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Silence in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Emotional Challenges for L2 Teachers
Abstract
While learner silence in the classroom has recently become a topic of interest for teachers and researchers alike, the emotional effect of silence on classroom participants themselves remains largely understudied. Moreover, most studies of student silence in the classroom have primarily focused on its interplay in second language acquisition and L2 development (King in Silence in the second language classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstroke, 2013; Nakane in Silence in Intercultural Communication. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2007). Of equal importance, however, is silence’s effect on the emotions and development of teachers themselves. An individual learner’s silence can have numerous emotional charges, and, because emotions are contextually and socially constructed, they can shift the emotional mood within the classroom more generally and affect the emotions of the teacher. When learner silence is not appropriately managed, the subsequent classroom environment can add to the emotional labour of teaching (King in New Directions in Language Learning Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 97–112, 2016), and, in turn, affect teacher performance by disrupting teacher identity. This chapter will discuss three forms of this affective silence and examine how each form’s role enters into an ecological relationship between student and teacher emotions. After a brief review of recent literature on learner silence and the problems it poses for teacher identity, we apply the concept of emotional regulation to the negative effects of learner silence and offer productive emotional regulation strategies for educators.
... However, whether the intention of the silence is facilitative or not, classroom silence can become problematic and negatively impact an anxious learner's speaking performance depending on how they perceive their silence and others' evaluations of their behaviour. Anxious learners may experience negative emotions about their silence (Smith & King, 2018). In an environment where talk is often expected (Yashima, MacIntyre, & Ikeda, 2016), silence may lead to embarrassment, fear and anger. ...
... However, after using the CBT techniques of formulation and reframing, other, more potent underlying factors emerged related to the social performance of speaking in front of others and interpersonal relationships with classmates. These findings support existing research (Bao, 2014;King, 2014;Smith & King, 2018), demonstrating the affective influence classroom silence can have on language learners, triggering negative thoughts and emotions. Furthermore, the current study's findings suggest that reframing anxious learners' perspectives of their classroom silence and speaking-related anxiety can provide insights into these phenomena by revealing underlying factors. ...
For some language learners, feeling too nervous to speak in the target language in the classroom can generate an array of negative thoughts; from frustration due to missed speaking practice opportunities to anxiety over their language skills (Curry, Maher, Peeters, 2020). Using King's (2014; King Smith, 2017) cognitive-behavioural model of silent L2 learners' anxiety, this paper examines the relationship between language learners' anxiety and in-class silent behaviour in the context of a Japanese university EFL classroom. Forty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 participants who felt that anxiety limited their in-class oral participation. Initially, almost all the participants attributed their silence and speaking anxiety to a lack of linguistic ability, such as insufficient vocabulary or poor pronunciation. However, more potent underlying factors were revealed during the reframing exercise, suggesting that anxiety related to social performance and interpersonal relationships with peers also triggered their silent behaviours.
... Silence in the classroom can be in the practice of non-contribution inclines to be regarded destructively, often bringing about emotions among classroom contributors. The silence and successive negative classroom atmosphere often affect the emotive and academic performances of the learners and educator (Smith and King, 2018). Alemi and Pashmforoosh (2012) declared that more caring educators inspire students to be more communicative in the educational setting and accordingly, the way educators act and perform in this domain can influence the teaching and learning procedure, and it can be an issue impacting learners' silence in the classroom. ...
... Alemi and Pashmforoosh (2012) declared that more caring educators inspire students to be more communicative in the educational setting and accordingly, the way educators act and perform in this domain can influence the teaching and learning procedure, and it can be an issue impacting learners' silence in the classroom. Silences of the learners and their feeling have multifaceted indices in the classroom that cannot be simply anticipated or alleviated even by the dominant educational approaches (Smith and King, 2018). A classroom's emotive setting is manifestly integrated into the process that educators' and learners' feelings are observed. ...
The students’ silence in the classroom has lately become an area of attention of educators and scholars similarly; however, the factors influencing students’ classroom silence are not mainly scrutinized. This construct has been regarded as a problem of the communication between the educator and the learners that not only impact completing the teaching objectives in the classroom but also affect the nurturing of learners’ achievement. In addition, teachers positively have a noteworthy function in learners’ growth and progress and its behavior such as their immediacy remains a significant issue toward stimulating effective educational methods. Whilst teacher immediacy in a classroom setting is important, there is growing awareness about its important effect on learners’ silence and hopelessness. This review tries to provide some considerations about the relationship between teacher immediacy, both verbal and non-verbal, and students’ active silence and hopelessness. Successively, some suggestions are offered to lighten the practice of educators, learners, and teacher instructors.
... It has been claimed that emotions are constantly altered by circumstances rather than being intrapersonal occurrences. In this sense, the instructor's emotions can be affected by a variety of factors, ranging from their own experiences and connections with coworkers, pupils, and supervisors to the immediate cultural, political, and social settings where they are work (Smith and King, 2018). ...
Introduction
This study examines the predictors of work engagement among English teachers, focusing on the mediating role of psychological capital between teacher emotion regulation and work engagement.
Methods
A sample of 486 Chinese teachers participated in this research and completed self-report measures assessing emotion regulation, psychological capital, and work engagement. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the proposed mediation model.
Results
The results revealed a positive correlation between instructor emotion regulation and both psychological capital and work engagement. Furthermore, psychological capital emerged as a significant mediator in the relationship between emotion regulation and work engagement.
Discussion
The findings underscore the significance of enhancing teacher emotion regulation and psychological capital to potentially foster work engagement among educators. These results contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms that promote work engagement and have implications for the development of targeted interventions in the educational context.
... Most language teachers would probably concur that they come to class expecting active interaction from their students. This factor can also be explained by the emerging concept of L2 silence, which postulates that one facet of classroom interaction that carries heavy emotional burden is the silence of language learners (Smith & King, 2018). Although some research highlights the beneficial applications of silence in the classroom (e.g., allowing cognitive processing time), non-participation manifested as classroom silence is generally regarded in a negative light, leading to unpleasant emotions among both teachers and students. ...
This study presents an analysis of emotion-regulation (ER) strategies used by Thai tertiary-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in response to different classroom stressors. Q methodology-a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques-was employed to identify, characterize, and compare teachers' divergent viewpoints regarding classroom stressors and corresponding ER strategies. Specifically, a card-sorting task, known as Q sorting, was conducted with a sample of 44 teachers. The data were analyzed using by-person factor analysis to capture shared configurations across the Q sorts. The analysis unveiled three distinct factors, each characterized by a unique combination of stressors and ER strategies. The first group of teachers mitigated the stress arising from poor student performance by seeking social support. The second and third groups used situation modification to manage stress related to self-esteem and student engagement, respectively. While situation modification appeared promising, potentially benefiting both teachers and students, it also carried the risk of escalating teacher stress. The findings provide contextualized insights and a broader understanding of ER strategies among EFL teachers. 3 Understanding emotion-regulation strategies among foreign language teachers
... It means that they have limited or inadequate involvement in classroom communication. These findings support existing research (Bao, 2014;King, 2014;Smith & King, 2018), demonstrating the affective factors influencing learner silence and can have an impact on learners' language learning. ...
As teachers and researchers, we are intrigued by learner silence and wonder how to understand silence in the classroom, particularly when silence prevails as we request a response to an oral task. In Indian ESL contexts, reasons for learner silence are less investigated as it is considered juxtaposed to classroom interaction. This study explored reasons for undergraduate level learner silence in online and offline language classrooms in relation to teacher questioning. It further tried to surface the reasons for learners’ silent behaviour. Though the nature of the study is qualitative, as the data collected is from 125 students, it is quantified. The implications of the study suggest that online and offline teachers focus on the quality of speaking tasks in the classroom with a better understanding of learners’ silent behaviour and prudent planning of classroom interaction activities resulting in effective learning.
... What is worse, teachers could not guarantee that students were capable enough to answer all of the questions. It would usually lead to silence or even awkwardness in the classroom, which in turn adds to the emotional labor of teaching and affects teacher performance (Smith and King, 2018). ...
The present study examines the emotional experience and expression of Chinese tertiary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and their interaction with their students. Data were drawn from semi-structured in-depth interviews with 10 EFL teachers recruited from seven universities of different levels in China and were analyzed in light of Emotional Geography Theory. The results reveal that Chinese tertiary-level EFL teachers experience more negative emotions than positive ones. The emotions most frequently reported by them are anger, enjoyment, anxiety, disappointment, and ambivalence. When it comes to emotional expressions, Chinese tertiary-level EFL teachers tend to display positive emotions by following the emotional rules of school settings. This study also uncovers that EFL teaching in Chinese universities is characterized by EFL teachers’ physical and moral distance from but political closeness to students, all of which are the sources of EFL teachers’ negative emotions. The need for providing positive psychology intervention for EFL teachers is then suggested.
... "Emotions are contextually and socially constructed, they can shift the emotional mood within the classroom more generally and affect the emotions of the teacher" (Smith & King, 2018). The literature studies such emotional components as anxiety and satisfaction, which negatively or positively impact the success in learning foreign languages (Saito et al., 2018). ...
The emotional component of the educational process has been stated to be an essential factor of the formation of interest of a foreign student to learn the Ukrainian language as a foreign one. As it is one of the effective ways to improve of effective studying, rationalization and optimization of teaching methodology, based on analysis of the row of theoretical, methodological and experimental investigations in branches of psychology, psycho-linguistics, intercultural communication and pedagogy of the higher school. It has been indicated, that the principle of emotionality belongs to some basic principles of personal-oriented approach to studying. The theoretical and methodological analysis of directions of emotions implementation has been conducted in the process of didactics and communication, productive ways and methods of actualization of emotional factor have been developed at classes of Ukrainian as a foreign language; cultural peculiarities of apprehension of the emotional component of the educational process by different ethnic groups have been investigated. It has been proved, that satisfaction or dissatisfaction of communicative need of an international student generates positive or negative emotions, which influence on communicative activity, educational process, and consequently, on the process of cognition as a whole. The empirical part of the investigation was conducted based on interrogation of foreign students of Higher State Educational Institution of Ukraine. It aimed to detect national features of emotions perception by representatives of different nationalities (students from India, Africa and Arabic countries). The analysis showed that such factors as students do not see their progress in learning a language, difficulties in language understanding on hearing, the great synonymous potential of Ukrainian language become reasons for negative emotions in the process of learning Ukrainian as a foreign language, i.e. disappointment, indifference, concern, fear, dispossession. The group of effective methods has been distinguished for the provision of learning emotionality: verbal, extra-linguistic and activity-role. It has been found out, that emotional stimulation belongs to effective methods of activation of communicative as well as educational activity as a whole. Methodological recommendations are distinguished, which are specific for teaching foreign students concerning the realization of the principle of emotionality in multicultural different ethnic students’ audience.
... As Daniel Gallimore (2014) rightly points out, "translation is obviously rather more central to the teaching of Shakespeare in Japan, where the English language per se is still to some extent taught by the grammar-translation method" (6). The goal is rendition in Japanese, which often discourages students from reading the original texts in large part due to its inevitable teacher-centred approach being, in the words of L. Smith and J. King (2018), "unavoidably linked to disengagement' (329). Another is the use of film adaptations of Shakespearean plays. ...
This paper discusses a learner-friendly and student-centred approach to introducing Shakespeare for less advanced English language learners in the university-level EFL classroom. Shakespeare becomes welcome material when the input is comprehensible and enjoyable. In this light, the teaching should first start with the story rather than the language. After hooking students by recounting stories from Shakespeare, the teacher needs to familiarise them with the authentic language through activities carefully designed to initiate them into the language. In approaching the content of Shakespeare’s plays, the students are asked to relate themselves to the world of Shakespeare through active methods advanced by the RSC and the world that students already know. Raising language awareness in learners rather than being taught the language, the students become less frustrated while learning to appreciate Shakespeare.
... The finding revealed the underlying multiple, interconnected, and complex factors (i.e., the interplay between learners' internal and classroom environmental contexts) affecting learners' silence. Smith and King (2018) pinpointed that the large body of research over-emphasizing on the necessity of 'verbal interaction' and 'oral production' on L2 acquisition has shaped the educators and researchers' image of learners' silence as 'largely negative phenomenon'. However, learners' absence such oral production in the entire conversation might not be conceived as limited participation, but rather adjusting their 'thought' to the relevant topic discussed. ...
This study aimed to investigate the dynamic patterns of two concepts of silence explicated as a communication strategy and impediment in a task-based instruction. A novel approach, Retrodictive Qualitative Modeling (RQM) tied in a Dynamic System Theory (DST), was utilized to identify learners’ archetypes, to highlight the dynamic patterns underlying their silence, and to unveil the factors affecting the two concepts as dynamic signatures. Of eighteen learners of English department, we took three participants relying on their salient archetypes. Those participants were nominated based on the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) encompassing three lecturers. Furthermore, a stimulated recall interview was carried out on the three participants to get overarching factors affecting their silence. The results revealed twofold: (1) the participants’ dynamic patterns of classroom trajectory explicating the variability of elements underlying the learners’ silence vary across the learners’ archetypes, (2) signature dynamics modeled manifest and distinguish the two concepts of silence. The implication of this study entails the EFL lecturers to have a background knowledge in distinguishing the two concepts of silence that encompass dynamic and fluctuative signature dynamics of motivation, cognition, English proficiency, positive and negative emotions interacting with the classroom contexts. Likewise, further study might provide more overarching factors underlying those two concepts of silence to provide a finer-grained result delineating such concepts.
... Linked in many ways to issues of apathy, silence was discussed in its varying forms as a source of frustration by all seven of the participants. A pervasive feature of language classrooms in Japan (King, 2013), silence has been attributed to a multitude of originating sources such as anxiety, language ability and a desire to resist a rigid educational system (see King, 2013;Smith & King, 2018), and it became clear from the testimonies that the participants" interpretations of the meaning behind their students" silence was a factor in their emotion regulation strategy choices. Similar to apathy, many of the participants had come to successfully manage their frustrations over time, though in contrast to the palliative solutions discussed in Section 5.1, participants reported tackling both the sources of silence itself as well as their own emotional reactions to it. ...
Few jobs come without irritations, and foreign language instruction comes with its own particular set of frustrations which, when accumulated, can lead to stress and eventual burnout for teachers. One mechanism for reducing such frustrations is that of emotion regulation, the cognitive and behavioral strategies individuals employ to manage the emotions they experience or display. To date, no known studies have reported specifically on the in-class frustration experienced by language teachers, or on how teachers regulate their feelings of frustration. Herein, the authors discuss the experiences of seven EFL teachers at a university in Japan obtained through a series of semistructured interviews, classroom observations and corresponding stimulated-recall sessions. The authors discuss four salient thematic frustrations: student apathy, classroom silence, misbehavior in the context of relational strain, and working conditions. The results reveal that participants applied contextually-dependent emotion regulation behaviors, the success of which was often contingent on the participants’ levels of confidence and control over the stressors. Thus, participants showed more success in managing pervasive low-level stressors such as apathy and silence, and more support would be welcome to aid them to manage more debilitating stressors such as student misbehavior. The authors offer suggestions for teachers, trainers and institutions on reducing frustration.
Guided by a revised version of Cross and Hong's framework based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory, the present study adopted a mixed-methods approach to explore teacher emotions in an EFL context. It aims to better understand teacher emotions and the influencing factors of these emotions in the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem of the above-mentioned framework. A total of 109 university EFL teachers completed an online questionnaire survey, and seven of them participated in the follow-up semi-structured interviews. The quantitative analysis of the questionnaire data revealed that the participants demonstrated different levels of the five focal emotions (joy, love, anger, fear, and sadness), and joy was the most frequently experienced emotion. Results also suggested that interactions with students, colleagues, leaders and family (from the microsystem), struggle with work-family balance (from the mesosystem), the performance evaluation system (from the exosystem) and the curriculum reform (from the macrosystem) emerged as important influencing factors of teacher emotions. Implications were discussed, and suggestions concerning emotion regulation were offered to EFL teachers working in tertiary institutions within China and similar contexts.
Language anxiety plays a key role in language learners’ silent behaviors in class (King, 2013). Given its public nature and emphasis on interaction within it, the classroom context plays a significant role in the production of language anxiety. Anxious people are more likely to negatively appraise situations, affecting their behavior. That is, it is not just the subject content that causes anxiety, it is also the cognitive processes that occur from being in the classroom environment (Clark & Wells, 1995; Horwitz et al., 2010). King (2014) found that anxious language learners’ thoughts often contain feared predictions about the social costs of speaking in the classroom and worries about how peers might negatively evaluate performance. These fears about external factors contribute to learners becoming inhibited and using silence to avoid the discomfort of speaking. Also, while anxious learners tend to have content-specific concerns, for example, making mistakes, self-focused thoughts are often intensified by contextual factors, such as interacting with peers (Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002). This article looks at the relationship between language anxiety and silent behavior from a cognitive-behavioral perspective, emphasizing how the dynamic interplay between an individual learner and the classroom context can result in even the most motivated and proficient learners missing opportunities to develop their language skills through target-language interaction.
This study explores the complexity of language learner silence in the female Saudi Arabian university English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. To this end, a combination of two methodologies was used. First, a total of 296 students from 12 EFL classrooms were observed using the COPS structured observation scheme (King, 2013a, b) to measure the extent of silence and to identify relevant patterns of learner reticence. Second, to gain deeper insights into the participants' attitudes and feelings about silence in the EFL classroom, we used two complementary qualitative methods: semi‐structured interviews and stimulated recall sessions. The results suggest the existence of three interrelated groups of factors associated learner silence in the study's research context —(i) factors related to prevailing EFL teaching styles in Saudi Arabia; (ii) socio‐psychological factors; and (iii) underlying cultural factors associated with the value of silence and the role of women in Saudi society. The findings highlight the complexity of Saudi Arabian female students' silence and emphasize the need to view language learner silence as a multi‐dimensional phenomenon.
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study investigated beginning and experienced English language instructors’ emotions that they demonstrated, emotional labor strategies they used during interaction with their students, and the effects of years of experience on them during the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated. The setting for the study was English language preparatory schools of state and foundation universities located in Ankara, Turkey. One hundred fifty-six participants took part in the quantitative study and responded to an online questionnaire that addressed instructors’ positive and negative emotions and emotional labor strategies. Follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants. Quantitative findings were given priority in this study. Quantitative data analysis, which included descriptive statistics, paired samples t-test, independent samples t-test, and MANOVA, was performed via IBM SPSS (28) while the qualitative data analysis was conducted manually according to the thematic analysis approach. Findings revealed that the participants demonstrated significantly more frequent positive emotions than negative ones. They also used expressing genuine emotions emotional labor strategy more than surface acting and deep acting. Years of experience had a significant effect on the experience of negative emotions. It also influenced the use of expressing genuine emotions and surface acting strategies. The answers to the research questions were elaborated on via the qualitative findings by extracting eight themes after the verbatim transcriptions of the interviews and the coding processes.
Emotions are an important part of the experiences of both language teachers and language learners, however their role has often been marginalized as a result of the focus on cognitive rather than affective dimensions of language learning within the discipline of Second Language Acquisition. The ‘affective turn’ in applied linguistics has refocussed on how teachers’ and learners’ emotions influence how they manage teaching and learning. This survey article explores the kinds of emotions teachers and learners experience, the causes of these emotions, and the impact they can have on teaching and learning. Theory and research is reviewed relating to emotions and the teacher, emotions and the language learner, and emotions in teacher development. Suggestions are given as to how teachers and learners can develop emotional competence, that is, the ability to understand and productively manage emotions in language learning and teaching.
Using a process model of emotion, a distinction between antecedent-focused and response-focused emotion regulation is proposed. To test this distinction, 120 participants were shown a disgusting film while their experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses were recorded. Participants were told to either (a) think about the film in such a way that they would feel nothing (reappraisal, a form of antecedent-focused emotion regulation), (b) behave in such a way that someone watching them would not know they were feeling anything (suppression, a form of response-focused emotion regulation), or (c) watch the film (a control condition). Compared with the control condition, both reappraisal and suppression were effective in reducing emotion-expressive behavior. However, reappraisal decreased disgust experience, whereas suppression increased sympathetic activation. These results suggest that these 2 emotion regulatory processes may have different adaptive consequences.
Education researchers have investigated the phenomenon of emotional labor of teaching. These researchers tend to assume that teaching is similar to other occupations in service section that require employees to manage their emotions and emotional display for profile making. Therefore, teachers should perform emotional labor. Theoretically, performing emotional labor will generate emotional dissonance. In this sense, if teaching involves emotional labor, teaching should be per se unpleasant, frustrating, and even alienating. However, many studies found that emotional labor of teaching would bring desirable outcomes to teachers, such as: increase in job satisfaction, commitment, self-esteem, and work effectiveness. This article argues that the contradictory findings would be caused by the misconceptions and misinterpretations of the concept of emotional labor.
A questionnaire methodology was used to elicit beliefs and attitudes about silence in the classroom from 319 students aged between 14-16 in three secondary schools in Wales.The three schools can be described as 'rural','urban-suburban' and 'urban-inner city'. The socio-economic background of the students may be described as mainly 'working class' for the rural and inner-city schools, and 'middle class' for the suburban school. The inner city school had the highest proportion of students who reported ethnolinguistic backgrounds other than Welsh. Our overall finding was that students believed that they were more silent in the classroom than their teachers, complementing earlier findings of ethnographic and discourse analytic studies. We suggest that for pupils silence is the relatively unmarked, underlying linguistic form in the classroom, while for teachers silence is relatively marked and talk is unmarked. Our results also confirmed the relative importance of silence for learning rather than for teaching. Specifically, students believed that they were more silent when learning than their teachers are when teaching. Furthermore, students in the rural and inner-city schools valued silence in the classroom more than the students in the suburban school, which we explain in terms of the social make up of the three schools.
Teaching is a profession that involves a high level of emotional labour. This includes such behaviours as surface acting (displaying an emotion that is not actually felt), deep acting (the activity undertaken to actually feel a required emotion), and suppression of emotion. In many professions, this emotional labour is thought to be related to high levels of burnout. The aim of our study was to show that emotional labour has a unique relationship with burnout that is separate from its relationship with the variables of the Demand Control Support (DCS) model. Emotional labour was studied, together with the variables of the Karasek Job Demand Control Support model, in a random sample of 365 mathematics teachers in the Netherlands. We used the Dutch Questionnaire on Emotional Labor (D-QEL) that measures: (1) surface acting, (2) deep acting, (3) suppression, and (4) emotional consonance. In line with other studies, job characteristics were found to be specifically related to emotional exhaustion. Surface acting was significantly related to depersonalization, and emotional consonance (the absence of emotional labour) was related to personal accomplishment. We conclude that whereas the DCS model has been valuable for understanding emotional exhaustion, emotional labour provides an additional perspective for understanding work stress.
Teaching requires much emotion work which takes its toll on teachers. Emotion work is usually studied from one of two perspectives, a job or an individual perspective. In this study, we assessed the relative importance of these two perspectives in predicting emotional exhaustion. More than 200 teachers completed a questionnaire comprising the DISQ (Demand‐Induced Strain Compensation Questionnaire), the Dutch Questionnaire on Emotional Labour (D‐QEL), and the UBOS (Utrechtse Burnout Schaal [Utrecht Burnout Scale]). In line with previous studies, our findings indicated that emotional exhaustion is positively associated with emotional job demands and surface acting. The relative importance of the two operationalisations of emotion work was assessed by comparing the results of two regression analyses. Whereas the model with job demands explained 18% of the variance, the model with emotional labour explained only 5%. In understanding what might contribute to emotional exhaustion in teachers, the emotional job demands might be much more important than the self‐regulation perspective that is measured with emotional labour.
Understanding the interrelations among students’ cognitive, emotional, motivational, and volitional processes is an emergening focus in educational psychology. A dynamical, component systems theory of emotions is presented as a promising framework to further unravel these complex interrelations. This framework considers emotions to be a process that is composed of cognitive, neurophysiological, motor expression, and motivational processes—as well as feelings—that mutually regulate each other over time and within a particular context. This comprehensive view of emotions provides a more complete understanding of the social and dynamical nature of emotions and the integration of emotions within learning processes. Using a dynamical, component systems view of emotional processes, interrelated with learning processes, involves a shift in research methodologies and instruments to adequately investigate the role(s) of emotions within learning contexts. But more importantly, it may provide a powerful framework that can clearly show teachers and parents the role(s) that emotions play in students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills.
In this chapter we examine the emotional by-products of developing relationships with students. We begin the chapter by reviewing
the power of student–teacher relationships in promoting adaptive student outcomes including enhanced motivation and achievement.
We examine the pleasant and unpleasant emotional by-products of being involved with students and the role repeatedly experiencing
unpleasant emotions may play in teacher burnout. We tackle the emotional life of “challenging relationships” specifically
with regard to the judgments teachers may make about student behavior that can lead to emotional exhaustion and compassion
fatigue. Our central question is: When things don’t “feel good,” what are adaptive strategies for reframing, rethinking, and
reinvesting in relationships?
KeywordsTeacher appraisals–Student–teacher relationships–Adaptive strategies
How do bilinguals experience emotions? Do they perceive and express emotions similarly or differently in their respective languages? Does the first language remain forever the language of the heart? What role do emotions play in second language learning and in language attrition? Why do some writers prefer to write in their second language? In this provocative book, Pavlenko challenges the monolingual bias of modern linguistics and psychology and uses the lens of bi- and multilingualism to offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between language and emotions. Bringing together insights from the fields of linguistics, neurolinguistics, psychology, anthropology, psychoanalysis and literary theory, Pavlenko offers a comprehensive introduction to this cross-disciplinary movement. This is a highly readable and thought-provoking book that draws on empirical data and first hand accounts and offers invaluable advice for novice researchers. It will appeal to scholars and researchers across many disciplines.
This study discusses how wait time—the silent pause after a teacher elicits a student response—alters classroom discourse. Previous wait time research suggests overall positive changes in both teacher and student discourse where wait time is over 1 s. However, such studies are primarily structuralist in nature and tend to reduce the intricacy of classroom behavior to distinct variables, which can be easily altered to achieve a desired result. The data presented here comes from a series of structured observations of a UK university postgraduate L2 classroom. The findings were as follows: 1) Wait time played an intricate role in determining classroom discourse patterns and heavily favored an IRF turn-taking sequence; 2) student-initiated discourse was low in all observations and favored higher proficiency students; 3) the length of individual student-initiated turns appears to have been more important than the overall number of student-initiated turns in determining the quality of classroom discourse and was not directly related to changes in wait time length; 4) extended wait time (over 2 s in length) temporarily shifted discourse out of an IRF pattern and into a new, more student-driven phase. While previously thought of as only a pedagogical tool to increase student speech, wait time is shown to be a phenomenon which develops and changes with the composite forces that affect other aspects of classroom discourse.
Why are second language learners in Japan's universities so silent? This book investigates the perplexing but intriguing phenomenon of classroom silence and draws on ideas from psychology, sociolinguistics and anthropology to offer a unique insight into the reasons why some learners are either unable or unwilling to speak in a foreign language.
Traditionally dominant approaches in applied linguistics have tended to emphasise cognitive aspects of second language acquisition (SLA), and have placed the language learner as being largely independent from the context. Such approaches suggest learner traits to be stable, monolithic phenomena which are essentially divorced from the social environment. This volume questions this notion by bringing together a state-of-the-art collection of works which acknowledge that learner characteristics and behaviour are in fact dynamic and can be influenced by a multitude of competing temporal and situational factors. The works presented in this book include contributions from researchers based in a variety of countries around the world (including Austria, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) who are specialists in a range of different language learning-related disciplines. Many of these contributors adopt the relatively new (for applied linguistics) and exciting conceptual framework of complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) in their work in order to better understand the inherent complexities involved in learning and using a second language.
Context is key to understanding the roots and meanings of silence. As Saville-Troike (1985) explains, ‘silence (like all nonverbal communication) is more context-embedded than speech, that is, more dependent on context for its interpretation’ (p. 11). Ergo, the silence of a Trappist monk deep in prayer is profoundly different to that of a suspect refusing to talk in a police interview. The same holds true in the language classroom where a learner’s silence may emerge for any number of reasons and represent any number of meanings, depending on the complex contextual circumstances in which it occurs. So how can we best achieve an in situ analysis of such silences, paying close attention to contextualised classroom events and foregrounding the way in which immediate classroom and higher sociocultural contexts impact upon individuals? Framing its results through the lens of complex dynamic systems theory (CDST), the current chapter attempts to answer this question by reporting on a mixed-methods study which utilised a series of stimulated recall interviews in conjunction with empirical observations of silence occurring within naturalistic L2 classroom settings.
Much has been said about Japanese students’ reticence in classrooms (e.g., Anderson, 1993; Korst, 1997), a feature that has been associated with Japanese (or more broadly Asian) cultural characteristics (Ferris & Tagg, 1996; Flowerdew & Miller, 1995; Littlewood, 1999). With regard to second and foreign language learning, Japanese EFL learners’ silence tends to be seen as a serious problem that interferes with the L2 acquisition process when successful learning requires a great deal of oral interaction in the language (Izumi, 2003; Swain, 2005). However, empirical studies have not accumulated enough evidence to verify these allegations. This has led some researchers to dispute the claim, criticising the attribution of reticence to cultural characteristics as overgeneralisation and stereotyping (Cheng, 2000; Kubota, 1999).
An area of research that may shed light on the pressing problem of FL teacher attrition is emotion labor. Emotion labor (or emotional labour), a construct stemming from research in the fields of communication and psychology and focusing mainly on service professionals, has recently been taken up in education literature. Although student emotions in language acquisition have been examined, the field of applied linguistics has not yet tapped the explanatory potential of teacher emotions. The current project explores the emotion work of 5 teachers in rural U.S. high school FL classrooms. Thematic analysis of interviews with teachers of Spanish, French, and Latin yielded 5 key insights: perceived lack of community and institutional support for FL teachers, an excessive burden for motivation felt by these teachers, the use of teacher emotion labor to motivate their students, emotional burnout of the teachers, and perceived lack of teacher efficacy. The last two, while not inevitable, seem to be mutually influencing, forming a downward spiral that can eventually impact the willingness or ability of some teachers to continue in their careers. Implications of this study include recognition of the significance of teacher emotion labor in FL pedagogy and its potential role in teacher attrition.
Interest in the emotional dimension of language learning has been growing in recent years as researchers try to understand what role students’ emotions play in the complex processes involved in second language acquisition. This chapter represents a new conceptual direction within language learning research because rather than focusing on learners’ emotions, it provides an in-depth account of the emotional labour performed by instructors. Emotional labour is the forced management of one’s emotions in order to conform to the social norms associated with a professional role. Teaching involves high levels of emotional labour as teachers are required to manage and display particular emotions in appropriate ways in front of students. Reflecting the dynamic and shifting nature of emotional states, the chapter draws from data collected during a series of semi-structured interviews to report upon the surface acting, deep acting and the suppression of emotions performed by a sample of language instructors teaching English within a Japanese university. As emotions are socially and culturally derived, the chapter examines issues surrounding emotional labour within intercultural contexts, and considers potential links between emotional labour, teacher stress and burnout.
"In private life, we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotion work," just as we manage our outer expressions of feeling through surface acting. In trying to bridge a gap between what we feel and what we "ought" to feel, we take guidance from "feeling rules" about what is owing to others in a given situation. Based on our private mutual understandings of feeling rules, we make a "gift exchange" of acts of emotion management. We bow to each other not simply from the waist, but from the heart. But what occurs when emotion work, feeling rules, and the gift of exchange are introduced into the public world of work? In search of the answer, Arlie Russell Hochschild closely examines two groups of public-contact workers: flight attendants and bill collectors. The flight attendant's job is to deliver a service and create further demand for it, to enhance the status of the customer and be "nicer than natural." The bill collector's job is to collect on the service, and if necessary, to deflate the status of the customer by being "nastier than natural." Between these extremes, roughly one-third of American men and one-half of American women hold jobs that call for substantial emotional labor. In many of these jobs, they are trained to accept feeling rules and techniques of emotion management that serve the company's commercial purpose. Just as we have seldom recognized or understood emotional labor, we have not appreciated its cost to those who do it for a living. Like a physical laborer who becomes estranged from what he or she makes, an emotional laborer, such as a flight attendant, can become estranged not only from her own expressions of feeling (her smile is not "her" smile), but also from what she actually feels (her managed friendliness). This estrangement, though a valuable defense against stress, is also an important occupational hazard, because it is through our feelings that we are connected with those around us. On the basis of this book, Hochschild was featured in Key Sociological Thinkers, edited by Rob Stones. This book was also the winner of the Charles Cooley Award in 1983, awarded by the American Sociological Association and received an honorable mention for the C. Wright Mills Award. © 1983, 2003, 2012 by The Regents of the University of California.
This article explores Japanese EFL learners' classroom silence in a Japanese EFL context. The existence of silence in second
language learning contexts can be a source of conflict between students and teachers and even among students themselves. It
can also be an obstacle to acquiring the target language. In order to tackle this problem and to illustrate the dynamic characteristics
of classroom silence, this study draws on insights from the ethnographic approach and interprets the roots, functions, and
meanings of silence from a sociocultural perspective. It was conducted through a questionnaire survey which aimed to elicit
learners' and teachers' views on silence and also to examine whether a mismatch of perceptions exists. The issues of identity
and the role of cultural and contextual factors in the use of silence are discussed and possible pedagogical approaches which
could be implemented in varied learning contexts are suggested.
The purpose of this study is to review the limited literature on the emotional aspects of teachers' lives. First, a multicomponential perspective on emotions is described, then the existing literature on teachers' positive and negative emotions is reviewed and critiqued. Next is a summary of the literature suggesting that teachers' emotions influence teachers' and students' cognitions, motivation, and behaviors. Four areas for future research are proposed: management and discipline, adoption and use of teaching strategies, learning to teach, and teachers' motivation. An overview of research methods used in a multicomponential perspective on emotions is provided. This review draws on a variety of research literatures: educational psychology, social and personality psychology, educational sociology, and research on teachers and teaching.
Combining methods from ethnoscience and sociolinguistics, this paper presents an hypothesis to account for why, in certain types of situations, members of Western Apache society refrain from speech. Though cross-cultural data on silence behavior are almost wholly lacking, some evidence has been collected which suggests that this hypothesis may have relevance to other societies as well.
In this paper we examine classroom interactions using a conversation analytic approach to explore the relationship between turn taking and silences in classroom interaction. Seventeen mathematics lessons with pupils aged between 12 and 14 years were analysed in terms of the structure of turn taking and the length and nature of pauses that occurred during whole class interactions. We show that the turn taking structure of classroom interactions remains consistent with that described in the conversation analytic literature. In classroom interactions where different turn taking structures apply, silences have a different influence on student and teacher behaviour. We then demonstrate that the pedagogical construct of wait time is structurally built into classrooms with a formal turn taking structure and that this structure explains many of the previous research findings relating to the length of wait time. These findings have implications for pedagogic policies and recommendations relating to classroom interactions.
This study examined teachers' accuracy in decoding nonverbal behaviour indicative of foreign language anxiety. Teachers and teacher trainees twice observed a videotape without sound of seven beginning French foreign language students as they participated in an oral exam; four of these students were defined as anxious language learners by the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. First, observers were asked to use their own criteria to assess the anxiety status of the examinees by watching their posture, gestures and body positions. The second time, observers were given a list of criteria that defined specific anxious behaviours. The results demonstrated that, although there was variability in the ability of observers to decode the nonverbal cues evidential of anxiety, the teachers and trainees were more accurate in assessing the nonverbal behaviour of learners who were on the high and low ends of the anxiety scale than those whose scores fell in the middle. Because observers were more accurate once they were introduced to explicit anxiety-indicating cues, the pedagogical implications of this study call for the inclusion of nonverbal awareness training as a means of identifying those learners who struggle with foreign language anxiety.
Research on teacher stress has become a major area of international research interest. This paper reviews research findings on teacher stress and suggests five directions for future research: (i) monitoring the extent to which particular educational reforms are generating high levels of teacher stress; (ii) exploring why some teachers are able to successfully negotiate periods of career reappraisal and retain a positive commitment to the work, whilst others are not; (iii) clarifying the nature of the stress process in term of two types of triggers' one based on excessive demands and the other based on a concern with self-image; (iv) assessing the effectiveness of particular intervention strategies to reduce teacher stress; (v) exploring the impact of teacher-pupil interaction and classroom climate on teacher stress.
This article is based on a collaborative action research study between one teacher and a teacher educator and provides an account of the emotional labour in enacting caring teaching in an inclusive classroom. The emotional labour demanded in caring relationships is an area of research that has not received much attention. Results from this case study show that this teacher's performance of emotional labour is related to her professional and philosophical stance about the role of caring in teaching and learning. The study also demonstrates that the performance of emotional labour is an important aspect of the reality of teaching and has an impact on teacher's commitment, satisfaction, and self-esteem. The implications of this research are discussed in terms of the consequences of emotional labour in teaching.
in the first [part of this chapter] . . . outlined three models of emotion, elucidated the interactional model . . . and described two concepts basic to my view of emotions, "feeling rules" and "emotion work"
in the second part of this essay I have turned from emotional experience on the job to that in the family / described some aspects of my recent research on fifty two job couples reported in "The Second Shift" (1989)
in the third part of this essay I have suggested some paths for future research about gender strategies, ethnic strategies, and class strategies / outlined a series of questions about the ideological and organizational contexts of these strategies on the one hand, and their relations to the "real self" on the other
an emotion management perspective / expression rules and feeling rules
emotional preparation and consequences of gender strategies / gender ideologies and feeling rules / emotional anchors to ideology and feeling rules / gender ideologies of . . men and women / emotional pathways of gender strategies / emotional preparation for ethnic and class strategies (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In the late 1980s, I reviewed what was known about the field of second language acquisition (SLA), first with a co-author in a book (Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991) and then in a highly condensed form for a 25th anniversary issue of the TESOL Quarterly (Larsen-Freeman, 1991). Stock-taking activities can be very useful, and I was grateful for these opportunities.
Recent efforts to analyze the structure of talk have focused primarily on the conversation of persons from a white middle-class background. This paper compares the way in which talk is regulated, both verbally and non-verbally, in Anglo interaction with the regulation of talk among Indians of the Warm Springs Reservation, in central Oregon. The purpose of this comparison is to begin to assess the sources and nature of cultural variability in this one aspect of language use. (Ethnography of communication, conversational analysis, nonverbal communication, North American Indians.)
ABSTRACT In the second language class, interactions between teachers and students serve as the focal point for learning how to use the language. After the teacher asks a question, students mentally process their answers. They hear the question, decipher its sounds and figure out its meaning and begin to form an answer. How long does it take to answer a question? How long should a teacher wait for an answer? Does it take longer to answer a question in the target language than in English? These are some of the questions that this study investigates.
This article reports the results of a descriptive study of wait-time–the pause for thinking after questions and answers–in selected first-year high school Spanish and French classes. Over 7500 classroom events were recorded and coded in order to measure and find the variance in time of3270 instances of post-solicitation and post-response wait-time. The average durationofwait-time was 1.91 seconds (S.D. = 1.64) after questions; wait-time averaged 0.73 seconds (S.D. = 0.63) after responses. Post-response wait-time in all cases was short and of limited variance, indicating very little time for revision of thought in reaction to responses. Wait-time was significantly longer after questions in the native language.
This report summarizes work of 7 years on the influence of a variable called wait-time on the development of language and logic of children taking part in elementary science programs. Analysis of over 300 classroom tape recordings showed mean pauses to be on the order of 1 sec; that is, after a teacher asked a question, students had to begin a response within an average time of 1 sec. If they did not, the teacher typically repeated, rephrased or asked a different question, or called on others. A second wait-time is involved: when a student makes a response, the teacher normally reacts or asks another question within an average time of 0.9 sec. This study investigates the consequences of manipulating both species of wait-time. When mean wait-time of 3–5 sec is achieved through training, analysis of more than 900 tapes shows changed values on eight student variables: (1) the length of response (number of words) increases, (2) the number of unsolicited but appropriate responses increases, (3) failures to respond decrease, (4) incidence of speculative responses increases, (5) incidence of student-student comparisons of data increases, (6) incidence of evidence-inference statements increases, (7) frequency of student-initiated questions increases, and (8) the variety in type of verbal moves made by students increases. Servochart plots of recordings show that students discussing science phenomena tend to speak in bursts, with intervals of as much as 3–5 sec between bursts being fairly common provided they are not interrupted. The average post-student-response wait-time of 0.9 sec apparently intervenes between bursts to prevent completion of a thought. The classroom is conceptualized as a two-player game in which the quality of inquiry will tend to improve when there is a better equity in the distribution of moves between the players. The teacher is treated as one player and the collection of students as the second player. Changes in wait-time shift the game toward a more equitable state. Over time, a classroom or instructional group on the prolonged wait-time schedule undergoes certain spontaneous changes. Two teacher variables change: (1) response flexibility scores increase, and (2) teacher questioning patterns becomes more variable. There is some indication that teacher expectations for performance of students rated as relatively slow improves.
This study addresses two questions: what goals do teachers have for their own emotional regulation, and what strategies do teachers report they use to regulate their own emotions. Data were collected from middle school teachers in North East Ohio, USA through a semi-structured interview. All but one of the teachers reported regulating their emotions and there were no gender or experience differences in spontaneously discussing emotional regulation. Teachers believed that regulating their emotions helped their teaching effectiveness goals and/or conformed to their idealized emotion image of a teacher. Teachers used a variety of preventative and responsive emotional regulation strategies to help them regulate their emotions. Future research on teachers emotional regulation goals and strategies should examine the role of culture and the relationship of emotional regulation goals with teachers other goals, stress, and coping.