Exploring EFL Teachers’ Emotions and the Impact on Their Sustainable Professional Development in Livestream Teaching: A Chinese Case Study

Abstract

Due to the impact of COVID-19, most Chinese universities have launched livestream teaching. Faced with this significant change of teaching mode, teachers experienced different emotions, including predominant negative emotions such as anxiety, stress, and anger, alongside a few positive emotions like satisfaction, love, and happiness. With the rising attention on teacher emotion research, this study explores the emotional experiences of five Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in livestream teaching. Drawing from data collected via interviews and case documents, it examines the causes of these teachers’ emotions and the impact thereof on their sustainable professional development. The findings suggest that teacher emotions were produced through the interaction between teachers’ goals and the environment, which included students’ performance, features of livestream teaching, and the institutional livestream teaching requirements. The impacts of teacher emotions on their sustainable professional development were identified: deepening teachers’ understanding of online teaching, shaping teacher identities, and motivating teachers to take action. Implications regarding developing teachers’ coping strategies for various emotions and sustaining their professional development in online teaching are also included.

1. Introduction

The past three decades have witnessed an increasing interest in teacher emotion research, especially in language teacher education [1,2,3,4]. As many researchers argue that teaching is an emotional practice [5], it is clear that the changing instruction mode has the potential to evoke teacher emotions. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic had made the abrupt shift from traditional face-to-face teaching to livestream teaching, the primary teaching method in China in particular [6]. Accordingly, the abrupt alteration of the teaching mode led to a range of emotions in teachers dominated by negative emotions, such as stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, and loneliness [6,7,8]. For EFL teachers, they may possibly face discipline-specific challenges since English teaching is usually facilitated by communicative language activities, which might be achieved differently in livestream teaching [9,10]. To facilitate and achieve interaction during livestream language courses, EFL teachers are required to devote more cognitive and emotional engagement to instruction [11,12]. Consequently, they might experience more emotions in this changing context. However, less is known about what sources in the livestream teaching context could cause EFL teacher emotions, which is of utter importance to push the field forward from simply describing what emotional experiences existed to explaining deeply why specific emotions emerged.

The role of teacher emotion in sustaining teachers’ professional development has been increasingly gaining prominence [13]. Teachers’ professional development, based on Guskey’s [14] definition, refers to the ongoing changes that affect teachers’ teaching practices, attitudes and beliefs, and pedagogical knowledge and skills. Livestream teaching, as stressed by Heath and Heath [15], has transformed traditional teaching models not merely technically but emotionally. More importantly, the emotional engagement brought the potential for sustainable changes in education. Notably, changes are sustainable when they last over time before an instructional transition is fully implemented [16]. Likewise, teachers’ emotional engagement in online teaching may also have a transformative impact on teachers’ sustainable professional development. However, less is known about how teacher emotions could influence their sustainable professional development in livestream teaching.

Given that teacher emotions are culturally specific [17,18], Chinese EFL teachers’ emotions in the livestream teaching context could exemplify the complexity of emotions experienced by language teachers in the specific pandemic situation. A study of the Chinese case would contribute to our understanding of teacher emotion in different sociocultural contexts and expand the knowledge landscape on the role of teacher emotions in teachers’ sustainable professional development.

This study, adopting the qualitative case study method, aims to explore five Chinese university EFL teachers’ emotional experiences in pandemic-prompted livestream teaching. More importantly, the causes of teacher emotions during livestream teaching, and the impacts of emotions on their sustainable professional development will be unraveled in this study. This study can contribute new insights into the ongoing inquiry into teacher emotions in a pandemic-specific context, and inform both university EFL teachers, university administrators, and policymakers of the causes of teacher emotions in livestream teaching and the agentic powers that teacher emotions possess in sustaining their professional development. Findings from this study can also provide stakeholders with implications in refining livestream teaching to cater to teachers of different emotional experiences.

For the purposes of analysis and interpretation of data, this study aims to address the following two research questions:

RQ1. What is the range of emotions that EFL teachers feel during livestream teaching, and what are the causes of those emotions?

RQ2. How do EFL teachers’ emotions brought about from livestream teaching impact their professional development?

In addition to the introduction of the study in this section, we review key concepts and the previous empirical research related to this study in Section 2. Section 3 depicts the methodology of the study, involving the setting, participants, and data collection and analysis. Section 4 presents the two major findings. Following that, we deploy an in-depth interpretation and discussion of our findings in Section 5. Lastly, the limitations and corresponding implications of the current study, and room for future research, are shown at the end of this paper.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Person-Environment Interactionist Approach to Teacher Emotion

Teachers can experience different types of emotions, mainly positive emotions, such as happiness, excitement, satisfaction, pride, and negative emotions, such as sadness, disappointment, anger, anxiety, burnout, and fear [17]. However, the definition of teacher emotion has undergone a transformation from solely drawing on theories from psychology to combining various approaches from social constructivism and poststructuralism [19,20]. From the psychological approach, teacher emotions have been mainly regarded as teachers’ subjective feelings, or more specifically, a private psychological state [21]. This approach focused merely on teachers’ individual emotional experiences, thus being criticized for its ignorance of the interconnection with the external environment [22]. From the social constructionist approach, teacher emotions are determined not primarily by personal traits but by relationships and social contexts [5]. From the interactionist or poststructuralist approach, emotions are embodied and performative [23,24], highlighting the influence of power relations in shaping emotions and the agency of emotions by resisting power relations [25]. This study would define teacher emotion from the interactionist approach and regard teacher emotions as “socially constructed, personally enacted ways of being that emerge from conscious and/or unconscious judgments perceiving perceived successes at attaining goals or maintaining standards or beliefs during transactions as part of social-historical contexts” [26] (p. 344). This interactionist approach to defining teacher emotion rests on the assumption that emotional experiences involve person-environmental transactions, including both “internal” personal characteristics, for example, goal setting, and “external” environment factors, like power relations, and institutional requirements in the specific social-historical contexts. Teachers’ goals tend to serve as reference points by which teachers make ‘appraisals’ of where they are with reference to where they hope to be (e.g., belief, identity) [27,28,29,30]. Specific emotions emerge when teachers make ‘appraisals’ related to whether their own goals are congruent with the external situation (i.e., is the situation progressing as the teacher would like it to?) [31,32]. Therefore, a situation that has been appraised as goal congruent may result in positive emotions (i.e., ‘students get engaged in my class’). On the contrary, a situation that has been appraised as goal incongruent may lead to negative emotions (i.e., ‘I did not receive enough institutional support’). Consequently, this interactionalist approach has provided a more holistic view of understanding the causes of EFL teachers’ emotions in the livestream teaching context, including the ‘internal’ personal and ‘external’ environmental causes.

2.2. Teacher Emotion in the Online Teaching Context

Teacher emotions have been mainly investigated in offline teaching contexts, but in recent years technology-enhanced teaching has received scholarly attention [33,34,35], with its increasing popularity in the globalized educational context. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, online or remote teaching as a new technological teaching mode rapidly substituted face-to-face teaching in many parts of the world. As Heath and Heath [15] pointed out that the transition of the instruction mode was not simply a technical process, but one that required significant emotional engagement, without which changes would not be sustainable. Therefore, emerging studies have focused on teachers’ emotions during pandemic-induced online teaching. According to MacIntyre, Gregersen, and Mercer [8], both educators and students were unfamiliar with long-lasting remote education, they naturally felt various emotions. Teachers, in particular, were found prone to experience certain emotions when giving instructions online. Moreover, most of the research (see [6,7,8]) that has been done focused on teachers’ emotional experience in online teaching, as showcased in Gkonou’s [7] study that teachers experienced some negative feelings such as disappointment, stress, and hardship, alongside some positive emotions, including satisfaction, love, happiness, and empowerment for students’ outstanding performance when taking online classes. However, so far, studies concerning how these emotions emerged, remain limited, which can help teachers better understand their emotions and develop coping strategies accordingly.

Of the limited studies regarding the causes of teacher emotions in the online teaching context, Frenzel et al. [36] indicated that both person and situation contributed to the formation of teacher emotions, and the possible situational factors which influence teacher emotion-arousing in the online context range from the performance of students, the application of technology, to the requirements prescribed by institutions.

Previous studies showcased that teachers experienced more negative emotions (e.g., anxiety) than positive emotions when interacting with students in online teaching, concerning students’ failure to understand teachers’ teaching goals, their low engagement in interactions, and relatively poor learning outcomes in online courses [6,37,38]. Liu’s [6] study on high school EFL teachers’ anxiety in livestream teaching indicated that students’ unwillingness to engage in online interactions, which was deviated from teachers’ goals, intensified teachers’ anxiety. Moreover, Emerson’s [37] comparative quantitative research revealed that students who signed up for online courses performed worse than those who took offline courses.

Apart from student factors, features of online teaching are also crucial in prompting EFL teacher emotions in online teaching. Previous studies revealed that teachers held contradictory perspectives on the application of technology. On the one hand, teachers’ capacity of tracing students’ engagement, monitoring students’ learning progress via online platforms, and offering constant guidance throughout the course were linked to their positive attitudes toward online teaching [39]. On the other hand, teachers’ insufficient information technology literacy, and poor network conditions led to negative emotions lingering on the teachers’ minds [6,40].

Teacher emotions are also constructed through their negotiation with school norms, culture, and power relations [19]. The institutional culture of the context where teachers work also imposes an influence on teachers’ favor for the adoption of technology [41,42]. Previous studies concluded that teachers’ positive emotions always correlate with institutional support. Howe et al. [43] reported that teachers’ satisfaction with institutions was significantly higher among those who received mentoring, technical support, and training for using software and hardware than those who did not. By contrast, teachers’ negative attitudes towards the use of technology were related to insufficient institutional support; as Rubadeau’s [35] study noted that teachers’ emerging tensions in an online language teacher education program resulted from institution’s limited support and inadequate training, as well as demanding cultural expectations from program administrators. The above findings found resonance in Vodanovich and Piotrowski’s [41] study which revealed teachers’ positive attitudes toward online teaching may be constrained by the conservative institutional context where they teach.

In sum, recent studies have explored language teacher emotions in technology-enhanced environments. Still, limited efforts have been made to investigate the causes of teachers’ various emotions in livestream teaching under the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the Chinese context.

2.3. Impact of Teacher Emotion in Online Teaching on Teacher’s Professional Development

The impact of teacher emotions, either positive or negative, can potentially facilitate or inhibit the transition to online teaching [44]. The emotional engagement in the instructional transition may bring sustainable changes for teachers’ professional development [15,16]. Based on the limited studies conducted in the online teaching context, teacher emotions exerted impacts on teachers’ understanding of online teaching, teacher identity, and teachers’ actions.

Firstly, researchers have found that teacher emotions are related to teachers’ understanding of teaching. For example, Liu, Yuan, and Wang [45] reported in an autoethnographic study of a female university EFL teacher that her nervousness toward teaching with technology over COVID-19 turned to her deepening understanding of the functions of the livestream teaching platform, Zoom. In total, six functions, including ‘breakout rooms’, ‘group chat’, ‘private chat’, ‘annotation’, ‘record’, and ‘share screen’ were noted down to assist her livestream teaching.

Secondly, some research also identified that teacher emotion played a role in constructing teacher identity [19,46]. Jeongyeon and Young [47] found in their study that positive emotions are conducive to confirming and reinforcing teachers’ emerging identities. Contrastively, Van Veen, Sleegers, and van de Ven [48] revealed that some negative emotions may pose threats to teacher identities. Of the few studies conducted in the online teaching context, Downing and Dyment [49] found that negative emotions caused by online teaching impacted teachers’ self-identity. Meanwhile, several scholars [50,51,52] have pinpointed that teachers cultivated various new teacher identities in the online teaching environment, such as course designers and developers, course facilitators and collaborators.

Thirdly, teacher emotion could be source of engagement and drawn upon to mobilize and energize teacher activism and their agency [53,54,55]. Researchers have explored the co-constitutive effects of agency and emotion for language teachers [25,56]. Naylor [44] found that emotions influenced teachers’ actions and decision-making when teaching online, reflected from the adjustment of their choices of teaching strategies and their interactions with students or colleagues. Likewise, online educators began to raise the awareness of conducting research based on the data during their online courses to improve their online teaching (and learning) practices in the future [57]. It is noted that both positive and negative emotions could propel teachers to take action, as shown in Yuan and Lee’s [58] research where a pre-service teacher’s negative emotions resulting from her marginal position in the practicum school prompted her to actively engage in cognitive learning and constant reflections through class observation and communication with the mentor, highlighting the solid agentic potential teacher emotions could possibly evoke. Moreover, novice teachers and experienced teachers displayed distinct emotions, driven by which they took opposite actions in online teaching. According to Downing and Dyment [49], pre-service teachers self-reported that their low level of competence and confidence to prepare students for professional online courses limited their engagement with students in the class, where they spent most of their time doing the assessment throughout the semester. In contrast, more experienced teachers saw the possibility of a powerful relationship with students and thus could develop high levels of engagement with students online.

3. Methodology

3.1. Setting and Participants

This study was conducted from March to July in 2020 and in September 2021, respectively. At the beginning of 2020, the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the implementation of the online teaching policy, issued by the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE), urging all universities to offer online courses to students [59]. Subsequently, thanks to the Chinese government’s effective control of the pandemic, universities had transitioned to offline teaching in September 2020 [60]. However, in July 2021, J Province, where this study was situated, was again confronted with severe epidemic conditions. Thus, online livestream teaching was adopted for the first month of the semester. To better understand the various emotions of university teachers during these two quarantine periods, this study conducted two rounds of data collection. Based on the criteria of “purposeful sampling” [61] (p. 169), five university EFL teachers were invited to participate in the study. The five participants were selected to maximize “variation” [62] (p. 136), targeting a mixture of gender, years of teaching, education background, and university level, which allowed for coverage of the variety of situations in the phenomenon under study [63]. During the data collection, a close relationship and mutual trust were built and maintained between the researchers and the participants, which facilitated the qualitative research on emotions [64]. The demographic profile of the five participants is shown in

Table 1. The profile of the five participants.

Participant	Gender	Years of Teaching	Academic Title	Education Background	Affiliated University	Courses Taught
P1	Male	7	Associate Professor	Ph.D.	A research university	EM courses
P2	Female	10	Lecturer	Master degree	A teaching university	College English courses for n-EM
P3	Female	4	Lecturer	Ph.D.	A research university	EM courses and College English courses for n-EM
P4	Male	3	Teacher	Master degree	A teaching university	College English courses for n-EM
P5	Female	5	Associate professor	Ph.D.	A research university	EM courses

EM—English major; n-EM—Non-English major.

.

3.2. Data Collection

In the study, qualitative data were mainly collected through semi-structured interviews and case documents (e.g., teachers’ written reflective journals and their WeChat moments). In terms of interviews, a total of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with each participant were conducted. The first round of interviews took place in June 2020, which was at the end of the pandemic-induced online teaching semester. The second round of interviews was carried out in September 2021, when J Province adopted online teaching again. Each interview lasted about one hour. The participants were encouraged to share their emotional experiences related to livestream teaching (see Appendix A for the interview outline). The interviews were audio-recorded with consent. All the interviews were conducted in Chinese, as using the first language of both the researcher and the participants helped better facilitate their expressions, which the participants confirmed. In addition to interviews, case documents served as another vital data source in the study, verifying the contents of interviews and providing more information for research questions. Participants’ written reflective journals during their livestream teaching were collected for the study. The teachers kept reflective journals to record their emotional experiences and thoughts during livestream teaching periods. In addition, participants’ posts on WeChat, a common and popular social networking app in China, were also used as a data source for data triangulation.

3.3. Data Analysis

The inductive approach was deployed in the qualitative data analysis. The recorded interviews were first transcribed into ten transcripts, with a total word count of over 120,000. Then, the interview transcripts were carefully read and re-read by the researchers before being broken down into several categories. For the first reading, the whole transcripts were reviewed, and specific episodes related to teacher emotion (signaled by keywords like “happiness”, “anxiety”, and “sadness”), its causes, as well as its impacts on teachers, were captured. For the later re-reading process, ‘content analysis’ [65] was adopted to analyze the interview data, through which the deeper meanings could be explored so as to add in-depth and broad interpretation to the analysis [66]. These episodes were assigned into different categories and sub-categories. Consequently, themes regarding causes and impacts of teacher emotions were identified, respectively. For example, the causes of teacher emotions were identified as: (a) interactions between teachers’ goals and students’ performance, (b) interactions between teachers’ goals and features of livestream teaching, and (c) interactions between teachers’ goals and institutional requirements. Afterwards, sub-categories were further divided from these categories. For instance, students’ cooperation and support with teachers, students’ willingness for sharing with teachers, and students’ refusal of cooperation with teachers, were attributed to the subordinate category of ‘interactions between teachers’ goals and students’ performance.’

To ensure the trustworthiness and validity of the data analysis, the researchers adopted member check and methodological triangulation in the study [67]. Concerning member checks, it was carried out twice. In the beginning, the finished interview transcripts were sent back to the five participants for checking. Revisions had been made where information had been mistakenly read during transcription. After completing the first draft of the coding schemes, the first and second researcher independently coded the transcriptions based on the coding framework. Later, two coding tables were double-checked to add, elicit, or integrate any information, forming a more complete and reliable coding scheme. Meanwhile, methodological triangulation was used in data analysis; participants’ written reflective journals and their WeChat posts were constantly reviewed to triangulate with interview data, obtaining more reliable data of teachers’ emotions in livestream teaching during the pandemic.

4. Findings

The data analysis revealed the causes of various emotions that these five university EFL teachers experienced in livestream teaching and the impacts of these emotions on teachers’ sustainable professional development (see

Table 2. Detailed codes with frequency counts are included under each theme.

Themes-Sub-Themes	Codes
Interaction between EFL Teachers’ Goals and Environment
Between EFL teachers’ goals and students’ performance (24)	Positive emotions: students’ cooperation and support (9); students’ willingness for sharing (6) Negative emotions: students’ refusal of cooperation (9)
Between EFL teachers’ goals and features of livestream teaching (18)	Positive emotions: convenience in formative assessment (4) Negative emotions: high frequency of technological problems (8); difficulty in conducting interactions (6)
Between EFL teachers’ goals and institutional requirements (13)	Positive emotions: institutional support (5) Negative emotions: rigid institutional management (4); strict livestream teaching requirements (4)
Impacts of EFL teachers’ Emotions on Their Sustainable Professional Development
Deepening EFL teachers’ understanding of livestream teaching (16)	The value for higher education (6) Pedagogical ecology (10)
Influencing EFL teachers’ identity (12)	Course instructors (5) Service staff (3) Adaptive experts (4)
Motivating EFL teachers to take action (12)	Improvement of livestream teaching instruction (5) Active learning of livestream teaching (3) Active research on livestream teaching (4)

Numbers in the bracket refer to the frequency of occurrence of the target code or theme in the data.

).

4.1. EFL Teachers’ Emotions and Their Causes in the Livestream Teaching Context

In this study, EFL teachers’ initial responses to livestream teaching revealed that they experienced more negative emotions than positive emotions (see Table 2). Positive emotion involves happiness and pride. For example, Participant 4 (P4) felt happy when students gave him positive responses in the online class. Negative emotion includes sadness, anxiety, anger, and helplessness. For instance, Participant 1 (P1) mentioned that he was sad when he encountered technical problems with the computer during an online course. However, instead of merely reporting university EFL teachers’ emotions in the livestream teaching context, this study focused on the sources of these emotions, and the findings indicated that EFL teachers’ emotions were produced through the interaction between teachers’ goals and the environment, which included students’ performance, features of livestream teaching, as well as the institutional livestream teaching requirements. Positive emotions were generated when there was congruence between the external environment and the teacher’s goals. Conversely, negative emotions arose when the external environment was inconsistent with EFL teachers’ goals.

4.1.1. Interaction between EFL Teachers’ Goals and Students’ Performance

In this study, the primary cause of university EFL teachers’ emotions in livestream teaching was the interaction between their goals and students’ performance. Facilitated by the online learning environment, students’ cooperation with teachers and their willingness to share personal experiences in the online course were aligned with teachers’ goals of engaging students in online learning, which resulted in teachers’ positive emotions. However, students’ reluctance to cooperate with teachers, as was inconsistent with teachers’ goals, led to their negative emotions.

First of all, students’ active cooperation with teachers met teachers’ goal to gain students’ support, and thereby teachers produced positive emotions. In the study, all the five participants acknowledged that they felt happy in livestream teaching when students cooperated with them, as showcased in students’ active participation in the online class discussion, giving positive feedback to them, and demonstrating excellent technical proficiency, which was in line with their livestream teaching goal. P1, for example, students’ active participation in online livestream courses, such as “taking notes in time and taking the initiative to turn on the microphone and express their ideas” (P1-I1-1) (The number in the bracket tells the participant, the time of interviews and the page number of the quotes. For example, here, P1 refers to the first participant, I1 means the first interview, 1 means the page number of the quotes in the interview transcript.), elicited his happiness.

Sometimes, the performance of some “treasure students” (P4-I1-2) in online courses could even outperform the expectation of EFL teachers, thus prompting their positive emotions. P2 mentioned that her happiness in the livestream teaching context came from students’ technical proficiency with the use of the videoconference tool, particularly students’ assistance with the roll call function, which exceeded her expectations.

“When I encountered problems counting the number of (attending) students online, my student assistant would tell me about the specific roll-call function on the livestream teaching platform, or sometimes they even had finished it for me before I entered the class. They are definitely better at digital literacy than I am.”

(P2-I2-11)

Second, students’ willingness to share their experience in online classes was congruent with EFL teachers’ goal of expecting in-class interactions, which resulted in EFL teachers’ positive emotions. P2 pointed out that she insisted on building a contextualized classroom where students could be immersed in the English learning process and were willing to share their own stories, even in the livestream teaching context. Facilitated by the virtual learning environment, students had access to sharing their ideas in multiple and non-verbal ways, increasing classroom engagement, which fulfilled her goal.

“When we had a discussion on the topic of ‘countryside life’, one student, who lived in the countryside, sent us a picture he had taken of the field outside his home, which could be used as a classroom tool in a tie with the topic, the whole class was quite excited at that time.”

(P2-I2-1)

In addition to students’ non-verbal participation in the online class, P5 reported that the opportunity to speak anonymously in the online learning environment boosted some shy students’ engagement, since they “did not need to expose their faces and voices to the public,” and instead, they “typed in the chat boxes or sent messages to teachers privately” (P5-I1-2). Such an anonymous way of expression promoted students’ interactions with teachers in the online learning environment, which was consistent with her goals, thereby prompting her happiness.

Third, students’ unwillingness to cooperate with EFL teachers, typically found in their refusal to appear on camera, complaints about workloads and feigning class attendance, was a constant cause of teachers’ negative emotions as it was inconsistent with teachers’ goals. Although P1 had repeatedly stressed the requirements for students to turn on their webcams, “as it was a way to force students to concentrate more in class,” he felt helpless at the refusal of some students, “they did not obey because of the home network or the equipment problem” (P1-I1-2). “I felt helpless since I could not see them” (P1-I1-7). In addition, P2 and P4 reported that the students they taught this semester complained about the heavy workload, which the two participants could not understand, thus leading to their unhappiness. “They felt that finishing the assignments of an elective course was not worth investing so much time, let alone during an online course” (P4-I1-2). Moreover, P3 expressed her anger towards students’ behaviors of feigning attendance in the online class: “it is interesting that you can see their accounts online in the meeting room, while you can never receive a response from them” (P3-I1-2).

Overall, the above demonstrated that EFL teachers’ emotions during the livestream teaching context emerged from the interactions between their goals and students’ performance, which involved students’ willingness to cooperate with teachers and share their experiences in the online courses.

4.1.2. Interaction between EFL Teachers’ Goals and Features of Livestream Teaching

In addition to the interactions between EFL teachers’ goals and students’ performance, the interview data indicated that features of livestream teaching, including its convenience in conducting formative assessments, high frequency of the technological problems, and difficulty in conducting in-class interactions, might also lead to teacher emotions through interacting with EFL teachers’ goals.

Firstly, EFL teachers’ positive emotions were generated from the interactions between the facilitation of online platforms in implementing formative assessments and teachers’ goal to evaluate students’ learning behaviors during the online teaching semester. Three participants (P1, P2, and P3) pointed out that, in contrast to the previous offline teaching where the teacher could only “confirm whether the students had read the course materials in advance from their reactions in class” (P3-I2-3), the online learning platform now could “clearly record whether students had read and downloaded the course materials” (P1-I1-1) and they could “view the number of students’ website visits, the length of visiting time, how many sections they clicked on, and even how long it took them to complete assignments” (P2-I2-8), which coincided with their pedagogical goal of being able to keep abreast of students’ learning behaviors during online classes, and thus their positive emotions emerged. Furthermore, P2 believed that the formative assessment facilitated by online teaching platforms made the evaluation of students’ learning process more accessible and objective, as she could “set the weights for each scoring part, e.g., attendance is 10 percent of the total marks, watching videos accounts 20 percent for the total marks” (P2-I1-6).

Compared with EFL teachers’ positive emotions with reference to the online teaching platform’s convenience in formative assessment of students’ learning behaviors, EFL teachers also produced negative emotions due to the frequent technical problems and limited in-class interactions during livestream teaching.

The sudden technological problems that occurred in livestream teaching, which always deviated from EFL teachers’ goal to have smooth online classes, resulted in their negative emotions. Two participants (P1 and P4) expressed their sadness when the class was disrupted due to the slowdown of wireless networks, “the internet was very laggy, and the students could not even hear what I was saying” (P1-I2-1), “the website was buffering when I tried to play a video in class” (P4-I2-10). The technological problem deviated from their teaching goals, which they had been working hard towards. For instance, P1 confessed, “it took me days to prepare for this class” (P1-I2-1). As a result, the inconsistency between EFL teachers’ goals and the technological problems of livestream teaching caused their negative emotions.

Apart from technological problems, participants found it challenging to organize in-class interactions in online courses. P1 said that online course was ‘one-way interactive’ most of the time, e.g., the teacher constantly spoke to the students, making it difficult to create interactions. Clearly, it deviated from his teaching goal, as he said, “there were many group activities involved in my offline classes, and I strongly like the interactive ambiance of the class” (P1-I2-2). Therefore, P1 shared several negative emotions like sadness and anxiety. P3 added that the difficulties in receiving immediate feedback from the other side of the screen led to her frustration, “I cannot see if the students are nodding or responding to me, it is like making a monologue” (P3-I2-3). In addition, P3 revealed that some online group discussions were of low quality, and teachers were busy switching between discussion rooms, having difficulty seeing the overall effect of discussion.

Consequently, the features of livestream teaching— such as its accessibility of conducting formative assessments, frequency of technological problems, and the restriction of having in-class online mutual interactions—could interfere with teachers’ goals, thereby causing their various emotions.

4.1.3. Interaction between EFL Teachers’ Goals and Institutional Requirements

In this study, EFL teachers’ emotions also came from the interaction between their goals and the institutional livestream teaching requirements. Participants’ positive emotions stemmed from the perceived amount of pedagogical support in livestream teaching, as it was consistent with their teaching goal to gain support from the institution. On the other hand, the rigid institutional management and strict livestream teaching requirements brought teachers negative emotions, as they were not in line with EFL teachers’ goals of expecting flexible institutional management, and gaining trust and freedom for livestream teaching from the institution.

P2 generated positive emotions when obtaining institutional support, both technologically and emotionally. As for the technology-assisted support, her faculty set up a WeChat group, where “the advisors of online teaching platforms would help tackle the technological problems encountered” (P2-I1-10). Regarding emotional support, P2 shared that her principal was very supportive of her work, giving her freedom in livestream teaching, as she reported, “our principal would not interfere with how we design and teach the online lesson, but care more about our attitudes towards livestream teaching…I feel happy I have such an open-minded leader” (P2-I2-10). Therefore, the institutional support met P2′s teaching goal, thus causing her positive emotions.

In contrast, the rigidity of institutional management deviated from EFL teachers’ goal to work under a flexible way of management, thus causing their negative emotions. P5, for example, reported that they were required to submit printed copies of each student’s answer sheet, even though the exams were taken online. “It is too rigid, why not hand in electronic versions…Some papers print out blurry, and I have to ask students to send me a clear photo again” (P5-I1-7).

Apart from the rigid institutional management, the strict livestream teaching requirements prescribed by the institution, shown as submitted requirements of livestream teaching documents and random inspection of the online classroom, were not in line with teachers’ goal to gain trust and freedom of livestream teaching from the institution, thereby resulting in their negative emotions. P3 shared that teachers were asked to write livestream teaching reports and upload (online) class-related photos as records of their livestream teaching. “Such requirements, on the one hand, increased my workloads, on the other hand, reflected the university’s ‘distrust’ of us teachers, it seems that we did not work hard” (P3-I1-4). P4 felt nervous and unhappy about the random ‘entering’ into the classroom of inspectors without notice, which broke down the constructed ‘private circle’ in the class, “if they want to enter my class, they could inform me in advance…some inspectors even could not understand English, I wonder if there was any point in their arrival” (P4-I2-2).

It is worth noting that P1 in this study reported different emotions in the two rounds of interviews, respectively. In the first interview, P1 shared negative emotions regarding the university’s rigid limitations on the choice of online teaching platform, “we could only use a few platforms given by the university” (P1-I1-3). He found that when put into use, these platforms had many drawbacks. For example, “copying or pasting was not allowed in these platforms, students could only type their words one by one. They were not suitable for online teaching” (P1-WeChat-6 March 2020), which ran counter to his desire for a platform with various functions like “screen sharing, video livestream, and mutual vocal or textual interactions” (P1-WeChat-11 February 2020), thereby leading to his negative emotions. In the second interview, however, P1 said that he felt happy in this year’s livestream teaching experience, as the university “gave teachers more freedom in the choices of online teaching platforms” (P1-I2-4), which meant that teachers could also use, for example, Tencent Conference or other more convenient platforms. The shift from negative to positive emotions in P1 also revealed the role that power plays in teachers’ emotions, which will be further discussed in the discussion section.

4.2. Impact of EFL Teacher Emotion on Their Sustainable Professional Development

The in-depth analysis of data also identified emotion’s great value in sustaining EFL teachers’ professional development, which could be specified into three aspects: deepening teachers’ understanding of online livestream teaching and curriculum, shaping teacher identities, and motivating teachers to take action.

4.2.1. Deepening EFL Teachers’ Understanding of Online Livestream Teaching

In the study, various EFL teachers’ emotions in the livestream teaching context deepened their understanding of livestream teaching, which included online teaching’s transformative value for higher education and the pedagogical ecology facilitated by online livestream teaching.

In terms of EFL teachers’ deepening understanding of the value of livestream teaching, four participants (P1, P2, P3, and P5) noted that livestream teaching had brought a promising future to higher education. “The online teaching experience makes me believe it is the future trend in higher education” (P5-I1-10). On the one hand, some advantages of livestream teaching, such as facilitating the sharing of resources and anonymous interaction, have been more fully recognized by university EFL teachers and integrated into our current trends in education. “Both students and teachers have tasted the sweetness of online teaching and learning and have been aware of the significance of technological reform on education” (P2-I1-5). On the other hand, they admitted that livestream teaching still had its drawbacks. For example, livestream teaching suffered from a lack of mutual interactions; in comparison, traditional offline teaching still had its advantages, in particular emotional involvement through non-verbal communication: “there is emotional resonance when I meet students face to face in the offline classroom, which was absent in online class” (P2-I1-3). Therefore, blended teaching might be a feasible way of integrating traditional teaching and livestream teaching, as P1 believed that “future teaching should be blended” (P1-I1-6).

Apart from EFL teachers’ deepening understanding of the value of livestream teaching for higher education, participants reported that livestream teaching had brought a new pedagogical ecology, within which multiple resources were provided and meaningful interactions were carried out.

First, multiple resources brought by online teaching could promote knowledge dissemination. P3 believed that “online learning actually cultivates students’ abilities to access multiple resources” (P3-I2-5). In particular, some demonstrated online courses offered by well-known universities could enrich the resources of learning for students. In addition to existing resources, EFL teachers also developed their own resources during online teaching. For example, an attempt of P1 to record a video as a supplement to in-class content led to his positive emotions. He realized that, compared to offline lectures, “the online teaching facilitates the dissemination of knowledge thanks to the way of recordings,” as students could watch them on their own after class. He added, “for English learners, especially those in an environment of imbalanced resources, who are willing to learn actively can access knowledge more easily” (P1-I2-1). Unlike the recordings or existing online videos as after-class resources, P2 recorded micro-lessons videos for students to preview before the class, which could free up time for their in-depth discussions in class.

“I recorded and uploaded micro-lessons first and asked my students to learn on the platform before the class. Therefore, we could dig a topic deeper in class, and students could have sufficient time to think, as the time in explaining some information had been saved.”

(P2-I2-9)

Second, livestream teaching could enrich the diversity of in-class sharing to some extent. Whilst sometimes the livestream teaching context brought inconvenience to in-class interaction, it did diversify the learning environment for students, under which students could share their own experiences in multiple ways. For example, P2 felt excited when her students shared their experiences with photos in the class discussion, thus deepening her understanding of the expanded environment in the livestream teaching context.

“In the offline classroom, all students were in the same physical setting and surroundings (e.g., classroom, blackboard, slides), whilst in the online class, students were in different locations physically. There is a chance that because they were learning (most likely) from home, they might be more willing and prone to share their experiences.”

(P2-I2-2)

Along with P2, P5 felt surprised by the effect of “randomly generated interactions” in the online classes, which was the essence of online learning. She once organized partner work in which students were randomly paired with their teammates and found that their performances were beyond her expectation, which deepened her understanding of the significant position of interaction in livestream teaching.

4.2.2. Influencing EFL Teachers’ Identities

As we engaged with data, EFL teachers’ various emotions in the livestream teaching context shaped their identities as instruction designers, service staff, and adaptive experts.

Three participants (P1, P2, and P4) developed their teacher identities as course designers, among which P1, affected by negative emotions arising from lack of interactions in his online class, firmly shifted his teacher identity from a “unidirectional knowledge transmitter” he served in the traditional class to a “knowledge constructor” (P1-I2-7). Confirming that both teachers and students co-construct a “shared field of experience” in the online course, P1 viewed livestream teaching as a process of exploring experience together with students who may be more “web-savvy” (P1-I1-4). In addition, both P2 and P4 believed that teachers need to develop corresponding instructional designs for livestream teaching, seriously treating online and offline teaching as two different modes of teaching, rather than simply replicating the kinds of experiences from offline classes. Therefore, even though P2 felt exhausted in her efforts with the increased workload in preparing online classes, she confirmed that “teachers have to expand and update their knowledge and even abandon some traditional teaching methods. You have to be a real instruction designer” (P2-I2-5). Negative emotions caused by the slowdown of the network prompted P4 to reconsider the need to design online courses, taking into account the uncertain virtual teaching environment, as “students may feel distracted by the poor network” (P4-I2-4).

Interestingly, both P2 and P4 described their identities as service staff in the online livestream teaching context. As the teacher responsible for constructing the university foreign language online course platform, P2 felt exhausted to answer questions raised by her colleagues, which developed her identity as a service staff member. “They asked me questions almost at any time during the day, and I became a 24-h customer service person” (P2-I2-11). In contrast, P4, who had always viewed himself as a student supporter in the offline teaching, now strengthened his identity as a technical service staff for students in online teaching, “unlike offline where I mainly advise on content knowledge, I now also assist students with their technical problems, which is quite fresh” (P4-I1-4).

Three participants (P1, P2, and P4) confirmed their identities as ‘adaptive experts’ during livestream teaching. A series of negative emotions from the technical problems encountered during online instruction reinforced P1′s identity as a reflective teacher. He became more aware of the necessity of conducting communications with students and constant reflections on his livestream teaching to “become more flexible in the teaching” (P1-I2-5). P4, who reflected on his helplessness due to students’ in-class silence in the first phase of livestream teaching, developed his pedagogical coping strategies in the second phase of livestream teaching, such as giving students more encouragement and adopting more motivational strategies in the online courses, which he found compelling. “I have included classroom participation as 20 percent of the final score to motivate students to participate in online discussion” (P4-I2-4). Apart from P1 and P4′s pedagogical adaption, P2 became a “flexible platform switcher.” Negative emotions emerging from the breakdown of livestream teaching platforms made her less reliant on specific livestream teaching platforms: “we still have other platforms to choose from, and if one crashes, I can switch into another one immediately to continue my class, rather than halt the class and wait for it to recover” (P2-I2-3).

4.2.3. Motivating EFL Teachers to Take Action

Affected by emotions, EFL teachers were motivated to take meaningful action, shown as the improvement of their online instruction, active learning, and active research.

First, the various emotional experiences in the online classes prompted EFL teachers to improve their design and implementation of livestream teaching instruction by making use of online resources and specific functions of online platforms. P1 and P3 pointed out that, facilitated by online teaching, they integrated existing online resources, either model courses from other universities, or the short videos of interestingness, as their teaching materials. “I asked students to study an online course given by UC Berkeley, and then compare it with the Chinese online class, so that they could have a comprehensive understanding of the way of education between the East and the West” (P1-I1-5). The positive emotions arising from the successful attempt of experiential teaching motivated P1 to make use of the online platform for even more experiential teaching activities (e.g., invited guest talk). P3 who taught a theory-based course, History of Literature, would select some online videos of interestingness as pre-class resources for students to preview, which could be used as supplements to the arduous learning contents. Moreover, P1 and P2 demonstrated positive attitudes toward certain practical functions of online teaching platforms, such as gathering students’ reflections and assigning quizzes, which prompted them to continue using these platforms in their future teaching. P2, for example, found it effective to give students tasks that were difficult to assign offline, e.g., speaking tasks.

“Mainly due to the limited class time, we seldom tested students’ oral English skills in the offline class. Now we have this online platform, so I can assign speaking tasks there. Students would be required to upload audios for grading, which made up for the ignoration of speaking skills in our offline class.”

(P1-I2-8)

Second, the various emotional experiences in the online classes stimulated active learning among P1 and P2. For P1, negative emotions such as frustration over the lack of interactions in online classes prompted him to take the initiative to read related books that advised on how to facilitate meaningful and effective interactions in online classes, for example, books which “give ten tips on how to interact with students online, or ten hands-on activities in online courses” (P1-I2-6). Furthering this idea, P2 expected to learn more about online course design in that “the current online teaching platforms seemed to have only moved the offline classroom model into the online environment, but without a fundamental design change” (P2-I1-12).

Third, EFL teachers’ emotions in livestream teaching motivated them to initiate research on livestream teaching. P1 was curious about the EFL teachers’ various emotions brought on livestream teaching, which prompted him to investigate teacher and student emotions in computer-assisted English teaching, so as to address a gap in current research. In addition, he had applied two projects related to livestream teaching during the quarantine semester. P3 noted that the videos of online courses could serve as a source of research data, which could help conduct relevant research.

5. Discussion

Focusing on university EFL teachers’ emotional experiences in livestream teaching, this qualitative case study examines the causes of teacher emotion and the impact of teacher emotion on their sustainable professional development. This study found that EFL teachers’ emotions were produced through the interaction between teachers’ goals and the environment, which involved students’ performance, features of livestream teaching, and the institutional livestream teaching requirements. These emotions have deepened their understanding of livestream teaching, shaped EFL teachers’ identities, and motivated them to take action. Drawing on the existing studies, we will discuss the person-environment interactionist approach to understanding teacher emotions and the agentive power of teacher emotions.

5.1. Understanding Teacher Emotion from the Person-Environment Interactionist Approach

Like teacher emotions in other contexts, teacher emotions in livestream teaching are not merely teachers’ subjective feelings, but have interactive and performative features. As shown in this study, the causes of EFL teachers’ emotions in livestream teaching involve internal personal factors, like the teacher’s goal, and external environmental factors, like students’ performance, features of livestream teaching, and institutional livestream teaching requirements. This study also demonstrates that it is the interaction between person and environment that produces teacher emotions, which has verified the explanatory power of the person-environment interactionalist approach, the theoretical approach adopted in this study, to understanding teacher emotions [24,26]. That said, teacher emotion in livestream teaching was a product of the interaction between their goals and the external environment.

Among the three causes of EFL teachers’ emotions shown in the current study, the primary one was students’ performance, involving students’ cooperation and support, and willingness to share, which echoed prior studies [6,38]. Nevertheless, as we could see in Table 2, EFL teachers did experience more positive emotions than negative emotions when interacting with students, which was somewhat unexpected, given that an array of previous studies overwhelmingly reported teachers’ negative emotions. One of the possible reasons could be college students’ increased digital literacy and learner autonomy, which was congruent with or beyond teachers’ teaching goals in the study, thus leading to teachers’ positive emotions. Moreover, features of livestream teaching prompted teachers’ various emotions as well. Aligning with previous studies [6,39,40], most participants held contradictory views about online teaching in the study. On the one hand, they aroused positive emotions towards efficient features of livestream teaching, as teachers could clearly monitor students’ learning process through platforms. On the other hand, due to the frequent technical problems that impeded the fluency of the online courses [40], teachers in the study felt negative emotions. Additionally, EFL teachers’ emotions in online teaching stemmed from the interaction between teachers’ goals and institutional requirements, echoing Zembylas’s [19] statement that teacher emotions were constructed through their interaction with school norms, culture, and power relations. Confirming Rubadeau’s [35] study, our findings showcased that institutional support was the cause of EFL teachers’ positive emotions, while rigid and strict livestream teaching requirements led to EFL teachers’ negative emotions. Again, this study implies that the person-environment interactionist approach is conducive to understanding the causes of teacher emotions in different contexts instead of examining teacher emotion from only one perspective, i.e., the psychological approach or social approach.

It is also worth noting that this study has suggested that power relation, one of the factors in the livestream teaching context, has a tremendous influence on EFL teachers’ emotions. A case in this study is that P4 felt nervous and unhappy due to the random entry into the classroom of inspectors, who possessed the power of monitoring teachers at anytime. Such power imbalance tended to shape teachers’ emotions, dominated by negative emotions, in livestream teaching. Another case was that P1 experienced negative emotions in the first-round interviews in which he had to use the teaching platform required by the university, while he experienced positive emotions in the second-round interview in which the restrictions have been canceled. The shifts in P1 from experiencing negative emotions to positive emotions during two rounds of livestream teaching could be attributed to the power he gained from the university, as reflected in the autonomous choice of livestream teaching platform. The abovementioned two cases were in line with the compelling evidence in Rubadeau’s [35] and Vodanovich and Piotrowski’s [41] study that found teachers’ response towards technological change was relevant to the control of school administrators, and shaped by the expectations and agendas set by institutions, which may limit teachers’ agency and power in livestream teaching. Hence, it is easy to see that the power relations embedded in university’s livestream teaching requirements could shape teacher emotions, mirroring that power relation, the core element in the sociopolitical environment where teachers live and work, needs to be carefully addressed and examined [2,3,23,24].

5.2. Highlighting the Agentic Power of Teacher Emotion

Teacher emotions are not private nor silent. However, they have agentive and transformative power. This study also reveals that teacher emotions in livestream teaching, whether they are positive or negative, are capable of impacting teachers’ sustainable professional development in terms of cognition change, identity construction, and action tendency. Our findings indicated that various emotions deepened EFL teachers’ understanding of livestream teaching in higher education, which was compelling evidence to highlight the concept of ‘sustainable professional development’, as most of the participants in the study recognized the transformative power of technology in teaching, and showed their willingness to cater to the growing and promising trend toward livestream teaching in higher education, rather than passively considering it as a temporary emergency teaching method [42]. Besides, teachers’ various emotional experiences activated their in-depth cognitions of multiple functions of livestream teaching platforms that could benefit online instruction (e.g., recording, in-class sharing, and randomly generated interactions), which echoed Liu, Yuan, and Wang’s [45] research. Apart from deeper understanding, teachers also developed their identities, such as course instructors, service staff, and adaptive experts, which contributed to recent studies [47,50,51,52] that found various new teacher identities such as course designers and developers, course facilitators, and collaborators constructed in the livestream teaching environment. It is worth noting that some negative emotions prompted teachers to shape identities, showing the agentive power of teacher emotions claimed by many researchers recently [25,53,56]. More importantly, as stressed by Naylor [44] that emotions have the potential to impact the decision-making of teachers, teachers prompted by various emotions in the study were encouraged to take action in teaching and research, as shown in the enhancement of their online instruction, the active attempt in learning and research. However, the findings in our study appear to be inconsistent with that of Downing and Dyment’s [49] study that novice teachers demonstrated limited actions in online courses due to their lack of confidence. Some of the novice instructors in our study exerted great agency, which provides scope for further investigation. In consequence, emotions can be transformed into agency. It is this agency that moves forward our understanding of teacher emotions in the changing and complex context.

6. Conclusions and Implications

This paper reports on five Chinese EFL teachers’ emotions during livestream teaching with reference to the person-environment interactionist approach. It contributed to unraveling the mystery of the generation of teacher emotions in the Chinese context of livestream teaching, namely through the interaction between teachers’ goals and students’ performance, features of livestream teaching, and institutional livestream teaching requirements. Moreover, these emotions exerted sustainable impacts on teachers’ professional development, manifested in strengthening their understanding of livestream teaching, shaping their identities, and prompting them to take action.

With the increasing attention to teacher emotions, this study enriched our understanding of the causes and impact of teacher emotions in livestream teaching. Nevertheless, the study does have some limitations. Firstly, this study only explored a wide range of emotions experienced by EFL teachers in online classes, and future research could focus on specific emotions and gain an in-depth understanding, for example, exploring EFL teachers’ enjoyment or anxiety during online teaching. Secondly, given that the data sources of this study only included interview data and case documents, it is hoped that future research related to online livestream teaching could utilize technology to enrich the data sources to include livestream teaching data recorded by technological means, e.g., multimodal media data such as recorded online classroom videos and online forum discussions. Thirdly, the current study only targeted the pandemic-induced livestream teaching context, whilst along with the popularity of technology use in language learning (e.g., [68,69]), researchers interested in the technology-enhanced language teaching could focus more on the online and offline blended learning mode, which might be a promising trend within higher education in the post-pandemic period [70], to explore EFL teachers’ emotions, and more robust and longitudinal studies are needed.

Despite the aforementioned limitations, this study has the following implications regarding developing teachers’ coping strategies of various emotions as well as sustaining their professional development in livestream teaching. Teacher emotions should not only be viewed as teachers’ feelings, but as a product of the interaction between people and the external environment. Therefore, the stakeholders in livestream teaching, firstly, administrators and school leaders need to pay more attention to teachers’ goals and livestream teaching environment factors that might cause teacher emotions. As shown in the findings that teachers’ positive emotions emerged when institutions provided more support for them, some intervention strategies could be taken in advance to reduce teachers’ negative emotions and prompt their positive emotions, for example, giving more technology training, releasing more autonomy to teachers in online instruction, and offering emotional support if necessary. Secondly, the online teaching platform companies could take into account target users’ goals and needs when developing the functions of platforms. It is hoped that teachers’ various emotions caused by features of online teaching platforms could serve as feedback for the improvement of these platforms. Thirdly, teachers themselves could reconstruct their understanding of teaching online, rebuild their identities, and rethink their potential agency in livestream teaching, the ‘new normal’ of instructional modes, even for courses that will be largely taught in-person in a traditional format with supplemental materials being made available online. Moreover, teachers could seize the opportunities to develop their technology-enhanced instructional skills (e.g., attending livestream teaching training programs), so as to cope with potential challenges (e.g., anxiety caused by the breakdown of the network or unfamiliarity with online teaching platforms) attached to technology.

Overall, this study was among the handful of empirical inquiries of Chinese university EFL teacher emotion during pandemic-induced livestream teaching periods, which has contributed important empirical evidence to research in this regard that is attracting rising attention (e.g., [8,39]). It is also hoped that findings from this study can be informative for EFL teachers, university administrators, and policymakers to confront the role of emotions in the sustainable professional development of teachers, and make concerted efforts to sustain the proliferation of livestream English teaching worldwide.