teachers and lecturers think that the content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and general culture courses in the teacher training program are insufficient. According to English teachers and lecturers the content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and general culture courses in the English language teacher education program are insufficient. Furthermore, English teachers stated that they could not apply what they learned during their training to real-life conditions. Therefore, they propose that the English language teacher training program should be revised considering the current conditions.</p>

Academic Roles of English Language Teachers: A Study of the Perceptions of Pakistani Teachers and Students Farhana Yasmin, Muhammad Islam Resume The roles of English language teachers in Pakistan have been a critical issue since its foundation. This case study explores perceptions of Pakistani English teachers and students regarding the academic roles of English language teachers in classrooms. It is an effort to identify the gaps between the perceptions and the practices to be bridged to make ESL a living language for students. This case study is exploratory and it falls in qualitative paradigm. The sampling is purposive as the participants of the study are English language teachers and students of an army public school and college in Cantonment area Lahore. The tools of the study are interviews from teachers and students of the school. The data is analysed by applying grounded theory as a research method. The themes emerged as a result of open, axial and selective coding are employed to develop a core category. As a result, a model of versatile English teacher emerged as a core category. The roles of English language teachers as instructors, facilitators, helpers, guides are explored besides the prerequisites as command on subject, teaching practices, teaching experience, examiner and teaching training which may prove the turning points in their students‟ performance in English towards a better direction. In this perspective, some recommendations are forwarded for English teachers in Pakistan to be versatile to make their students proficient in English. In future, a comparative study to explore the perceptions of English language teachers and students of suburban or rural areas public and private schools regarding roles of English teachers needs to be conducted in Pakistan to explore the gap between perceptions and practices. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jflcc.v6n1a2

While a number of studies have documented the significant role of emotions and the emotion labor produced in English language teaching, research exploring English instructors’ emotion labor in transnational higher education contexts such as international branch campuses (IBCs) and within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs is lacking. Arguably, these neoliberally-driven and educational neocolonialist endeavors can produce intense emotion labor for English instructors. This study employs a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) methodology to investigate what provoked emotion labor for expatriate instructors, who teach English courses to Qatari national students at an IBC in Qatar. Taking a poststructural approach to emotion labor as our theoretical framing, we collaboratively examined our emotion labor in audio-recorded weekly meetings and then engaged in further dialogues and writings about our emotion labor. We reflect on two themes that produced emotion labor as well as emotional capital for us: 1) navigating our purpose teaching English to engineering majors and 2) confronting our roles as English instructors within a context of educational neocolonialism. Our study adds to the knowledge base of English teachers’ emotion labor in transnational and STEM spaces, while also showcasing CAE as a transformative methodology to explore language teachers’ emotion labor.

Coastal regions increasingly face climate-related hazards such as tsunamis, highlighting an urgent need for schools to equip young learners with disaster-preparedness knowledge in line with Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action). Yet SDG 13 is still rarely integrated systematically into English language education, particularly in EFL contexts. This study investigates the integration of SDG 13 (Climate Action) into English language education using 360° virtual reality (VR) to improve students’ vocabulary acquisition and tsunami awareness. A quasi-experimental design was adopted with 96 junior high school students in Taiwan, divided into two groups: an immersive VR group (HiVR) and a desktop video group (LiVR). Both groups engaged with the same SDG-themed 360° videos but through different interaction methods. Vocabulary and disaster knowledge were assessed using pre- and post-tests, and data were analyzed through independent samples t-tests and ANCOVA. The results revealed that the VR group significantly outperformed the desktop group in vocabulary acquisition and showed higher tsunami awareness scores after controlling for prior knowledge. These findings indicate that immersive VR offers an effective means of contextualized vocabulary learning and enhances student engagement in tsunami- and climate-related English education. The study highlights the potential of VR as a pedagogical tool that supports both language development and sustainability-oriented disaster education in EFL contexts.

English language teacher educators’ knowledge and skills on early grade reading instruction

Innovative English instruction practices require knowledge and skills of teaching appropriately as an English teacher. This study aims to explain the development of English language teachers’ interpersonal skills in an in-service teacher professional program at one of the universities in Surabaya through lecturing/tutorials, seminars/workshops, and English instruction practices. Experienced English teachers need interpersonal skills to develop interactive communication with learners. Studies of interpersonal skills discussed pedagogical competence. This study focuses on interpersonal skills in pedagogical and professional competencies. However, this study focuses on developing English language teachers’ interpersonal skills in innovative English instruction development and practices in class. So, this study implements the qualitative method to find out the story of English language teachers’ interpersonal skills in innovative English instruction development and practices in class. The participants are English teachers in an in-service teacher professional program, investigated using an online observation to describe the development of English language teachers’ interpersonal skills at innovative English instruction practices. The results show that developing English language teachers’ interpersonal skills, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creation can increase students’ academic engagement to achieve innovative English instruction. Therefore, English teachers' capacity, capability, and innovative instructional practices can increase teachers’ knowledge, skills, and character, so they become professional English teachers. Finally, the conclusion is that developing English language teachers’ interpersonal skills can increase students’ academic engagement to achieve innovative English instruction purposes.

ABSTRACTThis article explores the relationship between teachers’ emotions and possibilities for their activism. Using the lens of emotion labor and grounded in a discursive approach to emotions, it examines English language teachers’ responses to institutional power. High-stakes literacy testing is used as an example of top-down institutional policies that may conflict with English language teachers’ training and/or pedagogical preferences thereby producing emotion labor. However, rather than viewing emotion labor as a psychological impediment, the article proposes that it be honored, in the service of teacher activism. Suggestions for recruiting emotion labor for transformational purposes are offered.

This article explored preparatory year program (PYP) teachers’ emotional labor and dissonance in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting and this relates to institutional power. It also addressed issues related to the conflict between their professional training, knowledge, and beliefs and the institutional requirements. The final evaluation test of the PYP was used as an example of top-down institutional policies that may conflict with English language teachers’ training and/or pedagogical preferences, thereby producing emotional labor. To illustrate these concepts, the data were analyzed from interviews with 22 EFL teachers at a Saudi university regarding their emotions toward preparing the students for the final evaluation test and the requirements of the institutional power. The results were discussed in light of the following themes: (a) orienting to feeling rules, and (b) adapting to institutional policies, teachers’ preferences, and other beliefs. The findings suggested that teachers exhibited high levels of deep acting and naturally-felt emotions, which could be explained by the idea that teachers internalized their roles. In addition, they showed that teachers may resist the feeling rules of their institution’s policies. This article ends with pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research on emotional labor as a tool of teacher engagement. The researcher's personal reflections and emotion(al) labor were incorporated with engagement with the participants’ accounts.

This study examines the extent to which the Initial English Language Teacher Education (IELTE) program curriculum facilitates the development of the necessary knowledge base to ensure prospective English language teachers’ classroom preparedness. Data were collected through curricular analysis of four IELTE programs and semi-structured interviews with four program directors and 10 early career English teachers to evaluate IELTE program effectiveness to prepare teachers, at least, entry-level teaching. Findings indicate that contextual factors such as rigid national policy documents, teacher educators’ limited competencies and their role in curriculum development and implementation, the status of the IELTE programs within the universities, lack of collaboration between IELTE programs and schools contributed to the inefficiency of IELTE programs to ensure prospective English teachers’ classrooms preparedness. Thus, English teachers were not prepared to carry out their jobs effectively because the knowledge base that prospective teachers acquire and develop through the IELTE program did not correspond to what they need in their classrooms for effective teaching.

This paper will NOT address the catastrophic effects of the government-imposed structural changes to Hungarian teacher education since 1990, nor will it concern itself with the low quality of life our teachers face, or how English linguistic and cultural imperialism is resisted or enhanced by our teacher training programs. Instead, I will demonstrate how our Humboldtian/neohumanist tradition of teacher education dating back to 1872 has dominated English language teacher training even in the last fifty years, and will give a criticism of the snobbery in our academic life which deems educational linguists’ and language educators’ work “unacademic” and looked down upon. The traditional teacher education model was significantly challenged when, in addition to the double major[1] 5-year teacher education programs, 3-year single major programs were started in 1990, with considerable help from the World Bank, the British Council, USIS and Peace Corps. These new programs focused on language pedagogy and practical teacher education, and provided considerably increased teaching practice. Similarly to the Netherlands in the 1970s, this was “an uphill fight against tradition, vested interests and mental inertia” (van Essen, 1996, p. 21). The quality of the programs was internationally recognized and the Centers for English Teacher Training (CETTs) became a model for restructuring English teacher education in Central Europe. The 1990s saw the all-time peak of English teacher education in Hungary. After 1997 the CETTs were forcibly (re)merged with the traditional philology departments (aka Departments of English Studies), and a lot of their achievements were wasted. The quality of teacher education seems to be under serious threat again and the academic prestige of teacher educators continues to be minimal, despite the international fame of some Hungarian applied linguists and teacher educators, and the high-quality MA and PhD programs they direct. In conclusion, I will offer my ideas on what could be done in this situation, which is aggravated by chaotic educational language policy decisions from our governments and the curse of the age-old SCHOLARLY teacher vs. PRACTICE ORIENTED teacher controversy in our (English) teacher education.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of the note-taking method on the listening performance of second-year English language teacher education students and their feedbacks. The experimental study was conducted with a class of forty-four second-year students majoring in English language teacher education at Vinh University. The participants were divided into a pilot group and a control group. A mixed-method intervention design was applied, in which data were collected from pre-test, post-test, and semi-structured interviews. The results of statistical analysis, topic analysis, and comparison of data sets from tools showed that second-year English language teacher education students using the note-taking method performed better than those in the control group. More specifically, students in the experimental group made significant progress after applying the note-taking method. Most of the feedback was positive on the use of the note-taking method. Although research results are limited due to speaking speed and many other factors, the note-taking method should be used in teaching listening skills to English language teacher education students with some suggested notes.

This research deeply explores communication's vital role, especially in English language education, aiming to enrich students' communicative competence through podcast-based learning. It investigates the theoretical underpinnings of communicative competence, language acquisition theories, and the impact of digital technologies on language learning methods. This study reviews existing research methods and technologies that enhance communicative competence among language learners. Our approach combined qualitative and quantitative research methods, including statistical analysis for survey data, relevant podcast selection, observation, and synthesis of collected information. To guide our experiment, we established hypotheses: 1. Increased engagement with subject-specific podcasts positively correlates with improved language acquisition and comprehension among students. 2. Different podcast content types (e.g., academic versus entertainment) influence language learning outcomes differently. 3. Using curated podcast vocabulary and phrases in language assessments correlates with improved understanding and usage among students. Ultimately, integrating podcasts significantly strengthened language learning outcomes, bridging the gap between theory and practice. These audio resources provided invaluable insights, diverse perspectives, and specialized terminologies, enriching students' educational journeys. Utilizing podcasts within structured curricula presents a promising avenue for enhancing communicative competence and creating a holistic learning environment. This research suggests that incorporating subject-specific podcasts into language learning curricula can significantly improve language acquisition and comprehension, potentially revolutionizing language education methodologies.

<p>The main aim of this study is to analyze and discuss the similarities and the differences between English language teacher educationial programs at universities in Turkey, and to identify the undergraduate students’ ideas about their current curriculum. In addition to this, the study aims to compare the education of English language teacher education in some countries in which English language proficiency scores are at the highest level in EF EPI (EF English Language Proficiency Index), and to suggest some important points to improve the language teacher educationial programs in Turkey.</p><p>In the study, a document analysis and a semi-directed interviews with the 30 students in English language education departments in Turkey are implemented to provide valid and reliable results. The interview questions are based on students’ thoughts and ideas describing the sufficiency of their programs, and their goals and objectives. In the study, also, the course curricula of 15 English language teacher education programs are examined and compared. In this research, qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The study includes an international comparison of English language teacher education. With the comparison of the programs, some weak points of English language education programs in Turkey are determined. Besides, in the study, with the analysis of the English teacher education in 5 countries, the ways in which how they reached these targets are defined. At the end of the study, some suggestions are submitted to design and develop English language teacher education programs to produce more successful future teachers and English language education.</p>

With the promulgation of the national bilingual education policy, the vast majority of ethnic minorities have learned to master both Mandarin Chinese and ethnic minority languages, providing them with more opportunities for their development, but it does not emphasize their foreign language skills to go out into the world. Therefore, the research theme of this paper is the challenges of English language education in ethnic minority areas in the context of bilingual education, taking Yunnan Province as an example. The study finds that there are three main challenges facing English language education for ethnic minorities. They are language teaching issues in ethical minority areas, English teacher issues in ethical minority areas, and people’s attitudes toward English learning in ethical minority areas. Firstly, there are a lot of problems with English teachers, such as the impact of minority languages on Han English teachers is big, insufficient teacher resources, low professional quality, and high turnover. Then, the students learn English with language transfer and are not interested in it. Finally, schools, teachers, parents, and students do not value English education enough.