Teacher Emotional Competence: A Conceptual Model

Abstract The classroom represents a complex socio-cultural environment where emotions emerge as a result of instruction, learning, and interpersonal transactions. Teachers’ ability to recognize, regulate, and respond to emotions in the classroom has powerful consequences for students’ behavior, learning, and the teacher’s own well-being. In order to be effective in instruction and classroom management and to prevent emotional burnout, teachers have to be emotionally competent. Furthermore, fostering teachers’ emotional competence helps with teacher retention. Several studies documented the positive effects of emotional training of aspiring and practicing teachers. However, there is a need for a better understanding of specific emotional skills pertinent to the teaching profession. We propose eight competencies essential for teachers to be effective in using emotions for instructional and relational purposes and managing their own and students’ emotions. These competencies include (1) understanding teachers’ own emotions; (2) effective emotion regulation; (3) effective emotional communication; (4) maintaining teachers’ emotional well-being; (5) understanding and responding to students’ emotions; (6) utilizing emotions to promote learning; (7) utilizing emotions to foster positive relationships and emotional climate in the classroom; and (8) promoting students’ social-emotional learning. We further identified discrete emotional skills within each competence and their implication for instruction, classroom management, social-emotional learning in the classroom, and teachers’ well-being. The proposed model of teacher emotional competence can be used as a springboard to develop emotional training programs and guide assessment practices aimed at the evaluation of teachers’ emotional skills.