Abstract:
Burnout is one of the potential threats to teachers which can negatively influence their performance and bring about many side effects such as poor health conditions, depression, absenteeism, etc. It has, however, been found teachers who use effective coping strategies to deal with stressful job conditions can resist burnout. This qualitative design study aimed to investigate the coping strategies of 15 Iranian high school EFL teachers who did not show burnout on Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The participants were interviewed and observed in classrooms and they were asked to keep journals for 8 sessions. The data were content analyzed and results show that establishment of rapport with students, discussing problems with principals and colleagues, class management, reflection, ongoing learning, adherence to moral principles and adopting a traditional teaching style are among the coping strategies these teachers used. The low frequency of these strategies, however, implies that EFL teachers, even those who resist burnout, need to be trained on different burnout coping strategies.
Machine summary:
ir/are Burnout Coping Strategies among Iranian EFL Teachers Ramin Akbari 1, Ahmad Reza Eghtesadi 2* 1 Associate Professor of ELT, Department of English Language Teaching, Tarbiat Modares University Tehran, Iran 2 Assistant Professor of ELT, Department of English Language Teaching, Farhangian University Tehran, Iran Received: 10/06/2016 Accepted: 13/01/2017 Burnout is one of the potential threats to teachers which can negatively influence their performance and bring about many side effects such as poor health conditions, depression, absenteeism, etc.
The data were content analyzed and results show that establishment of rapport with students, discussing problems with principals and colleagues, class management, reflection, ongoing learning, adherence to moral principles and adopting a traditional teaching style are among the coping strategies these teachers used.
Coping strategies of Iranian EFL teachers revealed in interview data No. Theme Frequency 1 Ongoing learning 18 2 Establishment of good rapport with students 18 3 Patience and ignoring problems 15 4 Interest in teaching 15 5 Discussing problems with principals and colleagues 12 6 Adherence to moral principles 11 7 Adherence to religious principles 6 8 Talking to others to relax 6 9 Reflection 5 10 Class management 4 As Table 2 indicates, one of the common themes in interviews was their intention and interest in developing one‟s linguistic and pedagogical knowledge.
Discussion As already stated, ongoing learning, establishing good rapport with students, patience and ignoring problems, interest in teaching, discussing problems with principals and colleagues, adherence to moral and religious principles, talking to others to relax, reflection, class management, and adopting traditional teaching styles were among the important strategies teachers used to prevent burnout or to cope with it.