Chronicling emotional trajectories in early-career language teaching: A longitudinal intensive single-case Q methodology study

Abstract

This study adopts Q methodology with an intensive single-case design to document emotional states of three early-career (EC) Language Other Than English (LOTE) teachers in Thai secondary schools. The participants, including a Chinese teacher, a French teacher, and a Japanese teacher, performed a card-ranking task multiple times throughout a semester to report their experienced emotions at the time of each session. The findings suggest that EC teachers navigated their emotions through expectations, the status of LOTE education, and passion for teaching, influenced by their subjective appraisals of classroom and course events, particularly in relation to student relationships and progress. It is recommended that language teacher education adopt a progressive, career-stage approach to integrating the psychology of language teachers, introducing foundational components of positive psychology at the preservice stage and extending these through reflective practice, mentoring, and emotion regulation strategies.