LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021 p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 193 Constructing Teacher Identity: Teachers Emotion in Teaching English for Pre-School Students Anastasia Camelia W. 1 camegelia@gmail.com Ouda Teda Ena 2 ouda@usd.ac.id Concilianus Laos M. 3 cons@usd.ac.id 1,2,3 Sanata Dharma University Abstract This research discusses how teachers’ emotion regulation helps them construct their professional identity. To be specific, the emotion regulation studied is around teaching pre-school students. The emotion regulation investigated covers the teachers’ behavior in the classroom setting when they are dealing with little children. The research question of this study is “How teachers’ identity is constructed especially in teaching pre-school students?”. Theories related to emotion competence, emotion regulation, and teacher identity were also reviewed in this paper. In conducting the research, teachers from one of English courses in Yogyakarta becomes the participant. The researcher uses the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). Many factors such as teaching goals, commitment, particular meaningful experiences become the main consideration in formulating the questions asked in the interview section. Actions such as the distribution of questionnaires and interviews are conducted in order to collect the data. In analyzing the data, the researcher presents the findings narratively based on the result of the questionnaire and the interview. Keywords: Emotion Regulation, Teaching English, Teacher Identity, Pre-School Students INTRODUCTION It is obvious that teaching pre-school students is a challenge. Understanding the materials is not enough. Teachers need to understand the pre- school students and their behavior too. It is not as easy as communicating with teenagers or adults. As shown in research by Van Der Want et al. (2018), teachers need to cope with and give meaning to their relationship with students (p. 2). The relationship mentioned is also related to emotions that occur during the learning process. Moreover, this research is also rising based on the writer’s personal reflection that teaching pre- school students need extra energy since the condition and the situation can be out of control. In this paper, the writer would like to investigate the emotional regulation of teachers during teaching English to pre-school students. Pre-school students here refers to children 3-6 years old. Emotion regulation itself is interesting because as teachers, it is frequently quite difficult for the writer to be able to manage her emotion during the learning process, especially when she teaches pre-school students. Personal problems and sometimes the pre-school students’ behavior in class influence the emotion as a teacher. It faces the teachers to their personal identity as a human and my professional identity as an English teacher. It means that teachers have to give a good example to their students and they are trusted by the students’ parents to ‘take care’ of their children in the course their surrender their children to. Teachers deal with many students with a different character. In the classroom, the unexpected situation is possible to happen. The situation in the classroom also involves teachers’ emotions. Further, questions such as “How can the teacher manage his/her emotion in front of the