Emotion Labor as a Catalyst for Language Teacher Identity Renewal and Well-Being: An Autoethnography

Authors

Yasser Aminifard, Islamic Azad University, Dehdasht, IranFollow

Abstract

In this autoethnographic study, I explore how my temporary engagement in emotion labor, triggered by teaching and assessment demands imposed by my university, prompted a renewal of my teaching style and enhanced my well-being. Personal journals supplemented by semi-structured interviews with the university’s vice-chancellor, whose expectations precipitated this emotion labor, served as the primary data sources. Drawing on Engeström’s (2015) activity theory, I analyze the contradictions within my university’s activity system that gave rise to my emotion labor, understood here as the management of the negative emotions and tensions arising from discrepancies between teachers’ professional beliefs and workplace demands (Benesch, 2020b). Additionally, using Darvin and Norton’s (2015) investment model, I show how my accumulated capitals, professional investments, together with the emerging affordances, such as Iran’s heavy defeat to England in the Qatar World Cup, enabled me not only to navigate the emotion labor but also to reconstruct my Language Teacher Identity (LTI) in ways that strengthened my well-being.

Keywords

emotion labor, activity theory, investment model, teacher agency, language teacher identity, teacher well-being, autoethnography

Author Bio(s)

Yasser Aminifard is an assistant professor of TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Dehdasht branch, Iran, where he teaches general English and ESP courses. His main areas of interest include narrative inquiry, emotion labor, teacher agency, language teacher identity, and teacher well-being. Please direct correspondence to yasser.aminy@gmail.com

Publication Date

9-27-2025

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2025.7393

Recommended APA Citation

Aminifard, Y. (2025). Emotion labor as a catalyst for language teacher identity renewal and well-being: An autoethnography. The Qualitative Report, 30(9), 4305-4319. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2025.7393