The differences in expression of joy and anger of Vietnamese teachers and Foreign teachers in classroom. How do teachers regulate their emotions in class?

Ho Chi Minh City Open University
Graduate School
97 Vo Van Tan, Dist.3, HCMC, Vietnam

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET AND REPORT
MASTER in TESOL 16

Name of candidate: Bui Thi Hien
Student No: 1681401110019
Email address:
Name of coursework subject: Communication and Culture
Title of this item of work: The differences in expression of joy and anger of
Vietnamese teachers and Foreign teachers in classroom. How do teachers regulate
their emotions in class?

Name of lecturer: Ph.D. Le Hoang Dung
Due date: October 30th 2017

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP:
I certify that the above assignment is my original work; it is based on my own research. All
sources used by me have been documented. No other person’s work has been used without
due acknowledgement. This piece of work has not previously been submitted for assessment
in this or any other subject or course at this University or elsewhere.

Student’s Signature……………………………
Date: October 30th 2017

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Contents

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP:........................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................5
Methodology..............................................................................................................................6
Participants.............................................................................................................................6
Data collection.......................................................................................................................6
Discussion..................................................................................................................................6
How do teachers express their anger in classroom?...............................................................6
The ways teachers express joy...............................................................................................7
How do teacher’s emotions affect students learning?............................................................7
How can teachers regulate their emotions in class?...............................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Appendix 1: Questions for interviews........................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Emotion is mentioned as something involving feelings, behavioral tendencies, physiological
responses (Frijda, 2000; Izard, 2007; Russell and Barrett, 1999; Schutz et al., in press; Smith,
1991). Emotion is an integral part of “classroom life”. As Greenleaf (2002) suggested that
emotions serve as a vehicle for enhancing or inhibiting learning. The reason is that teachers’
positive emotions may contribute to create a good relationship with students, therefore
supporting students’ adjustment and performance in class, encouraging their learning process
and motivation, as well as their memory and creativity (Frederickson, 2004, 2005; Lamovec,
1991). In contrast, negative emotions of teachers may have a hindering effect on student’s
motivation, memory and creativity (Fredrickson, 2004, 2005; Lamovec, 1991). Actually, I
realize that students in my school tend to prefer learning English with foreign teachers than
Vietnamese teachers. After I observed many classes of foreign teachers and Vietnamese

teachers, I see that the way foreign teachers express their emotion in class is very different
from Vietnamese teachers. They tend to control their feeling better when facing to a problem
in classroom. They rarely show the unpleasant emotions like anxiety, anger, frustration,
disappointment, dissatisfaction, and shame clearly, so that students may feel foreign teachers
are more friendly than Vietnamese teachers. The aim of this study at Ket Doan primary
school is to analyze the differences in the way Vietnamese teachers and Foreign teachers
express their emotions in classroom, the effects of teacher’s emotions on student’s learning,
and some strategies that teachers use to regulate emotions. In this study, I just focus on
expression of joy and anger of teachers.

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Literature Review
In the study on Teacher’s emotional expression in class published in H.U. Journal of
Education in 2014 by Simona Prosen, Helena Smrtnik Vitulic, and Olga Polj, emotions are
categorized by complexity, dividing into basic and complex emotions. They mentioned that
basic emotions such as joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust and surprise are characterized by
specific brain activity patterns and facial expression (Ekman & Davidson, 1994; Plutchik,
1980). On the other hand, complex emotions appear later in development, their expression is
less typical and recognition is more difficult. Emotions may be showed through facial
expression, tone of voice, or body posture. Emotional expression is vital for the quality of
entire education process through teacher-students interaction and the classroom atmosphere
(Meyer & Turner, 2007; Shapiro, 2010; Sutton, Mudrey-Camino, & Knight, 2009). Teacher’s
emotional expression is commonly caused by student’s learning attitude and achievement or
disciplinary problems (Hosotani & ImaiMatsumura, 2011; Prosen, Smrtnik Vitulić, & Poljšak
Škraban, 201 3; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). The data of this study showed that teachers often
express unpleasant emotions like anger, sadness, disappointment, or shame more often than
pleasant emotions. And anger is reported most frequently of all pleasant and unpleasant
emotions. Besides, this study also recommended that teacher should to regulate emotions in

constructive way to encourage student’s development and learning. In 2009, Frenzel, Götz,
Stephens, and Jacob described that teacher’s emotions are impacted by student’s behavior,
simultaneously, these emotions also effect on student’s emotion and perceptions, motivation,
learning, academic performance, and social behavior as well. In particular, emotions of
teachers were contagious to the student in determining therefore their conduct (Becker et al,
2014). Teacher’s emotions affect the manner in which the teachers categorize the students,
thus having repercussions of great relevance in the way in which the student perceives
himself and his subsequent conduct. This occurs especially with the emotion of joy, followed
by anger and then anxiety to the lesser degree (Débora Rodrigo-Ruiz, 2016). Besides,
spontaneous positive emotional expression in the classroom can provokes a greater interest in
the subject matter and makes the student more participatory (Kimura, 2010). In other word,
teacher is an important motivational generator among students because the communication of
enthusiasm, enjoyment, and humor may influence students' goal orientation. Learning and
academic performance is one of the aspects that are affected by teacher’s emotions. Beilock
et al (2010) mentioned that teacher anxiety plays a vital role in the reduction of student’s
performance, in contrast, teacher enthusiasm makes for more effective instruction and
produces better student result. Moreover, many evidences show that positive teacher
emotions produce a more satisfactory discipline in the classroom. Nevertheless, in the case of
students who are lack of discipline, negative emotions, principally anger, may be a tool to
achieve good classroom discipline and foment an atmosphere in which students focus on the
lesson. Teacher’s emotions also influence on student social behavior. The students who
perceive their teachers for the most part as projecting positive emotions are less involved in
offensive actions and avoid risk behavior (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). In the other hand, those
students whose teachers expressed a larger amount of negative emotions report fewer positive
social behaviors. Because teacher’s emotional expression affects many on student’s
development in both positive and negative sides, teachers need to adapt their emotions
effectively to achieve the best result in teaching process. Gross (2002) defined the emotion
regulation as the ability to control the experience and expression of emotions. During
teaching process, teacher often face situation that may make them angry, frustrated, and sad,
so that the need to find appropriate ways of regulation these emotions in the classroom. In the

study on Teaching teachers about Emotional Regulation in the Classroom published in
Australia Journal of Teacher Education in 2011, Leanne Fried attempted to develop teacher’s
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understanding of emotion regulation in the classroom, and suggested some strategies to
regulate emotion in classroom as well. Emotion regulation strategies have been classified
according to not only to the target of the strategy and psychological function but also to
where they occur on the response time-line (Koole, 2009; Gross, 2001). There are many
strategies that teachers may use to regulate emotion; for example, the strategies of focusing
on breathing that targets body manifestations of emotion. The other strategies are thinking
about other thing or deliberately distracting someone.
Methodology
Participants
The participants are four English teachers at Ket Doan Primary school, concluding two
Vietnamese teachers and two Foreign teachers. Two foreign teachers come from American
and Australia. They came to Vietnam to teach English for children for from 2 to 3 years. One
Vietnamese teacher has 33 years experiences in teaching English in primary school. She
started her teaching career at Ket Doan primary school when English language instruction
was in the initial stage of implementation in primary education. Up to now, she has many
experiences in teaching expertise and classroom management as well. The other Vietnamese
teacher has 6 years experiences working as English teacher for young learners. She taught
English at language center for 2 years before started working at Ket Doan Primary school.
Table 1: The information of participants
Mr. Liam
Mr. Will
Nationality
America
Autralia
Teaching

3 years
2 years
experience

Ms. Phuong
Vietnam
33 years

Ms. Thuan
Vietnam
6 years

Data collection
The data of this study were collected from narrative interview. The interviews conducted
were semi-structured with guiding questions and prompts developed beforehand. During the
interviews, the participants were encouraged to talk about their teaching practice including
the difficulty that they meet in classroom, and the way they express their joy and anger in
classroom. They are also asked about the way they use to regulate emotions.
Discussion
How do teachers express their anger in classroom?
All four teachers said that they find difficulty in managing classroom. It is very difficult to
keep children at their seat silently. Some of them do not concentrate on the lesson and do
some irrelevant things like playing toys or joking with the others sit around them. In this case,
teachers often feel angry and have to do something to stop them. But the way the teachers
express their anger is various. Two foreign teachers said that they sometimes just ignore and
keep on the lesson, sometimes they stop talking and look at the students who make the noise
or they may raise their voice to get student’s attention. In contrast, Vietnamese teachers often
show their anger in different way. They may shout loudly to stop students talking or express
their anger to force students to participate in the lesson. They may also give students some
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punishments, for example, confiscating their toys, giving some physical punishments that
mean students may have to stand up with the hands in the air or on their head. Teachers may
ask students to leave the seat to the corner of classroom or get out of classroom, or even give
a ruler strike across the palms. In this situation, students often feel that the teachers are very
strict and they are scare. In general, foreign teacher control their anger better and they rarely
show this emotion on the face while Vietnamese teachers do.
The ways teachers express joy.
Students love teachers because they are friendly, humorous and kind. Actually, foreign
teachers can perform better their humor and friendliness. When I observe their class, I see
that they often smile and express their excitement when students perform well or do
something interesting. They do not feel shy when laughing out loud. Foreign teachers said
that they always ready to express their joy to motivate students. They often say “good”,
“excellent”, “perfect” or some others encouraged words in class. Obviously, students feel
very happy and participate in class more actively. In this case, Vietnamese teachers also do
well when express the emotion joy. Two Vietnamese teachers said that they often praise their
students for good behavior or performance. They sometimes make joke with students and
laugh with their students. They also often show their joy in class but not be comfortable as
Foreign teachers.
How do teacher’s emotions affect students learning?
Teacher’s emotions play an important role in creating classroom atmosphere. If teachers
express the positive emotions, the atmosphere will be more relax and comfortable. Because
foreign teachers can control their emotion well and always show positive emotions in
classroom, students are very exciting in their class. Students can freely express themselves
without any blame. They always are encouraged to share their opinions. It is very useful to
create an active learning habit for students. Students also have more motivation to learn
English, simply, just because they love teachers or they feel happy when learning English.
Mr. Liam joked that sometimes he can image to become a famous person because students
call his name, wave to, or huge him whenever meet him. He feels very happy about it. It is

clear that teacher-student relationship is closed, or teacher can interact well with students. In
other word, we can affirm that teachers' positive emotions produce positive effects on their
students. Whereas Vietnamese teachers seem to be stricter, students may be under stress, thus
not willing to say and share ideas. It may hinder language learning process. When teachers
express the anger, students will be scare and ensconced themselves. Ms Phuong admitted she
has ever heard that some students complain their teachers are very strict, so they do not dare
to ask when they do not understand something. This is a reason of the reduction of student’s
performance. On the other hand, there is a limitation when teachers always show the positive
emotion in class. The classroom may be in a low discipline because students have too much
freedom in class, especially in classes of young learners. They cannot adjust their behavior
without teacher’s suppression. We can often see this situation in English classes of foreign
teachers. Mr. Will said that he taught English for grade 1 and his students often make the
noise or lack of concentration on his lesson. Some of students do not listen to him, even play
toys or run around classroom. Sometimes, the class is over of his control and he feels very
angry and frustrated. If he does not publicly express his anger, students will not care of him.
In this situation, Vietnamese teachers seem to control better. Ms Thuan shared that if her class
was too noisy and her students did not focus on the lesson, she immediately express that she
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is unhappy and angry, then asking students to stop talking and pay attention or giving them
some punishments. Of course, her students will be nice and concentrate on the lesson, but just
in a short time.
How can teachers regulate their emotions in class?
Teacher’s emotional expression plays a vital role in learning process and harmonizing
classroom atmosphere. Hence, it is very important for teachers to regulate their emotional
expression to enhance student’s behavior and performance. Mr Liam said that when he was
angry, he often be silent in one minute and take a deep breath in order to calm down.
Sometimes, he just ignores the misbehavior students and focus on some good students. He
thinks that if he stops talking and huffs with all students, it will be unfair to some good

students. Ms Thuan also admits that the thinking about school rules is also useful to restrict
teachers from over of control emotions because the rules do not allowed teachers to huff with
students. One more way that Ms Phuong uses is that teachers should stop teaching at that
time and ask students to do something else like sing a song with her or do some bodily
movements. By that way, her students will stop neglecting learning and she also can relax
herself.
Conclusion
There are some differences in the way foreign teachers and Vietnamese teachers express their
emotions, particularly joy and anger. These differences may be caused by the differences in
culture and the habit of experience and express emotion. The differences in teacher’s
emotional expression create the differences in classroom atmosphere and student’s learning
outcome. Many evidences show that teacher’s emotional expression impact on many aspects
of students such as behavior or performance, thus influencing on learning outcome. So it is
important for teachers to understand the effects of emotions on student’s behavior and
performance, then having appropriate ways to regulate their emotions.

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Appendix 1: Questions for interviews
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Where are you from?
How long have you taught English for young learners?
Which difficulties do you face when you teach English at primary school?
Have you ever lost control in your classroom?

Do you choose to publicly express your joy and anger to students or suppress your
emotions in classroom?
6. How do you express your joy and anger in class?
7. Do you think teacher’s emotions have the effects on student’s behavior and
performance? How?
8. How do you regulate your emotions in the classroom?

References
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