Anxious learners, caring teachers and the emotional labour of teaching

Dr Christina Gkonou – University of Essex

 Time: Tuesday May 2nd; Start at 3pm – it may last up to 90 minutes.

Location: Ellen Wilkinson Building, Room B4.3

Anxious learners, caring teachers and the emotional labour of teaching

This talk will centre on the concepts of language learner anxiety, caring, and emotional labour. To show the links among these constructs, I will draw on eight EFL teachers’ interview accounts and analyse them by adopting a dialogical approach to teacher engagement with anxious learners and considering the role of positioning theory. We will look at the role of caring and the affective or emotional labour that language teachers often undertake in responding to their students’ displays of language anxiety. Key emotional dilemmas and tensions that language teachers experience, as well as how they deal with them, will be discussed.

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Thanks!

Juup