TEACHERS’ EMOTION LABOR IN AI-MEDIATED L2 WRITING CONTEXTS: SHARED EXPERIENCES OF ESL INSTRUCTORS AT A TERTIARY EDUCATION INSTITUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

Date

2026-8-4

Author

Sinan, Zeynep Sümeyra

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Language teacher emotions have been increasingly researched, yet the scholarly literature overlooks the emotions of L2 instructors in AI-infused writing contexts. To respond to the paucity of research in this area, this study investigates the emotional experiences of second-language instructors in AI-mediated L2 writing contexts in tertiary education. Employing a phenomenological approach (Creswell, 2013), this research aimed to explore the AI-induced emotion labor of L2 writing instructors. The data were collected from 15 English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors from a large university in the U.S. through a biographical information survey, semi-structured interviews, a focus group session, and reflections. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 1999) provided a nuanced understanding of the shared emotional experiences of L2 instructors in AI-integrated writing classrooms. Primarily, the findings of this study indicate that second-language writing instructors experience emotion labor in AI-mediated language writing contexts in higher education, highlighting its roots and their emotion labor strategies. Moreover, the findings also unpack their attitudes toward and competencies of AI. Finally, the results also explore their feeling rules within their socio-institutional context, including the curriculum and policies, which affect their AI-induced emotions. To this end, this study has important pedagogical and scholarly implications for the practices of language teacher education, curriculum development, and policymaking to mediate the AI-induced emotional burden of L2 writing instructors.

Subject Keywords

emotion labor, teacher emotions, artificial intelligence, second language writing, higher education

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119976

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis