The Invisible Influencers: Understanding the Motivation, Emotions, and Well-Being of Language Teacher Educators

Abstract

Language teacher educators (LTEs) play a critical role in quality education and have a considerable potential impact on pre-service teachers as well as their future pupils. Yet, there is only limited work that seeks to understand their needs and psychologies as individuals. They remain virtually ‘invisible’ in research terms as a population. In our study, we set out to understand the motivation, emotions, and wellbeing of 12 English LTEs in Austria (n = 7) and Germany (n = 5) with two different trajectories and profiles, namely, school-based (n = 3) and university-based (n = 9) drawing on semi-structured interview data. Reflexive thematic analysis revealed four main themes emerging from the data: a heterogeneity in LTEs’ motivation and related career trajectories, diverse sources of positivity and negativity, issues surrounding well-being, and different experiences of the tension between researching and teaching. The paper raises questions about how LTEs can be researched as such a diverse community and the benefits of ecological perspectives, and it asks vital questions about how systems and structures need to be designed to support LTEs in their work and professional development.