Afterword

I recently sat in the audience at CLaSIC 2024 at the National University of Singapore, listening to Dr. Sarah Mercer’s keynote on the importance of prioritizing language teacher well-being to ignite learning engagement. Her words resonated deeply – if we want students to engage, we must first ensure that language teachers feel supported, valued, and emotionally well. But as I read the chapters in this volume, another question kept surfacing: What about those who teach the teachers? At the heart of this volume is the recognition that language teacher educators (LTEs) play a crucial role in shaping future language teachers, yet their emotional experiences have remained largely invisible in research and practice (Nazari et al., 2023). This volume challenges that invisibility, offering a much-needed space to examine the emotions LTEs navigate in their daily work. Across diverse global contexts, LTEs must not only manage their own emotions but also guide the emotional experiences of the teachers they mentor. At the same time, sociopolitical structures, educational policies, systemic constraints, and neoliberal pressures shape their professional realities, demanding constant emotional regulation, adaptation, and identity negotiation.