A Case Study Of Emotional Labor Of Proficient Primary School English Teachers

On February 10,2012,the Professional Standards for Primary School Teachers(trial version)was issued by China’s Ministry of Education,in which “being good at self-regulating emotions,maintaining a peaceful state of mind” and “being optimistic,enthusiastic,cheerful,and friendly” were included into the requirements of teachers’ occupational norms.How teachers deal with negative emotions and maintain positive emotions in the school context has increasingly attracted the interest of the academic community.Emotions have been playing an important role in affecting teachers’ professional identity and self-efficacy.Compared with novice teachers,proficient teachers have more experience in controlling their negative emotions and mobilizing their positive emotions.In this regard,what can be learned from these teachers would be of value for other educators and researchers.Based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system framework and post structuralism,qualitative research is used and five proficient primary school English teachers in a public school,serving low-income and multi-children families,are taken as the research subjects to discuss teachers’ emotional labor.It aims to answer the following questions:(1)What emotions do proficient primary school English teachers experience in the school context?(2)What kind of emotional labor strategies are adopted by proficient primary school English teachers?(3)What are the factors affecting emotional labor strategies by proficient primary school English teachers?According to data analysis,it is found that(1)proficient primary school English teachers in this research experience positive emotions,negative emotions and mixed emotions in the school context.Positive emotions include happiness,love,motivation,sense of achievement and being moved.Compared to other researches on emotional labor of foreign language teachers,the proficient primary school English teachers in this research experience fewer expectations,which may be due to the following reasons:Firstly,the reasons for their emotional labor mainly come from other work rather than English teaching,which cannot be solved by the individual efforts of primary school English teachers.Besides,it may be related to the “desensitization reaction” caused by the experience of “getting used to” of proficient teachers.Finally,it may also be related to the unequal rights and responsibilities of primary school English teachers.Proficient primary school English teachers experience negative emotions such as sadness,disappointment,anger,confusion,pressure,depression and anxiety in their daily work.Mixed emotions include pain and happiness and love and hate.(2)The emotional labor strategies adopted by proficient primary school English teachers include surface acting,deep acting and genuinely expressing.Surface acting strategies include hiding,pretending and restraining;deep acting strategies include refocusing,reframing and separating;genuinely expressing strategies include releasing and outpouring.(3)These coping strategies are deeply connected to individual factors,organizational factors and social factors.Based on previous research dimensions,this research summarized the categories of factors affecting proficient primary school English teachers serving low-income and multi-children families.Individual factors include personality traits,gender,emotional expressivity,the study and growth,teachers’ assessment and pedagogical wit.Organizational factors include school environment and school culture.Social factors include occupational security,occupational stability,occupational norms and occupational crisis.Based on the above findings,the thesis concludes with implications for teachers,schools and the society.For teachers,they can start by improving their emotional theory and teaching practice to change their emotion experience and improve their emotional regulation ability.Secondly,schools should start from both the school environment and school culture,providing a healthier development platform for all teachers.For the society,teachers should be empowered with the right to conduct appropriate punishment for students.There should be a clear distinction between teachers’ responsibilities and accidents.A specialized school accident adjudication agency,and an evaluation system of equal rights and responsibilities should be established.