Call for Submissions
Topic: Teacher Empathy: Teaching Through Seeing, Understanding, and Caring
Deadline for Submissions: 20 December 2025
We are delighted to invite submissions for the forthcoming issue of the Teacher Educator Interest Section Newsletter, titled "Teacher Empathy: Teaching Through Seeing, Understanding, and Caring." This issue seeks to explore the powerful role of empathy in teaching and teacher education, examining how empathy shapes classroom practice, teacher-student relationships, and educational communities.
Empathy is at the heart of effective teaching — it involves the ability to truly see, understand, and care for our students and colleagues. Yet, the practicalities and complexities of teacher empathy are often left unexamined. How can educators cultivate and sustain empathy amid diverse and demanding contexts? What impact does empathetic teaching have on student learning, teacher wellbeing, and school climate? How can institutions foster cultures of empathy and care?
Whether you are a language teacher, teacher educator, researcher, or administrator, we invite you to share your research, experiences, and strategies for nurturing empathy in educational settings.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Practical approaches for developing empathy in teachers and students
- The role of empathy in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms
- Empathy and its relationship to teacher wellbeing and resilience
- Institutional support and professional development for empathetic teaching
- Stories of transformative relationships and moments of empathy in teaching
- Challenges to empathy: burnout, compassion fatigue, and emotional labor
- Research on empathy as a pedagogical tool in language education
- Building communities of care: empathy among colleagues and administrators
We welcome submissions in the form of research articles, practitioner reflections, case studies, or practical strategies for fostering teacher empathy.
Submission Types
Articles
Articles should be between 800 and 1,000 words and should address the questions and themes outlined above.
Book Reviews
Book reviews of between 300 and 500 words should analyze books relevant to teacher empathy, relational teaching, or emotional intelligence, offering insights into their contributions to the field.
TEIS Voices
TEIS Voices are short paragraphs of approximately 100 words, spotlighting a teacher, program, or initiative that exemplifies empathy in teaching. These pieces highlight innovative practices and serve as a networking tool.
Submission Guidelines
Send your submissions as Word documents (no PDFs) to [email protected] no later than midnight, 31 October 2025, US Eastern time.
Please include the following details in your submission:
- A title for the article (written in ALL CAPS).
- Author's name, affiliation, city, country, and e-mail.
- A 2-3 sentence abstract or teaser for the newsletter homepage.
- A 2- to 3-sentence author biography.
- No more than five citations.
- Manuscript formatted in MS Word (.doc(x)) or rich text (.rtf).
- An author's photo in jpeg format with a head-and-shoulder shot.
- Articles should adhere to APA style (7th ed.).
Newsletter Editors
Vu Tran-Thanh
School of Education, Durham University, UK
Melissa Mendelson
Department of Linguistics, University of Utah, USA
Rebecca Turk
Department of Education, Montana State University, USA