Exploring EFL Pre-service Teacher's Emotional Experiences during Teaching Practicum: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

Emotions hold a crucial role in teaching and learning, especially for teachers as emotions have significant implications for academic activities in the classroom. Thus, it is important for pre-service teachers to acknowledge the affective aspect of teaching before engaging in teaching practicum. Unfortunately, emotions are often found untended by teacher trainers because they mostly prioritize pre-service teachers in mastering content knowledge and teaching methodologies, overlooking the important role of emotions in teaching (Harris & Sass, 2011). The aim of this study is to investigate the causes of emotional experiences throughout my teaching practicum. To collect the data, I wrote diary entries to record my emotional experiences during my teaching practicum called KKPLP (Kuliah Kerja Pengenalan Lapangan Persekolahan) for 45 days at a junior high school in a rural area of Jember. In this program, I did not only engage in academic activities, but also I had to do community service around the school area, so the diary entries only recorded things that related to teaching practicum such as the placement process, class and lesson plan preparation, and any academic activities in the school. The data collection of this study was analyzed using categorical content analysis (Lieblich et al, 1998) and classify the data into categories taken from Ekman (1999) theory of five basic emotions which he divided into positive and negative emotions (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011, and Ekman, 2016). Afterward, I concluded the analysis and wrote the findings in a narrative format. The findings of this study revealed that I experienced both positive and negative emotions, except disgust and contempt. Positive emotions, such as satisfaction which might result from students' scores improvement motivated me to be more enthusiastic. In contrast, negative emotions that likely occurred due to students’ misbehavior, could have inflicted my motivation. Therefore, I believe that it is crucial to be aware of academic emotional experiences , especially for pre-service teachers like myself, who are unfamiliar with the new environment.