YIMIN ZHU (GRADUATE SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS)

EMOTIONAL "STICKY OBJECTS" IN EFL CLASSROOMS: NARRATIVES OF NOVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS IN CHINA AND JAPAN : TEACHER EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This paper explores the emotional experiences of two novice EFL teachers with MATESOL background. Drawing on a post-structuralist understanding to emotions which focuses on ideas and objects that emotions tend to adhere to more strongly in a given context (Ahmed, 2004; Benesch, 2013), the study adopts the concept of “sticky objects” in language classrooms around which teacher emotions tend to cluster (Benesch, 2013), to investigate (a) what emotional episodes the two participants experience frequently as novice EFL teachers and (b) how they experience differently and similarly in the process. Using narrative inquiry and thematic analysis, the paper follows one Chinese and one Japanese high school English teachers, respectively in Shanghai and in Tokyo, during their first six months in service after graduating their MATESOL programs. The study identifies seven common “sticky objects” in EFL classrooms that have attracted the most emotional episodes from both participants, among which testing, grammar, and class dynamics appear the most salient and likely to enact teacher agency. It also reveals that, despite different sociopolitical contexts, the two participants have experienced more similarities than differences as novice high school EFL teachers, constantly negotiating between their teaching ideal and institutional constraints.

Zhu Yimin is a linguistics Ph.D candidate currently based in Tokyo, Japan. Proficient in Chinese (native), English, and Japanese, Zhu has experience teaching multiple languages to learners of diverse language backgrounds. Her primary research interests include EFL teacher identity development, narrative inquiry, post-structuralism, and complexity theory.