Occupational Burnout among Foreign Language Teachers

Teaching profession has historically been viewed as the labor of love and kindness. It has many intrinsic and extrinsic rewards for people entering the pedagogical arena. However, teaching is not without its inherent problems. Problems associated with job related stress remain at the top of many teachers list. In recent years, it has become a global concern, considering that about as many as a third of the teachers surveyed in various studies around the world reported that they regarded teaching as highly stressful. In this connection, burnout,a result of chronic stress, has serious negative repercussions not only on the teacher's well being but also on the teaching-learning processes in which he or she is immersed. In the present study, teacher burnout was studied with respect to two internal coping resources, namely emotional intelligence and self-efficacy, in an EFL context. Further, teacher differences on these constructs were investigated with respect to demographic variables.

Autorentext

The author is an M.A. graduate of TEFL from Iran University of Science and Technology. His main research interests include Teacher Education, CALL, FFI, Sociolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Reading and Vocabulary Learning Strategies. He has published several papers at different international ISI and peer-reviewed journals.