Vietnamese Pre-Service EFL Teachers’ Emotional Experiences in a Teaching Practicum: A Case Study in The Mekong Delta

Abstract

Emotions significantly impact teachers’ professional experiences, pedagogical decisions, and overall well-being. In Vietnam, while research on teacher emotions and emotional regulation has grown in recent years, little attention has been paid to the emotional experiences of pre-service EFL teachers in their professional practices. This qualitative case study bridges this gap by exploring this teacher population’s emotional experiences during a teaching practicum in the Mekong Delta region. Moreover, it aims to shed light on their professional strategies to regulate their negative emotions. Data is qualitatively collected from semi-structured interviews with ten pre-service EFL teachers and analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings indicated that participants typically experienced a variety of positive and negative emotions during the practicum, owing to the contextual influences. Subsequently, to regulate these negative emotions, participants implemented a range of professional response-focused and antecedent-focused strategies. Pedagogically, this research signifies the importance of teacher education programs in providing pre-service EFL teachers with appropriate emotional regulation competencies. Furthermore, it generates the necessity of developing emotional resilience to promote their teaching self-efficacy and professional identity construction and negotiation. Methodologically, some recommendations are proposed to future studies to enrich the findings of this research.