Abstract

Teachers’ emotions play a critical role in shaping the classroom atmosphere and influencing students’ learning experiences. In many college English classrooms across China, students often exhibit characteristically low participation and weak motivation. This study examines the dynamic mechanisms through which teachers’ emotions affect students’ learning engagement—encompassing behavioral, emotional, and cognitive dimensions—as well as their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research analyzed questionnaire data from 107 students across five Chinese universities, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with three instructors and twelve students. Findings reveal that positive teacher emotions, such as enthusiasm and encouragement, significantly enhance classroom interaction and promote sustained independent learning, while also serving as a positive predictor of intrinsic motivation. Conversely, negative emotions, including anxiety and apathy, were associated with classroom avoidance behaviors among 93.02% of respondents and were linked to reduced stability in goal orientation. Mediation analysis further supports the proposed pathway of “teachers’ emotions → learning engagement → learning motivation,” highlighting the mediating role of teacher-student emotional connection. These findings contribute to understanding affective transmission in second language acquisition and offer an empirical basis for developing teacher emotional literacy training and designing emotionally supportive pedagogical strategies, with practical implications for enhancing the ecology of foreign language instruction.

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