The general idea is that our knowledge of people and situations automatically and effortlessly shapes what we “see” people doing and gives rise to our explanations for that behaviour.

–   Solving the Emotion Paradox: Categorization and the Experience of Emotion

Consider first the obvious fact that no language has or can have a word for every experienceable emotion.

–   Are All “Basic Emotions” Emotions? A Problem for the “Basic” Emotions Construct

One could go out on a limb and claim people generally want to be good and to the extent possible, do good. Few would have any quarrel with the suggestion it is not unattractive to be known as forgiving, broad-minded, open-hearted and generous compared to being petty, vengeful and reactive. Yet, emotions get the better of us.

Though most children would be able to match emotion words to corresponding smileys (or frowneys), researchers are still not certain that emotions exist the way we may think of them. For example, happiness and sadness are experienced differently not only by different people, but also by the same person in different situations.

There is according to researchers a difference between feelings and emotions. The former is a natural instinct or impulse hardwired in us at birth and the latter is context and culture dependent. ‘Feelings’ is one of the 5 keys in the 5 Keys System (for writing high-scoring compositions). ‘Feelings’ in the 5 Keys System refers more to emotions rather than feelings as conceptualised by researchers – raw, visceral, vague and ambiguous state.

There is no clear agreement on what exactly an emotion is or if it can be measured objectively. Why is this important and what has this got to do with language learning or education for that matter?

Emotions determine quality of life and modulate attention. We learn better when we feel good and shut off when we do not. Also, negative emotions when not regulated lead to suboptimal outcomes and may result in fatigue.

Emotional regulation is a life skill which students learn as a Social-Emotional Skill during Form Teacher Guidance Period (FTGP) and Mother Tongue periods in primary schools. Of course, interaction with students regardless of subject context lends itself to teachable moments and every interaction is in essence an opportunity to also learn about emotions. Put another way, it is difficult to teach (ensure learning is happening) without addressing emotions which would appear to arise naturally, though they are in fact, a result of specific conditioning (more on this later).

Emotional regulation is associated with self-awareness and self-management which are defined as social emotional competencies. So, we see the relevance of understanding emotions to language and indeed any kind of learning.

While explicit discussions on emotions are part and parcel of lessons, certain components of the English curriculum allow for training in emotional awareness and expression. One such component is the composition.

For example, in a recent lesson when we worked on guided writing, a student enacted the following scene.  Two friends wanted to shoplift. They brought along the unwitting protagonist who was risk averse and rule abiding. The student arrived at the paragraph when these two had done the deed and had walked out of and away from, the shop. The student was asked how the protagonist might be feeling.

The student’s answer was exceptionally nuanced. While the expected answer (occupational hazard) was fear because the protagonist was not experienced with such deviant behaviour and might naturally be expected to fear consequences, it was not the student’s first response. He was asked to imagine himself in the situation.

His first response was that the protagonist would feel betrayed – how could they have asked him to tag along? Then, he said the protagonist would feel anger. Interestingly, to this student, anger was conceptualised not in the typical way – shows of aggression but instead as “tears of rage”. Even if this is not a strictly unique expression (such expressions are rare and more importantly run the risk of causing dissonance or ridicule – consider literary critiques to Murakami’s colourful expressions of feelings; for instance, of jealousy), it was an act of creation, an expression originating from this student without reference to any book of stock phrases. The student went on to say that the anger then turned to fear – broke out into a cold sweat; when the protagonist contemplated the consequences.

Writing is an act of expression and narratives differ from other types of writing say for example an answer to an open-ended comprehension question and it is difficult to imagine expression without emotions. Alas, many a time, when we ask students how they are feeling, their responses tend to be in “global terms” – happy, sad (Barrett, 2006). This extends also to their description of how their characters in compositions feel.

Experientially and intuitively, we know anger or happiness is not one concrete, invariable feeling and accordingly, the writing feels flat and we feel like something is missing when emotions are expressed in global terms in compositions. Indeed, Lisa Feldman Barrett who is an expert on emotion and the brain, in 2006, compared emotions to the light spectrum where there are different hues of what we categorise as the same colour. Barrett (2006) explained that those who are able to distinguish and put words to the different hues of emotion they feel, have a high degree of “emotional granularity”.

Developing this ability to describe emotion in a granular way would lead to better writing. Writers understand that global labels – happy or modifiers – very happy, do not help readers access the nebulous nature of emotions as they are actually felt in real life. Writers have their own ways of overcoming this problem. Some like Murakami use similes.

Understanding what emotions are and how they are formed would go a long way in writing better compositions and emotional regulation.

To this end, Barrett’s work is instructive. First, she suggests based on evidence from psychology and neuroscience that emotions are made up of two parts; the feeling and contextualising that feeling.

According to her, feelings arise naturally according to what is perceived in the environment. Then, these feelings become emotions when they are evaluated in accordance with prior knowledge – were situations which share similar features to the instant situation threatening or rewarding? It is when an action in the environment is coated with meaning – he did this because (insert something positive or negative); that the feeling crystallises into emotion.

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) in psychology suggests that it is very natural to relate completely unrelated things. Due to prior experiences, action X could come across offensive and a bad intention might be attributed to doer of X. In a previous instance someone who did X may have had bad intentions. Now, anything which remotely resembles X might be interpreted and contextualised as bad intention. This interpretation would then cause negative emotions and a need to take action.

Emotions cause actions in certain cases. Such actions include bodily sensations (caused by thoughts or because they are learned), facial expressions and prototypical responses such as flight, fight or freeze.

Such actions could be more a result of conditioning than natural. Consider for example, a Thai boxer who smiles whenever he feels pain. In his context and culture, it is appropriate and adaptive to smile whenever he feels pain.

How can students apply this to their writing? First, they have to understand that emotions are always contextual and varied. They need to imagine themselves in situations. Every student would have formed different associations in relation to the same event.

To the student mentioned earlier, rage was manifested as tears and the actions of his two friends were a betrayal. Someone else might have interpreted their actions as a genuine attempt to be inclusive. A simple way to see how we can interpret the same action very differently based on our past experience is to try word association. What is the first word that comes to mind when you are presented with the word ‘white’? Answers are very likely to differ.

Currently, students learn that in certain situations, certain emotions and manifestations of those emotions are to be expected. This results in prototypical expressions or expression of emotions in global terms. If instead, they adopt what Shunryu Suzuki calls the beginner’s mind and experience a scene in their imagination, they may be able to express emotions with granularity. This is why the 5 Keys System has before, during and after stages in relation to a given theme.

How can students apply this in their lives? RFT has a solution to prevent emotions from getting the better of us. We have all these associations – Action X equals Intention X and Personality X and in the past X was very bad and any suggestion of X now must be dealt with. RFT suggests we do nothing about those associations because these are natural neural responses. However, we can free ourselves from the actions which typically follow the negative emotions which action X elicits. We do this by, setting aside those associations and approaching the matter with a beginner’s mind; that is, as though we are experiencing X for the very first time.

This way we may discover there are in fact too many possible reasons why action X was done and that in fact, no ill will of any kind was intended. This allows us to be more open to experience and avoid remaining in feelings of intense displeasure.

When something means less, we are mean less.

The Brain Dojo