Do Enthusiastic EFL Teachers Adopt a Loving Pedagogy?

The Mediating Role of Foreign Language Teaching Enjoyment

Abstract

Although love, as an affective variable, has been mostly marginalized in the realm of foreign language education, researchers are now starting to highlight its importance in education. The growth of research on positive psychology in applied linguistics has pointed to the need to investigate the interplay of different positive emotions in the field. Therefore, in this study, we investigated whether English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ enthusiasm might contribute to their dispositions toward loving pedagogy, through the mediating role of their foreign language teaching enjoyment. With this aim in mind, a survey was administered to 343 Iranian EFL teachers using the Teacher Enthusiasm Scale (Kunter et al., 2011), the Foreign Language Teaching Enjoyment Scale (Proietti Ergün & Dewaele, 2021), and the Dispositions Toward Loving Pedagogy Scale (Yin et al., 2019). Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model of the study. The main findings show that EFL teachers’ enthusiasm can both directly and indirectly impact their dispositions toward loving pedagogy. In addition, foreign language teaching enjoyment partially mediated the relationship between EFL teachers’ enthusiasm and loving pedagogy. The pedagogical implications of the study point to the interplay of teacher enthusiasm and teaching enjoyment in shaping practices of loving pedagogy, and the possibility of the reciprocal and contagious nature of these positive emotions in potentially contributing to the overall efficacy of language teaching and learning.