A Case Study Of A Novice University EFL Teacher’s Emotion In A Blended Learning Context

Existing research indicates that teacher emotion affects teacher cognition,teaching beliefs and professional performances.However,current research mainly focuses on primary and secondary school teachers’ emotion in a traditional classroom or an educational reform context.Few studies concern novice university EFL teacher emotion in a technology-enhanced course,especially in a blended learning context.The reality is these novice teachers experience various emotions in such a context functioned by both personal and environmental factors.It is of great significance to understand these novice teachers’ emotions in order to help with their professional development.This qualitative case study aims to explore teacher emotion experiences with a novice university EFL teacher in a blended learning context,factors of influence and effects of the teacher emotion on the EFL teaching practice and teacher identity.The research data are mainly collected from interviews,classroom observation and case documents.Based on the data analysis,three major findings of the study are summarized as follows:Firstly,in the blended learning context,this novice EFL teacher experienced both positive and negative emotions.Throughout the semester,the participant teacher had more positive emotions,such as confidence,pleasure,happy surprise,pride and gratefulness.Negative emotions included worry,disappointment and powerlessness.The emotion of worry was outstanding as the teacher experienced this emotion most of the time in teaching this course.Specifically,the teacher experienced different emotions at different periods of the semester.He felt confident about himself and the new way of teaching at the beginning of the semester;meanwhile he was also worried about students’ performance.As the course went on,the teacher’s emotional experiences got richer in more complex situations.He was happy with students’ good performance and his blended teaching;and some students’ progress and excellent performance often brought him happy surprises.However,some students behaved not so well,so he felt disappointed.He also felt worried about the teaching outcomes.Besides,the school’s high demand on novice teachers’ teaching and research results further deepened his emotional concerns.This teacher’s emotions by the end of the semester were represented by his feeling of pride with his teaching achievements and gratefulness for his students’ cooperation;also powerlessness about some students’ "give up" behavior and restrictions of the teaching environment.Secondly,this research identifies some personal and contextual factors that influenced the teacher emotion in the blended learning context.Regarding personal factors,belief factor functioned more apparent than that of his past experiences on teacher emotion.While his student-centered teaching belief guided his persistent blended teaching practice,it also brought him much worry and disappointment due to difficulties in the implementation.His "leaming-from-students" belief led him to pay more attention to students’ good performance and their brilliant ideas,which helped improve his teaching and produce more positive emotions such as pleasure and pride.Besides,this teacher’s emotions were influenced by some contextual factors,including interpersonal relationship and the school policy.When this teacher got along well with students,he felt happy and pleasantly surprised;but when students behaved badly and not cooperatively,the teacher felt disappointed and even powerless.In addition,the harmonious relationship with the administrator and the teaching assistant enabled him to conduct the blended learning context,which produced more positive emotions.Moreover,the school policy influenced the teacher’s emotions deeply.On one hand,the process-based student assessment guaranteed the implementation of blended teaching,which made the teacher more confident and ensured his positive emotional experiences.On the other hand,however,the school’s teacher evaluation criteria caused him great pressure.It was hard to make a balance between innovative teaching and conducting research,which made the novice teacher much worried and powerless.Thirdly,data show that teacher emotion also had deep effects on teacher’s EFL teaching practice and teacher identity.While positive emotions helped the teacher strengthen his teaching beliefs and practice,negative emotions usually pushed the teacher to adjust his teaching strategies,or to reflect promptly after class,or to spend more tirue on course preparation.Besides,the teacher’s negative emotions including worry and powerlessness forced him to make a choice between a language teacher who focused on language learning and an intercultural communication one.Also,while positive emotions promoted the teacher identity as a "researcher",negative emotions had little influence on this identity,which might have to do with his interest in doing research.Moreover,positive emotions mainly helped to confirm and reinforce the teacher identity of "course designer"and "learner",which together with "researcher" contributed to his identity as a professional.Based on the above findings,the researcher suggests that novice EFL teachers have rich emotional experiences in a blended learning context under the influence of personal and contextual factors,and these emotions directly and deeply affect teachers’ EFL teaching practice and teacher identity.Schools should pay more attention to the emotions of novice teachers involved in innovative teaching practices,and help them grow into effective teachers.