Exploring emotional experiences of Chinese university novice EFL teachers: An ecological perspective

Abstract

Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological system, the present study employs a qualitative longitudinal approach to delve into the emotional experiences and ecological factors that contribute to these emotions in eight novice EFL teachers from four Chinese public universities. Based on data collected from semi-structured interviews and case documents, this study identifies four types of emotional experiences—fear, anger, sadness, and joy—in their first school year. The findings revealed that their emotional experiences were shaped by college students, teachers' teaching competence, EFL teaching-related activities in the microsystem, interpersonal relationships in the mesosystem, novice teacher education and development systems in the exosystem, traditional cultural values and English curriculum reforms in the macrosystem, and changes in the emotional experiences over time in the chronosystem. The implications for novice EFL teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, and policymakers are proposed.