The Influence of English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Positive Mood and Hope on Their Academic Buoyancy: A Theoretical Review

Emotions are now considered critical elements of a successful education. In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, there are many challenges for teachers to deal with. Hence, it is necessary to take their emotions into consideration. Despite many studies in this area, researching teachers’ positive mood, hope, and academic buoyancy has been left less attended. Trying to introduce this line, the present study reviewed the definitions, related concepts, theories, and previous studies done on these three variables in detail. It also touched upon the origins of researching emotion in educational contexts describing different schools of psychology. Additionally, the study offered some practical implications for EFL teachers, students, policy-makers, teacher trainers, and researchers. Finally, it enumerated the existing gaps in this area and made a number of research suggestions for future research.

Fostering Student Engagement and Oral Practise in an Online French Course During COVID-19

Effective foreign language learning requires students to be engaged and to interact with the teacher and peer students in the target language during class. How can this be achieved effectively when the course is suddenly moved online? This chapter reports on the implementation of a Business French course in a business school in Norway using the flipped classroom method online during COVID-19. The author designed the course focusing on two key elements: fostering student engagement and creating a space for oral practise. Several measures were implemented: grammar and vocabulary lessons were moved out of class time, classes were synchronous and not recorded with activities in breakout rooms, and digital lunches were held to build a sense of community. The chapter provides an empirical case of course adaptation and draws on this experience to offer some recommendations that other foreign language teachers can use to implement an engaging course online.

The Use of LearningApps Tool in Foreign Language Teaching

Technology plays an important role in every aspect of life. It is seen that the type of technology used in language teaching is quite diverse. Thanks to the diversity and accessibility of technological tools, teachers' opportunities have increased. Teachers need some web tools to create more effective lesson designs and course materials on the internet. Many of these web tools are Web 2.0 tools that are at the service of teachers free of charge, though limited. LearningApps is one of the Web 2.0 tools. It is a website available at learningapps.com that offers teachers materials such as worksheets and interactive applications and the opportunity to share them directly with students. The aims of this chapter are to introduce the LearningApps tool to foreign language teachers and to create activities using this tool on a sample lesson plan and to contribute to the teachers in this regard.

ATTRIBUTES OF EFFECTIVE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS: INSIGHTS FROM UKRAINE

The paper set out to explore pre-and in-service foreign language teachers’ perceptions of attributes of effective teachers in Ukraine within a framework developed by the authors of the study to unravel the construct of effective language teaching. Two groups of pre-service (n=105) and in-service (n=127) teachers were recruited using a snowball sampling technique. The independent samples t-test and MANOVA statistical procedures were utilised to analyse and compare data generated from a self-report questionnaire. The findings indicated that the highest value was assigned to the performance category of teacher effectiveness, followed by the prerequisite category, including teacher competence, with the lowest value attached to the output category. A considerable degree of convergence was observed in students’ and teachers’ views on many attributes of teacher effectiveness. Both groups endorsed such attributes as clear teaching, target language proficiency, knowledge of language pedagogy, active engagement of learners, downplaying the importance of learners’ test scores. Nevertheless, a statistically significant difference was detected between the perceptions of the two groups of subjects. The students accentuated teachers’ personality and rapport domains, as well as motivating instruction. They also endorsed traditional approaches to language teaching in giving preference to form-focused instruction. Conversely, the teachers associated effective teaching with competence, careful planning and ongoing professional development. Teachers gave precedence to current methodological approaches in favouring meaning-focused instruction. A conclusion was drawn that teachers form more sophisticated cognitions of effective teaching in the process of professional maturation, thus implying the necessity for closer attention to the development of prospective teachers’ cognitions in teacher education programmes.

Innovative Trends in the System of Language Education in the XXIst Century

The article analyzes the problem associated with the quality improvement of professional training of foreign language teachers in the conditions of digitalization of Language Education. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to train competitive specialists in the field of intercultural contacts who are fluent in their profession at the level of international standards. The quality and level of foreign language training in higher education are determined by the teaching staff, who are the carriers of the ideology of updating language education. Today, the digitalization of language education has brought the foreign language training of students to a qualitatively new level, which allows not only to raise the culture of teaching foreign languages, but also to ensure the development and social adaptation of the student, and contributes to the formation of an appropriate environment for social and personal development. The quality improvement of foreign language training in higher education presupposes both the widespread use of digital teaching technologies and the mandatory consideration of the general patterns of the personality formation and individual characteristics of students, as well as the development of each student’s abilities and interests. The formation of creative thinking, flexibility, initiative and versatility, the ability to quickly respond to changes, as well as creative search in solving professional problems are especially relevant in the education and training of foreign language teachers. The article examines significant innovative trends in the system of higher education, which make it possible to train a competitive specialist who becomes the main indicator of the quality of university education.

The Effect of English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Optimism and Affectivity on Their Psychological Well-Being

Psychological well-being is considered a key component for the mental and physical health of individuals that is influenced by various attributive factors. Some of the important attributes that have a constructive and encouraging effect on the improvement and progress of good habits, positive thinking, behavior, and well-being of individuals like teachers are emotions. Educators’ emotions and emotive features have essential roles in educational circumstances as they affect nearly all facets of their occupation. Moreover, optimism as a new concept is changing from the inspection on positive psychology, social principle, and communal school possessions in education. The present review surveyed the role that affectivity and optimism have regarding the psychological well-being of EFL teachers. In brief, the implications for educators, school managers, teacher-trainers, and forthcoming researchers are provided.

Positive Emotion Regulations Among English as a Foreign Language Teachers During COVID-19

As the cores of education, teachers’ emotions have a critical place in academia. However, the power of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ positive emotions and their regulation in online mode of instruction have been ignored by scholars. With the rapid shift of education from face-to-face to remote/electronic delivery, many challenges and emotional problems emerged among teachers and learners worldwide. This entailed the necessity of considering and planning for emotional regulation to generate positive outcomes. To provide a roadmap for this line of research, the present mini-review article presented the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of emotion regulation, its origins and definitions, as well as outcomes for second/foreign language education. The study also presents some implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, and avid scholars of this area of research pinpointing the current yawning gaps.

Professional pedagogical listening competence as an indispensable component of foreign language teacher’s professional training

The article is devoted to the exploration of the characteristics of pedagogical listening being an essential part of the foreign language teachers communication activity and requiring special concern within the system of future professionals training. The study aims to make a case for the need for the pedagogical listening competence to be subjected to focused development during the foreign language teachers professional training. The first part of the article provides the definition of professional pedagogical listening and an analysis of the functions and peculiarities of teachers listening covered in the Russian and foreign scientific literature. The assumption is made that pedagogical listening has its own specifics based on the teachers subject area. The second part of the paper describes the function and peculiarities characteristic of the foreign language teachers listening. As a result, a number of features inherent to the foreign language teachers listening were highlighted. The analysis revealed that those features bring about some difficulties associated with the pedagogical listening implemented by a foreign language teacher, which requires the teacher to have special skills. The results suggest that the pedagogical listening competence requires focused development during the foreign language teachers professional training. The training process containing the components aimed at the development of that competence will provide higher quality training of future professionals and increase graduates capacity to perform their professional activities. The implementation of the task apparently calls for the development of proper scientific and methodological support, which should be considered as one of the promising lines of research on this field.

RECONSTRUCTION OF IRANIAN ENGLISH FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN ONLINE CLASSES

Because of the Covid-19 outbreak, all academic institutions all over the world swiftly shifted to reconstitute the presentation of their courses that customarily took place on campus. This study explored the kind of online professional identities that English teachers in private language institutes constructed during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Additionally, it examined possible impacts of adopting online solutions on teachers’ performance and teaching skills and their perceptions of communities of practice and their effect on their PI in online classes during this period. The study was conducted on 35 English teachers, teaching English in language institutes in Yazd, Iran. The study followed a qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted individually and also in groups, to gain access to their lived experiences of running online classes. Results revealed four main characteristics that (re)constructed and affected teachers’ PI in online classes, namely, teachers’ role, competency and self-effectiveness, appreciation and connection, and future plans. The findings also revealed that streamlined communication and communities of practice were very beneficial in (re)constructing their changing identities in online classes. Membership in communities of practice was found to be an essential action to make teachers’ teaching skills and social learning better and share common experiences. The results showed that these aspects highly influence the teachers’ reconstruction of PI in a positive way in language institutes. Keywords: communities of practice, English as a foreign language, language institute, online professional identity, qualitative approach

Identity Development of Foreign Language Teachers in Lithuania

Teacher identity is an evolving, multi-dimensional concept of a teacher’s understanding of self, best understood as a dynamic narrative of self-growth. The present study is focused on hypothesized stages of teacher identity development (Pride, Survival, Experimentation, Disenchantment, Rebellion and Progressive Proficiency) and their occurrence in Lithuanian foreign language teachers. A series of semi-structured interviews were carried out with eight Lithuanian foreign language teachers to discover their personal narratives of teacher identity development.The findings of the qualitative case study research revealed that key features of the six possible identity stages were present across the unique experiences of theforeign language teachers interviewed. However, each research participant displayed only certain key features of each identity development stage rather than a combination of all the possible features. In general, less experienced teachers displayed fewer key features at certain identity stages, implying that they had not experienced particular phases of identity development to completion. The results suggest certain features of identity development stages can be omitted and then experienced later in a teacher’s career. Teacher satisfaction with compensation, job security, professional prestige and the education system in general were additional factors that contributed uniquely to the identity development of teachers working in Lithuania.