Learning to Feel

Emotion Regulation as Language Teacher Knowledge

Abstract

Emotion regulation refers to the ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions through (sets of) strategies, which – depending on the valence of emotions or the extent to which they are pleasant or less desirable – could either increase or decrease the duration, intensity and impact of emotions on teachers. Although emotion regulation processes have been studied among language teachers (see, for example, Gkonou & Miller, 2023; Morris, 2025; Morris & King, 2023), we still know relatively little about how teachers experience shifts in their use of strategies while regulating their emotions as part of their classroom practice. In this article, we analyse accounts produced during individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews by 50 language teachers who work in different types of educational institutions across four national settings. Specifically, we focus on teachers’ subjective responses to interview questions about how they performed emotion regulation and how they rated it as easy or difficult. Data were analysed through qualitative coding and thematic analysis. Findings showed that the participating teachers went through several moments of uncertainty and self-doubt while looking for appropriate strategies for regulating their emotions and had to rely upon intuition and instinct. Nevertheless, throughout the years, they gained confidence and developed a repertoire of personal strategies for emotion regulation in the classroom. Our findings point towards the learnability of emotion regulation strategies amongst language teachers, and we argue for their teachability and inclusion in both pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes.