Emotions of Language Teachers unpacked by Professor Andy Gao
Increasing scholarly interest in the emotions of language teachers has prompted Professor Andy Gao to conduct a systematic review of the area. In a Graduate School seminar on November 18, Prof Gao from the University of New South Wales, Australia, discussed the growing body of research.
The seminar, The Emotions of Language Teachers: A Systematic Review, focused on four themes: emotional experience, emotional labour, emotion regulation, and emerging emotion-related concepts.
Prof Gao critically discussed these themes and drew on research findings spanning from 2015 to 2024, to visualise the results in an emotion-focused map of language teachers’ professional development.
The seminar concluded by proposing a research agenda to stimulate further inquiry into the emotions of language teachers. (Maybe add something from the conclusion here)
Professor Gao Xuesong (Andy) is a language teacher educator at the School of Education, University of New South Wales, Australia. Prof Gao’s research interests include language learner autonomy/agency, language education policy and language teacher education. He edits the International Journal of Applied Linguistics. He is also an executive editor for Teaching and Teacher Education.

