Rural EFL Teachers’ Emotions and Agency in Online Language Teaching: I Will Survive

Abstract

This article explores rural English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ emotions and agency in online language teaching. Based on Hargreaves’s emotional geography framework, teachers’ emotions and teacher agency are both captured through teachers’ narration about their feelings, salient challenges that they encountered, and their coping strategies. Research data were collected using semi-structured interviews with two English teachers working in rural upper secondary schools in Nunukan, Indonesia. The collected data were analyzed with an inductive approach. The findings portray how rural EFL teachers experience various emotions which are mainly caused by physical and sociocultural distance, how agency helps these teachers with abilities to reflect on their feelings and to take crucial actions, and to what extend the need for immediate professional development programs to develop online teaching skills is.

Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences in Handling Reticent Students During Teaching Practicum: Challenges and Strategies

“…The data analysis procedures for the recorded information involved a three-step process. First, the collected data were transcribed in Indonesia and then translated into English, following specific translation rules adapted from Sari (2021). These rules encompassed: (a) excluding any information irrelevant to the research questions, (b) incorporating key points deemed significant in terms of content, (c) abstaining from incorporating personal opinions or judgments, and (d) striving to retain the participants' original statements as closely as possible.…”

An Exploratory Study of a Korean EFL Teacher’s Identity Shift during the Pandemic

“…Due to the global health crisis, language teachers were initially confronted with significant administrative, technical, pedagogical, and even affective difficulties; however, they often adapted to these new circumstances -becoming more confident and flexible in teaching on online platforms-as they proceeded through their courses (e.g., Farrell, 2021;Ghanbari & Nowroozi, 2021;Sari, 2021). For instance, Farrell"s (2021) study demonstrated how four EFL novice teachers in Costa Rica overcame their emotional challenges through self-reflection and participatory classroom observations.…”

Teaching strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic : experiences, challenges and opportunities of foundation phase teachers.

“…Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021) found that rural communities expected learners to assist their families with chores and sourcing income for the household while they were not attending school which hampered their ability to participate in online learning. In the same vein, a study by Sari (2021) found that parental involvement from rural parents was minimal which impeded learners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers have a duty to educate learners and, in doing so, sometimes teachers tend to give too much of themselves to try to accommodate learners or they create a sociocultural distance between themselves and their learners in order not to become too involved and burnt out (Hargreaves, 2001).…”

“…Caroline on the other hand felt overwhelmed by the changes she experienced with the shift to online teaching. Teachers experienced panic, confusion, frustration and burnout during the shift from face-to-face teaching to online teaching, but once they became more familiar with this mode of teaching, they also became more confident and competent (Sari, 2021). Teachers are often resilient and deal with the changes required to benefit the learners.…”

“…(2021) found in her study that, although teachers may have felt confused and unsupported at times, they were resilient and navigated through the challenges they faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, teachers' technological skills were improved which lead to teachers being more confident and competent (Sari, 2021).…”