Navigating through religious discourses in EFL teaching: Teachers' motivational and emotional complexities

Muhalim, Sahril Nur, Chairil Anwar Korompot and Murni Mahmud
Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia

Despite the bulk of research investigating the role of motivation in language learning, not much attention has been directed toward the question of how teachers' motivational and emotional dynamics may figure into everyday teaching practices. Hence, this study seeks to problematise English teachers' initiatives to incorporate religious discourse into ELT practice in an Indonesian university, by attempting to illuminate teachers' underlying motivation for such incorporation. It also examines how teachers navigate the religious discourse as it was being subjectively experienced and articulated through everyday practice that requires subtle emotional investment. Based on three classroom observations and stimulated-recall interviews, our analysis revealed that the embodied emotions, as reflected in the lecturers' structures of feeling (Williams, 1977), are disparate, that it is hard to generalise the lecturers' motivational orientation. Another lecturer evinced a negative feeling about the incorporation, defying the widely held belief that religious discourses inclusion usually resonates with positive emotive feelings. The teachers' open vulnerability also questions the presumption of religious-affiliated institutions as a hospitable space. Thus, the study has bidirectional pedagogical values in the sense that religiously-inspired ELT materials hold a considerable significance for teachers' motivation-emotion, which in turn contributes to the shaping of their everyday teaching practice.
[ PDF full text for this article ]

Authors: Dr Muhalim earned his doctoral degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. Muhalim's doctoral research is based on a dialogic approach to investigate religious discourses in English language teaching and learning. He is currently working as a lecturer in the Department of English, Faculty of Languages and Literature, Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2775-5203 Email: muhalim@unm.ac.id Dr Sahril Nur is a professor in the Department of English Language, Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia. He earned his doctoral degree in English education from Universitas Negeri Makassar. His research interest deals with intercultural, English language teaching and literature. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6117-7975 Email: sahrilfbsunm@unm.ac.id Dr Chairil Anwar Korompot is a faculty member at the Department of English at Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia. He earned his PhD in applied linguistics from the University of New England, Australia. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2006-906X Email: cakorompot@unm.ac.id Dr Murni Mahmud did her PhD in the Department of Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. She is a professor in the Department of English, Faculty of Languages and Literature, Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia. She teaches linguistics anthropology, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, English literature, linguistics, and TEFL. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2971-3907 Email: murnimahmud@unm.ac.id Please cite as: Muhalim, Nur, S., Korompot, C. W. & Mahmud, M. (2023). Navigating through religious discourses in EFL teaching: Teachers' motivational and emotional complexities. Issues in Educational Research, 33(4), 1478-1494. http://www.iier.org.au/iier33/muhalim.pdf