Emotional Experiences and Caring Practices of Language Teachers in a Turkish EFL Context
Keywords:
EFL teacher, language teacher education, teacher emotion, emotional experience, caringAbstract
The objective of this study was to investigate the prior emotional experiences of five English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in a Turkish environment and analyse the reciprocal interplay between their emotions and their caring practices. Following a qualitative methodology, the study used both multiple case study and narrative approaches. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews, observation sessions, emotion diaries, autobiographies, and written statements. The thematic analysis performed in this study yielded the following themes: (1) prior emotional experiences, (2) positioning self, (3) academic caring, (4) psychological caring, (5) social caring, (6) emotional gains of caring, and (7) emotional costs of caring. When the teachers cared about their students, they experienced emotional gains such as motivation or satisfaction. When they could not, they experienced emotional costs, experiencing sadness, guilt, inadequacy or exhaustion. This study illustrates the interconnectedness between the emotions of EFL teachers and their practice of caring.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Tuba Karagöz Dilek, Cem Balçıkanlı
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