A Study On EFL Student Teachers' Emotional Labor Strategies During Their Teaching Practicum In Senior High Schools

The Professional Standards for High School Teachers(Trial)(2012)promulgated by the Ministry of Education states clearly that teachers should be good at self-regulating emotions and maintain peace of mind.The enrollment of teachers' emotion into the Standards shows that teachers' emotion in teaching activities and teachers' professional development has attracted the attention from educational policy-making circle.Compared with that of in-service teachers,the emotional labor of student teachers is more complicated due to their dual identity,less experience in teaching and management as well.However,few relevant researches can be found on the emotional labor of student teachers at home and abroad.Taking senior high school EFL(English as a foreign language)student teachers as the research subjects,this study attempts to explore their emotional labor strategies during the teaching practicum,with specific research questions as follows:(1)What is the connotation of senior high school EFL student teachers' emotional labor strategies?(2)What is the status quo of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers in China?(3)What are the factors that influence senior high school EFL student teachers' application of emotional labor strategies?This study adopts a mixed research approach with the qualitative as the main and the quantitative as the auxiliary to analyze and answer the three research questions mentioned above.Specifically,for the first research question,based on the initial draft of the research framework proposed in the literature review,the study managed to establish the dimensions of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers,with a focused analysis on the emotion journals written by 30 student teachers during their teaching practicum.As to the second question,a tested and revised questionnaire based on the emotional labor strategy dimensions was distributed to 413 senior high school EFL student teachers from eight provinces and cities in China.Finally,379 confirmed valid samples were input into SPSS for result analysis,so as to investigate the status quo of emotional labor strategies application of EFL student teachers in China on the one hand;on the other hand,to conductquantitative verification of emotional labor strategy dimensions.Regarding the third research question,seven senior high school EFL student teachers who participated in the above questionnaire survey were selected for in-depth interviews,aiming to explore the influencing factors of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers with the integration of relevant physical data.It can be found in the study that the connotative elements of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers consist of surface acting,deep acting,natural acting and deliberate dissonance acting.Among them,surface acting includes three sub-strategies of hiding,pretending and restraining;deep acting includes three sub-strategies of attentional deployment,cognitive change and separating,and natural acting includes two sub-strategies of releasing and outpouring.The findings of this study are highly similar to Yin's(2015)research on the emotional labor strategies by Chinese teachers in classroom teaching.Compared with Yin's(2015)research,this study puts forward deliberate dissonance acting strategy(such as“be not angry inside,but be angry outside”)which is juxtaposed with surface acting,deep acting and natural acting.This strategy can be explained and understood in the context of Chinese traditional culture such as“respecting teachers' dignity”.Moreover,this study also found that the surface acting strategy of “hiding”,distinguished from restraining and pretending,is more inclined to a neutral state of external emotional expression.The status quo of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers in our country is as follows:(1)generally speaking,the frequency of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers rating from high to low is deep acting,surface acting,natural acting and deliberate dissonance acting;(2)to be specific,the frequency of emotional labor strategies used by senior high school EFL student teachers from high to low is in the order of attentional deployment,separating,pretending,cognitive change,hiding,releasing,restraining,deliberate dissonance acting and outpouring;(3)there is no significant difference in the use of emotional labor strategies in terms of gender of student teachers,types and locations of practice schools.In terms of educational background,there are significant differences between undergraduates and graduates in restraining and pretending of surface acting,cognitive change in deep acting,and outpouring in natural acting.As far as practice length is concerned,there are significant differences in restraining,pretending in surface acting and deliberate dissonance acting.The influencing factors of senior high school EFL student teachers' emotional labor strategies involve three levels,individual,organization and social culture respectively.First of all,individual factors are mainly reflected in personality trait,experience as a learner,identity,and teacher belief.As far as personality trait is concerned,senior high school EFL student teachers with higher extroversion are more inclined to use releasing strategy in natural acting;while those student teachers with strong agreeableness and openness are more inclined to take deep acting strategies.In terms of their learning experience,their application of deep acting strategies is largely influenced by the teachers in their school days and their own experiences.As far as identity is concerned,their embarrassing identity dilemma imposes an important influence on their surface acting,deep acting and deliberate dissonance acting.As far as teachers' belief is concerned,it has a certain influence on the strategies of deep acting and deliberate dissonance acting chosen by EFL student teachers.Secondly,organizational factors are mainly reflected in three aspects: students,practice partners and mentors.The emotional labor strategies affected by students mainly include natural acting,deep acting and deliberate dissonance acting.The emotional labor strategies affected by practice partners mainly include deep acting,while the emotional labor strategies affected by mentors mainly include surface acting.Furthermore,the factor of social culture is mainly reflected in four aspects: authority,relationship,face and emotion display rules.Among them,the factor of authority has certain influence on the strategies of surface acting(hiding),natural acting(outpouring)and deep acting(cognitive change);The influence of relationship on emotional labor strategies is rather complex.The relationship between teachers and students has certain influence on student teachers' use of surface acting(restraining,hiding)and deliberate dissonance acting strategies.The relationship between mentors and student teachers affects surface acting(pretending)and deep acting(cognitivechange).The relationship beyond the practice field also has certain influence on deep acting(cognitive change).The influence of face factor on emotional labor strategies is mainly reflected in two aspects: face maintenance and face compensation,and the former affects the surface acting(hiding)and deep acting(cognitive change),while the latter affects the surface acting(pretending).The factor of emotion display rules has certain influence on surface acting(restraining),deep acting(attentional deployment)and natural acting(releasing).Based on the above findings,this study puts forward some implications for student teachers,practice schools,universities and national education departments at various levels.Firstly,for English student teachers themselves,they should attach importance to the development of their own emotional competence and understand emotional labor strategies in various situations during the teaching practicum.Secondly,for practice schools,a practice community composed of student teachers,psychology teachers,head teachers,discipline teachers and administrative leaders can be established to provide emotional support for student teachers both online and offline.In addition,for the supervisors in universities,they can carry out emotional competence training in the form of scenario simulation before the practicum,and issue the manual for emotional operation during the teaching practicum.Furthermore,for the administrators of teacher education in universities,they can focus on different stages in the form of workshops which recruit university lecturers and famous middle school teachers as relevant courses lecturers,so as to improve student teachers' communicative skills and emotional competence.Finally,for the national education departments at various levels,it is necessary to ensure the implementation of the teaching practicum policy and continuously improve the guarantee mechanism of teaching practicum on the basis of extensive research.