Emotions and Sensemaking in EMI Teaching: An Autoethnography of a Vietnamese Lecturer in Taiwan

Abstract

This autoethnography explores how I, a novice Vietnamese lecturer in Taiwan, made sense of and responded to emotional tensions in an English‐medium instruction (EMI) classroom. Drawing on personal journals and teaching notes from September 2025 to January 2026, it focuses on four tensions: students’ language use, classroom silence, dependence on oral explanation, and care versus consistency in assessment. Teacher sensemaking guided analysis of how ambiguous cues were noticed, interpreted, reconsidered, and translated into pedagogical action. Initial interpretations often linked communication difficulties to personal inadequacy, but reflection led to more cautious, provisional understandings. Detailed slides, written instructions, reminders, and individualized feedback expanded access to course information while increasing instructional labor. In assessment, care was reinterpreted as transparency and consistent application of shared criteria. The study highlights the linguistic and professional in‐betweenness of an international EMI lecturer and the need for preparation in multilingual interaction, pedagogical responsibility, emotional vulnerability, and instructional labor.