Motivated to regulate: The instrumental emotion regulation of novice Chinese EFL teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol11iss2pp16-36Abstract
Background and Purpose: Teacher emotion regulation (ER) shapes instructional quality, teacher well-being, and classroom relationships. However, few studies examine instrumental ER motives—why teachers regulate emotions to achieve pedagogical, social, or identity goals. This gap is notable for novice teachers in Chinese secondary schools. This study therefore explores how novice Chinese EFL teachers interpret emotional experiences and why they adopt particular ER strategies. Its broader purpose is to show how instrumental motives guide emotional decision-making in real classroom contexts.
Methodology: We conducted online semi-structured Mandarin interviews with six novice Chinese EFL teachers recruited through convenience sampling. Each interview lasted 30–40 minutes. We recorded, transcribed, and coded all data. Thematic analysis informed by Gross's process model and Tamir's motive taxonomy helped identify motives, strategy patterns, and influencing factors. Member checking and peer review enhanced credibility.
Findings: Three instrumental motives emerged: performance motives to maintain lesson flow and classroom order; social motives to build trust and repair conflicts; and epistemic motives to project a stable professional identity. Teachers used situation modification, cognitive change, attentional deployment, and response modulation. The interplay between these factors suggests a situated regulatory ecology, where the intensity of student behavior dictates the strategy, but the availability of social support determines the sustainability of the teacher's emotional labor. Personal well-being and identity concerns shaped why they pursued specific ER goals.
Contributions: These findings illuminate how instrumental motives shape ER strategies in the Chinese novice EFL context. The findings can inform teacher education programmes seeking to develop proactive ER skills.
Keywords: Instrumental emotion regulation motive, teacher's emotion regulation strategies, teacher emotion, novice EFL teacher, Chinese secondary schools.
Cite as: Wu, C., Ao, Y., & Liu, M. (2026). Motivated to regulate: The instrumental emotion regulation of novice Chinese EFL teachers. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 11(2), 16-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol11iss2pp16-36
References
Aspinwall, L. G., & Taylor, S. E. (1997). A stitch in time: Self-regulation and proactive coping. Psychological Bulletin, 121(3), 417–436. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.417
Benesch, S. (2020). Emotions and activism: English language teachers' emotion labor as responses to institutional power. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 17(1), 26–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2020.1716194
Bielak, J., & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, A. (2022). Language teachers' interpersonal learner-directed emotion-regulation strategies. Language Teaching Research, 26(6), 1082–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820912352
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Derakhshan, A., Wang, Y., Wang, Y., & Ortega Martín, J. L. (2023). Towards innovative research approaches to investigating the role of emotional variables in promoting language teachers' and learners' mental health. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, 25(7), 823-832. https://doi.org/10.32604/ijmhp.2023.02987
Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Alkassim, R. S. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books.
Gkonou, C., & Miller, E. R. (2019). Caring and emotional labour: Language teachers' engagement with anxious learners in private language school classrooms. Language Teaching Research, 23(3), 372–387. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168817728739
Graham, E. J. (2018). Authority or Democracy? Integrating two perspectives on equitable classroom management in urban schools. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 50(3), 493–515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-017-0443-8
Greenier, V., Derakhshan, A., & Fathi, J. (2021). Emotion regulation and psychological well-being in teacher work engagement: A case of British and Iranian English language teachers. System, 97(2), Article 102446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102446
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
Gross, J. J. (2014). Emotion regulation: Conceptual and empirical foundations. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd ed., pp. 3–20). The Guilford Press.
Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.940781
Gross, J. J., Richards, J. M., & John, O. P. (2006). Emotion regulation in everyday life. In D. K. Snyder, J. Simpson, & J. N. Hughes (Eds.), Emotion regulation in couples and families: Pathways to dysfunction and health (pp. 13–35). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11468-001
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903
Han, J., Zhuang, H., Yin, H., & Cai, Y. (2024). Bifurcating and balancing: Language teachers' emotion regulation motives and professional identity construction in cross-cultural contexts. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 35(4), 1699-1714. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12604
Heydarnejad, T., Zareian, G., Ghaniabadi, S., & Adel, S. M. R. (2021). Measuring language teacher emotion regulation: Development and validation of the Language Teacher Emotion Regulation Inventory (LTERI) at workplace. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(1), Article 708888. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.708888
Hilger, K. J. E., Scheibe, S., Frenzel, A. C., Grund, S., & Keller, M. M. (2025). Exploring paths of change: Analyzing teachers’ emotion regulation repertoire over time using multi-level latent profile analysis. Learning and Instruction, 101(1), Article 102234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102234
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press.
King, J. (2016). "It's time, put on the smile, it's time!": The emotional labour of second language teaching within a Japanese university. In C. Gkonou, D. Tatzl, & S. Mercer (Eds), New directions in language learning psychology (pp. 97-112). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23491-5_7
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Sage.
Littleton, A. (2021). Emotion regulation strategies of kindergarten ESL teachers in Japan: An interview-based survey. The Language Learning Journal, 49(2), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2018.1542020
Liu, S., Yuan, R., & Wang, C. (2025). ‘Let emotion ring': An autoethnographic self-study of an EFL instructor in Wuhan during COVID-19. Language Teaching Research, 29(1), 221–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688211053498
Loh, C. E., & Liew, W. M. (2016). Voices from the ground: The emotional labour of English teachers' work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55(1), 267–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.016
Malterud, K., Siersma, V. D., & Guassora, A. D. (2016). Sample size in qualitative interview studies: Guided by information power. Qualitative Health Research, 26(13), 1753–1760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617444
Meihami, H., & Esmaili, S. (2024). TAFL and TEFL teachers' emotional vulnerability and emotion regulation strategies in online classes. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 33(4), 913–929. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00804-3
Meşe, E., & Mede, E. (2024). The emotion regulation antecedents of tertiary EFL instructors and their use of reappraisal and suppression. Teaching and Teacher Education, 150(1), Article 104732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2024.104732
Morris, S., & King, J. (2018). Teacher frustration and emotion regulation in university language teaching. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 41(4), 433–452. https://doi.org/10.1515/cjal-2018-0032
Morris, S., & King, J. (2020). Emotion regulation among university EFL teachers in Japan: The dynamic interplay between context and emotional behaviour. In C. Gkonou, J. Dewaele & J. King (Eds.), The emotional rollercoaster of language teaching (pp. 193-210). Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781788928342-015
Morris, S., & King, J. (2023). University language teachers' contextually dependent uses of instrumental emotion regulation. System, 116(1), Article 103080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2023.103080
Nazari, M., & Karimpour, S. (2023). Emotions, perspectives, and English language teacher identity construction: A phenomenographic‐narrative study. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 33(2), 150–168. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12455
Pappa, S., & Hökkä, P. (2021). Emotion regulation and identity negotiation: A short story analysis of Finnish language teachers' emotional experiences teaching pupils of immigrant background. The Teacher Educator, 56(1), 61–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/08878730.2020.1785069
Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (4th ed.). Sage.
Phan, A. N. Q., & Pham, L. T. T. (2023). Online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: Vietnamese language teachers' emotions, regulation strategies and institutional policy and management. Policy Futures in Education, 21(4), 405–422. https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103231178644
Qu, J., & Wang, Y. (2024). Modelling the interaction between EFL teachers' personality traits, emotion regulation strategies, and teachers' depression: A structural equation approach. European Journal of Education, 59(4), e12727. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12727
Quoidbach, J., Berry, E. V., Hansenne, M., & Mikolajczak, M. (2010). Positive emotion regulation and well-being: Comparing the impact of eight savoring and dampening strategies. Personality and Individual Differences, 49(5), 368–373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.03.048
Shen, G. (2022). Anxiety, boredom, and burnout among EFL teachers: The mediating role of emotion regulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 13(1), Article 842920. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.842920
Su, X., & Lee, I. (2024). Emotion regulation of EFL teachers in blended classroom assessment. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 33(3), 649–658. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00761-x
Suri, G., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.
Sutton, R. E., & Harper, E. (2009). Teachers’ emotion regulation. In L. J. Saha, & A. G. Dworkin (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers and teaching (pp. 389-401). Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73317-3_25
Scherer, K. R. (2001). Emotion, the psychological structure of emotions. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 4472-4477). Elsevier Science Ltd.
Tajabadi, H., & Meihami, H. (2024). "The More, the Merrier; the More Ideas, the Better Feeling ": Examining the role of creativity in regulating emotions among EFL teachers. Open Education Studies, 6(1), Article 20240007. https://doi.org/10.1515/edu-2024-0007
Talbot, K., & Mercer, S. (2018). Exploring university ESL/EFL teachers' emotional well-being and emotional regulation in the United States, Japan and Austria. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 41(4), 410–432. https://doi.org/10.1515/cjal-2018-0031
Tamir, M. (2016). Why do people regulate their emotions? A taxonomy of motives in emotion regulation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20(3), 199–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868315586325
Tamir, M., Vishkin, A., & Gutentag, T. (2020). Emotion regulation is motivated. Emotion, 20(1), 115-119. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000635
Taxer, J. L., & Gross, J. J. (2018). Emotion regulation in teachers: The "why" and "how." Teaching and Teacher Education, 74(1), 180–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.05.008
Thumvichit, A. (2023). Understanding emotion-regulation strategies among foreign language teachers in response to classroom stressors: Findings from a Q methodology study. Social Psychology of Education, 26(6), 1593–1620. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-023-09809-8
Wang, N. (2022). EFL teachers' mindfulness and emotion regulation in language context. Frontiers in Psychology, 13(1), Article 877108. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877108
Wangdi, T., & Rigdel, K. S. (2025). English teachers' emotions and regulation strategies in response to students' disruptive behaviour. Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development, 27(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v27n1.114147
Wu, H., Wang, Y., & Wang, Y. (2023). What do we know about L2 teachers' emotion regulation? A bibliometric analysis of the pertinent literature. Forum for Linguistic Studies (Transferred), 5(3), 2012–2012. https://doi.org/10.59400/fls.v5i3.2012
Xu, C., Huizinga, M., De Luca, G., Pollé, S., Liang, R., Sankalaite, S., Roorda, D. L., & Baeyens, D. (2023). Cultural universality and specificity of teacher-student relationship: A qualitative study in Belgian, Chinese, and Italian primary school teachers. Frontiers in Psychology, 14(1), Article 1287511. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287511
Yang, S., Shu, D., & Yin, H. (2021). ‘Frustration drives me to grow’: Unraveling EFL teachers' emotional trajectory interacting with identity development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 105(1), Article 103420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103420
Yin, H. (2016). Knife-like mouth and tofu-like heart: Emotion regulation by Chinese teachers in classroom teaching. Social Psychology of Education, 19(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-015-9319-5
Zhao, H. (2021). Positive emotion regulations among English as a foreign language teachers during COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(1), Article 807541. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.807541
Zhi, R., & Derakhshan, A. (2024). Modelling the interplay between resilience, emotion regulation and psychological well‐being among Chinese English language teachers: The mediating role of self‐efficacy beliefs. European Journal of Education, 59(3), e12643. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12643
