This study investigates beginning EFL teachers' emotional labor from the perspective of the Activity Theory. Emotional labor is defined as the process of controlling one's emotions and emotional expressions in accordance with the occupational standards for proper emotional expression. Two beginning EFL teachers at Korean junior high schools were…

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything--from people, to ideas, to practices and policies--is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who…