Emotions at the Heart of Tensions: A Transcendental Phenomenology of Iranian EFL Teachers’ Intra- and Interpersonal Emotional Tensions and Regulation Strategies

Abstract

Teachers constantly face tensions from different sources in L2 education. However, there is a yawning gap of knowledge on L2 teachers’ intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional tensions and associated regulatory strategies in English as a foreign language (EFL) setting. To fill this gap, the current investigation took a phenomenological approach to unveil the perceptions and experiences of a cohort of 20 Iranian EFL teachers concerning intra- and interpersonal emotional tensions and their regulation strategies employed to manage such tensions. A semi-structured interview and an autobiographical narrative were utilized to glean the data. The results obtained by MAXQDA software (v.2020) divulged a range of emotional tensions at both intrapersonal and interpersonal levels. At the intrapersonal level, the participants purported to experience burnout, anxiety, self-doubt, pressure, and frustration. Concerning interpersonal emotional tensions, they frequently stated that they grappled with collaboration problems with colleagues, stakeholders’ high expectations, and strict institutional rules and relations. To manage such tensions, the participants had used different preventive and responsive emotion regulation strategies with preventive ones being more common. The findings are discussed in detail and some conclusions and implications are enumerated for EFL teachers and teacher educators regarding emotionality and L2 education.