Navigating Tensions in Challenging Contexts: English as a Foreign Language Teachers' Belief‐Emotion Profiles in Value‐Based Instruction Through Q Methodology

ABSTRACT Integrating values into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching presents significant challenges for educators, especially in non‐Anglophone contexts. Despite the growing emphasis on value‐based instruction (VBI) in national education policies, limited understanding exists of how university EFL teachers perceive and emotionally respond to these ideological demands in practice. Drawing on cognitive‐appraisal theory and an ecological perspective, this study employs Q methodology to identify and characterize the belief‐emotion profiles of 18 Chinese university EFL teachers engaged in VBI. By‐person factor analysis of Q‐sorting data, supplemented by semi‐structured interviews, revealed four distinct teacher profiles: implicit advocates, pragmatic negotiators, collaborative planners and confident moralists . Two structuring tensions emerged: one between implicit and explicit approaches (Profiles 1 and 4) to VBI, and another between teacher‐led and collaborative enactments (Profiles 2 and 3). Ecological analysis further revealed that these profiles are shaped by multilayered contextual factors, from immediate classroom interactions to institutional structures and national policies, which either support or constrain teachers in negotiating VBI demands alongside linguistic goals and Anglophone value systems. The findings advance understanding of how beliefs and emotions are configured in ideologically contested pedagogical settings and offer implications for differentiated professional development and context‐sensitive policy support in value‐driven EFL contexts.