Negotiating Emotional Entanglements: The Role of Religion and Identity in English and Arabic Medium Instruction

ABSTRACT This study explores how emotions are entangled with religion, ideology, and identity in Arabic and English medium instruction classrooms at a state Islamic university in Indonesia. While the affective turn in applied linguistics has advanced understandings of emotion in language education, little is known about how emotions unfold in religious‐based EMI contexts. Drawing on interviews, classroom observations, document analysis, and fieldnotes, this study examines how teachers and students navigate emotional experiences shaped by linguistic, institutional, and religious expectations. Findings reveal that limited proficiency and institutional constraints often evoke frustration, anxiety, and ambivalence. In navigating such emotions, these teachers and students engage with their religion and religious values, identity, and agency. This study thus argues that teachers’ and students’ emotions are intertwined not only with their belief and awareness about language ideologies but also with knowledge about religious teaching and values which, to some extent, guide their actions in teaching and learning practices, as well in their personal life.