Role of Expectations and Emotions in Pre-service Teacher Identity Construction

Authors

  • Padmini Shankar Professor, Department of ESL Studies, School of English Language Education, English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v28i1.61334

Keywords:

Emotions, Language Teacher Identity, Pre-service Teachers, Imagined Identities

Abstract

The construct of Language Teacher Identity has garnered tremendous research interest over the past two decades with teacher aff ect – the relationship between emotional factors and teacher identity construction – as one of the areas of focus. Pre-service teachers (PSTs) enter the teacher education program (TEP) with expectations of becoming ‘good’ teachers. These are negotiated and mediated through the practicum experience that entails enormous emotional investment on the part of the PSTs as they experiment with their developing skills and knowledge to transact learning. This paper explores the role of expectations and emotions in the emerging identities of PSTs. It examines: a) PSTs’ beliefs about ‘good’ teachers which translate into expectations, b) teaching events involving pleasant and unpleasant emotions for PSTs infl uencing the construction of a positive and negative sense of identity as teachers and c) ways in which PSTs negotiate and adjust their emerging identities as language teachers vis-à-vis their expectations and emotions. Five PSTs enrolled in a TEP at a Central University in India are the participants of the study. Reflective journals, classroom observation, and oral narratives are used as tools to collect data which is analyzed qualitatively. The fi ndings reveal that PSTs use several coping strategies to combat unpleasant emotions that erode their fragile emerging identities while exercising agency all through to develop positive identities with the help of pleasant emotions.

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Author Biography

Padmini Shankar, Professor, Department of ESL Studies, School of English Language Education, English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), India

Padmini Shankar PhD is Professor in Department of ESL Studies, School of English Language Education at The English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad, Telangana, India. She has researched and published books, book chapters and journal articles on a wide range of ELT, ESL studies and English language education. She has also presented her research reports at numerous international conferences. Her research interests include teacher training and development, pre- /in-service teachers, language teacher identity, cultural and contextual factors, classroom-based research and ESL/EFL teaching, affect and emotional intelligence and language testing and assessment.

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Published

2023-12-31

How to Cite

Shankar, P. (2023). Role of Expectations and Emotions in Pre-service Teacher Identity Construction. Journal of NELTA, 28(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v28i1.61334

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Articles