Turkish EFL Instructors’ Level of Burnout and the Underlying Reasons

Year 2019, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 105 - 125, 30.06.2019

Nur Gedik Bal

Abstract

Teaching is a profession in which individuals interact and
construct their identities in relation to others; therefore, the challenges are
not limited to the restrictions regarding the curriculum or tests. Instructors may
feel stressed and restricted when dealing with certain social problems in the EFL
context. This can lead to undesirable attitudes towards
themselves, their students and profession, and lead to eventual burnout. This
study aims to identify the level of burnout EFL instructors experience on different
components of the burnout scale, find the possible effect of type of university
and the degree on the EFL instructors’ level of burnout, and indicate possible
reasons for burnout and EFL instructors’ suggestions towards preventing it. The
results of the questionnaire completed by sixty-four EFL instructors in Turkey
indicated the level of burnout of the EFL instructors for Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization
was high irrespective of the type of institution. There was a significant
difference between state and private university educators’ perceptions of the
burnout level for these two dimensions whereas there was no significant
difference for Personal Achievement.
Semi-structured interviews conducted with seven instructors provided details
regarding the reasons for burnout and ways to avoid future burnout in the EFL context.

Keywords

Burnout, EFL instructor, language teaching

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