Pedagogizing and Investigating Emotion, Identity, and Agency in a Critical Practicum for Pre-Service Second Language Teachers

Second language (L2) teaching and learning to become a L2 teacher are charged with emotional work, which is inextricably connected to L2 teacher identity and agency (Kayi-Aydar, 2019). Research on the emotion labor of in-service L2 teachers (e.g., Benesch, 2018; Gkonou & Miller, 2020; Nazari & Karimpour, 2022) and L2 teacher identity research on novice teachers' learning-to-teach experiences (e.g., Song, 2020; Wolff & De Costa, 2017; Yazan & Peercy, 2016) is a testament to this reality. Despite the crucial role emotions play in L2 teacher development, it has yet to become mainstream for L2 teacher education programs to center emotions in the curriculum, let alone approaching language teacher emotions critically in relation to power and discourse (Benesch & Prior, 2023). This 18-month-long participatory action research (PAR, Brydon et al., 2011) seeks to 1) explore how L2 teacher emotion, identity, agency can be pedagogized in a pre-service practicum course from a critical perspective and 2) examine emotion labor experiences of student-teachers in relation to their professional identity and agency negotiations during their practicum. In Stage 1 of the dissertation, I conducted a transnational online collaboration with a L2 teacher educator in an English language teacher preparation program in Turkey. In line with the PAR epistemology, we re-designed the practicum course through new assignments and critical pedagogical activities that centered L2 teacher emotion, identity, and agency. In Stage 2, I participated in this course in my dual role as a co-instructor and researcher. I analyzed the data collected in Stage 2, focusing on six student-teachers' practicum course assignments and artifacts, participant observations, and interviews, to examine the sources of their emotion labor and how they respond to them, discursively in their narratives, and through intentional choices and actions in their practicum experience. The findings revealed that top-down policies, practices, and ideologies in schools were a significant source of emotion labor for student-teachers similar to the experiences of practicing L2 teachers. Additionally, given their relatively powerless positions as interns, student-teachers struggled to reconcile their teacher identities and ideologies and the assigned identities of "apprentice" and "follower" by their mentor teachers. In response to their emotion labor, student-teachers utilized their practicum course projects and teaching tasks to gain ideological clarity and exercised their individual and collective agency in a non-threatening way to enact alternative pedagogies and ideologies. These findings offer evidence that when intentionally and systematically supported by L2 teacher educators through the design of teacher learning activities, pre-service L2 teachers can develop critical reflexivity of their emotion labor and recruit this awareness for individual and collective agency even in contexts of power imbalance. They suggest important implications for practice and research in L2 teacher education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]