Bridging Teacher Emotion Regulation and Learner Affective Strategies in Language Education

Speaker: Assoc. Professor Christina Gkonou, University of Essex, UK
Series: Multilingualism and Languages Education (MuLtiE)

Over the past decade, research on emotions in language education has expanded significantly, particularly in relation to language teachers’ emotional experiences, emotional labour, and emotion regulation. Studies drawing on psychological models of emotion regulation have provided valuable insights into how teachers manage emotional demands, navigate classroom relationships, and sustain professional wellbeing (e.g., Gkonou & Miller, 2023, forthcoming; Morris, 2025). In contrast, the study of language learning affective strategies – once a central component of language learning strategy research – has received comparatively limited scholarly attention in recent years. Since the early work on affective strategies in language learning (e.g., Oxford), research engagement with how learners regulate their emotions in language learning contexts has remained relatively fragmented. As a result, the conceptualisation of affective strategies has not fully kept pace with contemporary developments in emotion research, leaving important questions about how learners regulate their emotions during language learning insufficiently explored. In this talk, I argue that recent advances in language teacher emotion regulation research offer a productive framework for revisiting and advancing the study of language learning affective strategies. Drawing on insights from teacher emotion research and psychological models of emotion regulation, I explore how constructs such as cognitive reappraisal, emotional self-awareness, and interpersonal emotion regulation can inform a renewed understanding of how language learners manage emotions such as anxiety, frustration, or enjoyment during the learning process. Research on teacher emotion regulation highlights the dynamic, socially situated, and relational nature of emotional processes in complex classroom environments. By bringing this body of research into dialogue with earlier work on language learning strategies, I propose a reconceptualisation of affective strategies as situated emotion regulation practices through which learners manage the affective demands and realities of language learning. This perspective moves beyond earlier individualistic conceptualisations of affective strategies and emphasises their relational and contextual nature. I conclude by outlining directions for a renewed research agenda that integrates emotion regulation theory with the study of language learning strategies, thereby revitalising a neglected yet important area of inquiry within language education.