The Role of EFL Teachers' Self-Efficacy and Emotional Resilience in Appraisal of Learners' Success

Different elements in education should be taken into account in the development of education which affects learners' success. Educators are one of the main elements of any educational program, primarily in mainstream education, and there is considerable research recognizing this and the fact that educators have a significant effect on learners' success. Therefore, education can be enhanced simply by enhancing educators' effectiveness. Moreover, because of the importance of educators' factors, many researchers have emphasized educator attributes over the last 20 years. In an attempt to better explain the interaction between educator-related concepts in the setting of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), educator self-efficacy has a significant impact on the educators' everyday lives as well as on their learners and is regarded as an important factor in successful education and instruction. Furthermore, as one of the characteristics, teacher resilience is a multifaceted and developmental concept that has newly captured the interest of some scholars, specifically in the last 20 years, allowing educators not only to face difficult situations to survive but also to recover and prosper. To this end, the current review tries to emphasize these two significant factors in regulating learners' success. Corresponding to this review, some suggestions for further research are provided and pedagogical implications are proposed.

Teachers’ response to a challenge to change: A portrait of teacher resilience to a professional development program

Teachers’ learning in keeping abreast of groundbreaking instructional techniques is crucial for their continuous development of which the ultimate goal is meaningful learning for students. However, research on the extent teachers respond to the demand to change especially on their assessment practice is limited. This study investigated teachers’ resilience on a new educational innovation on formative assessment which is group oriented. The study engaged a cohort of 100 high school teachers joining a professionalism-related seminar and workshop for the expected change. The data were collected from a set of individual questionnaire. Mowbray’s insight on process of reacting to events was employed to analyse the data projected to describe the teachers’ resilience on an innovative assessment practice. The findings indicated teachers revealed resilience to a certain extent on the innovative assessment practice. The majority were open to the challenge to change; it is the novice teachers who revealed the greatest resilience.

Challenges and Resilience-Building: A Narrative Inquiry Study on a Mid-Career Chinese EFL Teacher

With a high rate of attrition and burnout of teachers as a global concern, teacher resilience has become a trendy topic in the research of their professional development as one of the pillars of positive psychology (positive character traits). However, the literature reveals that little research has been done on the mid-career teachers in the Chinese context, especially on how resilience may be nurtured, sustained, or eroded over time. Focusing on a mid-career EFL female teacher (the author) in China as a case study, this longitudinal self-reflective study employs a narrative inquiry to investigate the challenges that the experienced teacher was encountered with and to depict her trajectories of resilience-building by fleshing out the interaction between challenges, resources, and coping strategies in her three different scenarios. “Hard data,” such as teaching journals, reflective field notes, and messages with students were collected and analyzed inductively by using thematic analysis, and “soft data,” like memory was also referred to. The findings unfolded challenges confronting the experienced teacher peculiar to the Chinese context and charted a detailed bumpy journey of resilience building in three phases, accompanied by her growing emotional, intellectual, and psychological capacities. Implications are drawn out for teacher resilience building, school leaders, and policymakers.

Novice and experienced music teacher resilience: A comparative case study

In many schools, both urban and rural, children living in poverty face daily stressors including lack of parental support, lack of resources, unsafe living conditions, and poor nutrition. As teachers are first responders in facing these difficult situations, resilience enables teachers to overcome challenges and succeed professionally. Teachers who have been found to be more resilient tend to feel more successful and stay in their positions longer. Teachers at varying experience levels have different approaches to maintaining their resilience in response to daily stressors. The purpose of this comparative case study was to compare the resilience factors of an early career and a late career music teacher within high-poverty, trauma-sensitive contexts. Participants exhibited varying levels of resilience by adapting their expectations to their school context and maintaining a positive attitude.

A Study on Chinese EFL Teachers' Work Engagement: The Predictability Power of Emotion Regulation and Teacher Resilience

Employing a sequential mixed-methods design, the current study examined the role of Chinese EFL teachers' emotion regulation and resilience in predicting their work engagement. To this end, 314 Chinese EFL teachers with various academic degrees and teaching experiences were opted from different schools, institutes, and universities of China. To obtain the quantitative data, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) were electronically distributed among participants. Performing correlational analyses, a strong association was found between teacher resilience and work engagement. The inspection of the correlations also revealed a moderate correlation between cognitive reappraisal and resilience as well as cognitive reappraisal and work engagement. To probe the predictability power of teacher resilience and emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal), structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed. The results of the SEM analysis demonstrated that Chinese EFL teachers' work engagement was predicted significantly and favorably by their resilience. Using semi-structured interviews, some qualitative data were also collected to fully understand Chinese EFL teachers' perceptions of work engagement. The thematic analysis (TA) of Chinese EFL teachers' responses to interview questions resulted in two main themes and 14 sub-themes, revealing extrinsic and intrinsic factors contributing to teaching engagement. The findings of TA illuminated that both personal resources and job resources can predict teaching engagement. The pedagogical implications for administrators and teacher trainers are further discussed.

Building Teachers' Resilience: Practical Applications for Teacher Education of China

Teacher resilience has a crucial role to play in teaching and teacher education all around the world. However, few practical attempts have been made to systematically improve and (re)build this characteristic in teachers. Against this backdrop, this article draws on a universal model to offer practical implications of building resilience in the teacher education of China which is largely oriented toward pedagogical and economic concerns rather than the socio-emotional aspects of teaching. More particularly, it explains the history of China's teacher education, the conceptualizations and significance of teacher resilience, and a systematic model to integrate resilience into teacher education. Finally, some practical implications and future directions are provided for avid scholars.

The Effect of Mindfulness Techniques on Teacher Resilience as Moderated by Conscientiousness

Burnout continues to be apparent among teachers and often leads to increased health care costs, absenteeism, and turnover rates. Burnout stems from unmanaged stress, which is the result of teachers’ response to challenges in the workplace. The purpose of this cross-sectional design study was to examine the relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience in high school teachers. An additional purpose was to examine whether the personality trait and conscientiousness moderate the relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience. The frameworks for this study were based on the self-awareness, -regulation, and -transcendence (S-ART) framework, the theory of planned behavior, and the concepts of resilience and job burnout. Four surveys were used to gather data from 133 high school teachers to understand the relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience as well as how conscientiousness moderates the relationship. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data. This study found a significant relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience in high school teachers. Additionally, this study found that conscientiousness does not significantly moderate the relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience in high school teachers. These results might be used to create a professional development tool for teachers to help them learn how to increase the quality of classroom interactions and their resilience through the use of mindfulness techniques. The outcome may be a more positive social and academic environment for students as well as teachers, based on the encouraged use of mindfulness techniques.