Teachers: Research Practice / Talk 研究／実践についての話し合い 25 minutes / 25分 Language Teacher Wellbeing in Times of Change. more

Sat, Oct 21, 10:35-11:00 Asia/Tokyo

Our physiological states and emotions can often be described as “contagious” for the learners we teach (Mercer & Dörnyei, 2020); therefore, if teachers bring negative emotional states to the classroom such as stress or anxiety, learners will likely not fully engage. Wellbeing is a state of being comfortable, healthy or happy, which is not static and fluctuates over time (Mercer & Gregersen, 2020); thus, consistently acknowledging one’s wellbeing is fundamentally important. When COVID-19 hit, English language teaching was disrupted with many teachers required to move towards an emergency remote teaching environment, which caused change and challenges. With the balance between professional and personal life challenging to manage (Pourbahram & Sadeghi, 2022), the pandemic and emergency remote teaching likely influenced teacher wellbeing. With virus restrictions relaxed, institutions have now transitioned back to the physical classroom. This presentation reports on English language teacher perspectives concerning their wellbeing during and after emergency remote teaching. Quantitative data were analysed with Kern's (2014) Workplace PERMA-Profiler in connection with Seligman's (2011) PERMA model consisting of 5 core areas of wellbeing - Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Negative Emotion and Health were also incorporated in the survey.