Chinese EFL Teachers’ Emotion Regulation in Blended Teaching: A Contextual Perspective

This study explores emotion regulation (ER) strategies Chinese EFL teachers employ in blended teaching, focusing on contextual factors influencing their choices and their alignment with specific rationales. Through thematic and matrix-based analyses of interviews with 15 teachers, the findings reveal three key emotional challenge areas: technology-infused difficulties, interpersonal conflicts, and ambiguous organizational influences. Teachers used diverse ER strategies, including problem-solving, help-seeking, empathy, suppressing, and tolerance, shaped by technological issues, sociocultural norms, and institutional policies. For technology-related stressors, proactive strategies aligned with perceived influence on teaching quality, while interpersonal conflicts reflected hierarchical and collectivist cultural values. Organizational constraints, such as prioritizing research over teaching in career evaluations, prompted tolerance, and reflecting teachers’ perceived powerlessness. Self-reflection emerged as a critical yet underutilized strategy for reappraisal, highlighting the need for collaborative reflection practices. The study calls for institutional support and policy reforms to foster emotional resilience, sustain teaching innovation, and advance teacher professional development.