Research On Response Ways Of Teachers Coping With Negative Emotional Expression Of Children In Primary Classes

In this paper,qualitative research and quantitative research methods are combined.Through non-participatory observation method,questionnaire survey method and in-depth interview method,this paper explores teachers’ response status and ways to negative emotions(anxiety,anger,fear and sadness)in primary classes.Based on the observation record form made by herself,The author observed the children in primary classes from three different kindergartens and collected 208 incidents of teachers’ response to children’s negative emotions that met the research needs.During the observation process,the designed interview outline was used to conduct in-depth interviews with the observed class teachers.Afterwards,in order to explore the response ways of teachers to negative emotions,the auther used the questionnaire-The Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale: Teacher Version that was revised by Fabes,R.A.,Eisenberg,n.,&Bernzweig,j.in 2000 to conducte a questionnaire survey on over200 teachers in primary classes.It is found that in the actual educational practice,teachers often use six verbal response ways to the negative emotions,which are verbal comfort,control behavior,reasoning,negligence,problem solving,refer to emotion while the teachers use four action response ways such as comfort action,intervention action and blaming action.Supportive verbal responses and action responses are both higher than non-supportive verbal response and action response,but there are some problems,such as low frequency use of refer to emotion,high of control behavior,common negligence,high proportion of non-action and too much blaming action in response to anger.According the result of observation,teachers’ verbal responses and action responses are closely related to negative emotion types,response effects and causes of negative emotions.According to the result of this questionnaire,teachers respond to the negative emotions of children in primary classes in a more supportive way than in a non-supportive way.Teachers mostly prefer to use the supportive ways of emotion-focused reactions,problem-focused reactions and the non-supportive way of distress reactions and minimization reactions towards children’s negative emotions.There is no relationship between teacher’s age,teacher’s teaching age,teacher’s professional title and teachers reactions.However,there are significant relations between teachers’ non-supportive ways and kindergartens whichare public or private,as well as teachers non-supportive ways are significantly related to their education.The study revealed that teachers who prefer to use distress reactions towards children’s negative emotions are likely to punitive reactions,minimization reactions.Those who prefer to use puntive reactions towards children’s negative emotions were less likely to emotion-focused reactions,problem-focused reactions and most likely to prefer a minimization reactions and so on.Finally according to the research results and the problems found in kindergartens the auther strongly suggest that the kingergardens should create a harmonious environment to reduce the outbreak of children’s negative emotions;preschool teachers should improve their emotional ability and improve the quality of response;the community should gain more professional support for preschool teachers.