The Emotional Turn in Second Language Teacher Education
A lecture for the 2026-27 invited lecture series on identity and language learning
Dr. Peter De Costa
Michigan State University
3:00-4:00 pm, Friday, September 11, 2026
1418 Van Hise Hall
About the lecture
Following the growing interest in the sociopolitical dimensions of second language teacher emotions (e.g., De Costa et al. 2019; Gkonou & Miller, 2022) and teacher well being (e.g., Mercer, 2020, 2021), I examine developments in these adjacent areas of research. Both lines of research consider the ecologies in which teachers are embedded. To illustrate the vibrant and burgeoning L2 teacher emotion research agenda, I draw on recent examples in the broader applied linguistics and second language teacher education (SLTE) research. In particular, I explore how the SLTE research landscape can be enriched by a systematic investigation of teacher emotion labor (Benesch, 2017) and feeling rules (Zembylas, 2007), with a view to advocate for language teaching professionals.
About the presenter
Peter I. De Costa is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages & Cultures and the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, where he directs the Master’s in TESOL program in the College of Arts & Letters. He is also the English as a Second Language (ESL) graduate director in the College of Education. As a critical applied linguist, his research areas include emotions, identity, ideology and ethics in language learning, language teaching, and language policy. In addition, his ecologically- and social justice-oriented work looks at the intersection between second language acquisition (SLA), second language teacher education (SLTE), and language policy. He is the co-editor of TESOL Quarterly and the Immediate President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics.
Sponsors: The Language Institute, with the Second Language Acquisition PhD Program and the Language Ideologies and Linguistic Discrimination group.
Contact: Dianna Murphy
The UW-Madison Language Institute is committed to inclusive and accessible programming. To request an accommodation for this event, please contact Language Institute associate director Jana Martin three business days in advance.