Teacher Engagement in Language Teaching: Investigating Self-Efficacy for Teaching Based on the Project "Sino-Greece Online Chinese Language Classrooms"

EFL teachers' engagement: The impact of well-being and emotion regulation

As foreign language education is a challenging and complex activity, investigating the factors that influence English as foreign language (EFL) teachers' engagement may be an interesting area of research. In this field, teachers' engagement is considered an important factor related to people's perception of work. With the emergence of Positive Psychology (PP), and with regard to the role of constructive emotion variables in teachers' engagement, more attention was paid to the practical aspects of life, and it views well-being as a crucial concern for individuals' success. Emotion regulation (ER), as another emotional trait, is noteworthy as it aids in managing the favorable and unfavorable emotions educators commonly encounter in educational settings. Therefore, the constructs of well-being and emotion regulation and their role in the EFL setting have been highlighted. Therefore, the current study sought to assess the effects of well-being and emotion regulation in EFL teachers' engagement. To this end, 410 Chinese EFL teachers were chosen to complete three scales, namely engagement, well-being and ER. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was run to inspect the responses of the teachers. The results specified that both ER and well-being had significant impacts on the engagement of Chinese EFL teachers. Indeed, 65 percent of changes in the EFL educators' engagement can be predicted by their well-being, and about 73 percent can be predicted by their emotional regulation. The consequences for EFL instructors, teacher trainers, and other academic stakeholders are also presented in detail.

Primary school teachers are immune: a journey in the sea of psychological well-being, buoyancy, and engagement

The concept of language teacher immunity is a relatively new notion that has been introduced in the field of language teacher psychology. It is imperative that teachers have their inherent immunity strengthened since they have never been intrinsically protected against fluctuations that are unanticipated and beyond their control. In order to achieve this goal, the present research used a quantitative approach in order to investigate the possible effects of teacher immunity on their psychological well-being, buoyancy, and engagement. This study was conducted by sending out three questionnaires to a total of 384 primary language teachers. On the basis of the findings, it was concluded that teacher immunity has the potential to serve as a significant predictor of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' psychological well-being, buoyancy, and engagement. The research's conclusions may have substantial implications for education in terms of advancing psychological well-being, buoyancy, and engagement.

Motivating online language learning: exploring ideal L2 self, grit, and self-efficacy in relation to student satisfaction

Introduction

This study delves into the intricate network of motivational factors that influence online learning satisfaction among intermediate-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in mainland China.

Methods

A diverse sample of 496 EFL students participated in this research. Structural Equation Modeling was employed as the analytical method.

Results

The results of the study reveal significant and positive relationships between ideal L2 self and L2 grit with online learning satisfaction. Additionally, online learning self-efficacy emerged as a crucial mediator between ideal L2 self and online learning satisfaction, as well as between L2 grit and online learning satisfaction.

Discussion

These findings provide valuable insights into the motivational dynamics within online language learning contexts. They offer practical implications for educators and instructional designers seeking to enhance students' online learning experiences.

Reflective teaching and academic optimism as correlates of work engagement among university instructors

As teaching is a complex and demanding activity especially in university and higher education contexts, exploring the correlates of work engagement in university contexts seems to be a promising research area. As an attempt to further clarify this research area, this study sought to examine the significance of reflective teaching and academic optimism as correlates of work engagement among university instructors in Iran. Having been selected via convenience sampling, a sample of 289 Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) university instructors participated in this survey. The electronic versions of the scales of teacher academic optimism, reflective teaching, and work engagement were administered to the participants. Initially, the construct validity of the scales was verified for the university contexts via performing confirmatory factor analysis. Then the hypothesized structural relationships among the constructs were tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results demonstrated that both reflective teaching and academic optimism significantly predicted work engagement among English university instructors. Some notable implications are finally discussed based on these findings.

Modeling the contributions of EFL university professors' emotion regulation to self-efficacy, work engagement, and anger

As university professors' emotion regulation (ER) plays a pivotal role in their efficacy, it is essential to explore if it is significantly correlated with work engagement (WE), self-efficacy, and anger at the workplace. To respond to the call, this research inspected the contributions of university professors' ER to their WE, self-efficacy, and anger. For this purpose, a total of 278 university professors were selected using a convenience sampling method and asked to fill out Language Teacher Emotion Regulation Inventory, Engaged Teacher Scale, Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale, and Teacher Anger Scale. A structural equation modeling was used to analyze the gathered data. Results disclosed that the participants' ER significantly contributed to their WE and self-efficacy. Additionally, the findings documented that the participants' ER was negatively correlated with their anger. The implications of the findings are discussed for pertinent stakeholders.

Developing and validating a scale for measuring pre-service Chinese as an additional language teacher beliefs

Teacher beliefs are a pivotal psychological quality for sustainable teacher development. Previous studies have mainly focused on the beliefs of English-as-a-second/foreign-language (ESL/EFL) teachers, while little attention has been paid to those of Chinese-as-an-additional-language (CAL) teachers. Particularly, there is a paucity of effort made to develop and validate instrument for measuring pre-service CAL teacher beliefs. Therefore, to further quantify the beliefs of CAL teachers is increasingly called for as an essential means to help teachers sensitize their beliefs system and promote teacher development as a sustainable goal. To be specific, the present study aims to construct a scale for gauging beliefs of pre-service CAL teachers. It firstly conceptualizes the dimensions of pre-service CAL teacher beliefs by means of semantic analysis with ROST CM6, and then cross-validates the reliability and validity of the scale with psychometric methods. Two independent samples composed of 221 and 222 pre-service CAL teachers participated in a questionnaire survey. The two samples were utilized for later Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), respectively. The two data sets have satisfactory psychometric results, all confirming that the scale subsumes three factors: Beliefs about Chinese Language Teaching (BCLT), Beliefs about Chinese Language (BCL), and Beliefs about Chinese Language Learners (BCLL). The scale validated in the present study contributes to research on pre-service CAL teacher beliefs, and provides implications for sustainable pre-service CAL teacher training.

English as a foreign language teacher engagement with culturally responsive teaching in rural schools: Insights from China

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) has been found to promote student engagement and enhance learning in the classroom. As an effective pedagogy, the past decade has witnessed a soaring interest in exploring teachers’ competence, self-efficacy, and influencing factors in implementing CRT across school subjects. However, scant attention has been directed to language teachers’ engagement with CRT. Given the increasing diversity in students’ socio-economic status, cultural backgrounds, learning needs and preferences in English language classrooms, CRT has also become a prominent concern in China. This study sets out to explore English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher engagement with CRT in rural schools in China. With a multi-case study of eight EFL teachers, the researchers collected data through individual interviews and classroom observations. Four types of teacher engagement based on the foci (i.e., knowledge and practice) were identified and were further characterized by cognitive, emotional, and social aspects. This study also taps into the internal and external factors influencing the teachers’ engagement with CRT. Implications and suggestions were provided to tackle the problems of English Language Education in rural China and contexts alike worldwide.

Enhancing Chinese EFL Teachers’ Work Engagement: The Role of Self and Collective Efficacy

Teachers’ work engagement is considered an essential component in instruction. Accordingly, the emphasis should be over physical and mental predictors of this construct. In this line, this study investigates the relationship between Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ individual self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and work engagement. To this end, 300 Chinese instructors (males = 96, females = 204) from different colleges and universities participated in this study. The questionnaires were distributed among teachers with different educational levels and experiences. Linear multiple regression was used as a measure for data analysis. The findings showed the significant correlations between teachers’ work engagement, self-efficacy, and collective efficacy. Comparing the predictability power, teachers’ self-efficacy (B = 0.57) proved to have a higher index compared to their index of collective efficacy competence (B = 0.22). This study concluded that self-efficacious teachers and teachers who believe in collective efficacy are more engaged in the EFL contexts. Moreover, the study has some pedagogical implications and suggestions for different teacher educators, administrators, and advisors.

Effects of Teacher Engagement on Students' Achievement in an Online English as a Foreign Language Classroom: The Mediating Role of Autonomous Motivation and Positive Emotions

As an important factor promoting students' learning behavior and achievement, teacher engagement has been largely neglected in the research literature on English as a foreign language (EFL) and applied linguistics. Moreover, the few studies have focused more on conventional classrooms rather than online learning contexts and failed to reveal how teacher engagement in the online foreign language classroom affected students' achievement. The present study assessed 546 university students in China using self-report questionnaires to examine the relationship between teacher engagement and students' achievement in an online EFL course over an 18-week semester, taking into account the possible mediating effects of autonomous motivation and positive academic emotions. The results showed that teacher engagement exerted a direct and positive impact on students' English achievement. Students' autonomous motivation and enjoyment mediated the association between teacher engagement and English achievement, but the mediating effects of relief were not significant. Additionally, teacher engagement affected students' English achievement through the chain mediation of autonomous motivation and positive academic emotions (enjoyment and relief). Relief displayed a smaller effect on students' English achievement than enjoyment did. These findings elucidate the impact of teacher engagement on students' English achievement in the online environment and support the utility of self-determination theory and control-value theory in explaining foreign language learning. Directions for future research and implications for education are also presented.

Exploring a Structural Model of Teaching Enjoyment, Teacher Self-Efficacy, and Work Engagement

Due to the complexity of teaching, determining the variables influencing teachers' work engagement is a rewarding research area. In line with this research agenda, the purpose of this study was to test a structural model of work engagement based on teacher self-efficacy and teaching enjoyment among English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. For this purpose, 315 Iranian English instructors completed an online survey. Initially, the measurement models for the three latent variables were averred via conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Following that, structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to test the hypothesized model. SEM results showed that both self-efficacy and teaching enjoyment were the significant predictors of teachers' work engagement, although teacher self-efficacy was a stronger predictor than teaching enjoyment. The findings might have notable implications for English teachers.

Emotional Labor in Teaching Chinese as an Additional Language in a Family-Based Context in New Zealand: A Chinese Teacher's Case

New Zealand is a multilingual and multicultural society, where English, Maori, and the New Zealand sign language are designated as its official languages. However, some heritage languages (e.g., Chinese/Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Korean, among others) are also taught either within or outside the national education system. During the past decade, an increasing number of students have chosen Mandarin Chinese (hereafter "Chinese") as an additional language (CAL) because of its fast-growing importance. To date, studies regarding CAL are mainly based on the mainstream Chinese programs (i.e., in schools or universities) or online platforms, with less attention paid to other types of teaching contexts (e.g., family-based and private tutoring contexts) where there also exist many potential challenges awaiting teachers. To fill in this gap, this study, based on a teaching program consisting of two families in New Zealand, explored the trajectories of a CAL teacher's emotional labor for 47 weeks to understand how she managed her emotions when she taught the language as well as balanced the relationship among the three parties: the institution, the two families, and herself. Narrative inquiry was used as a methodological approach. The data involved written and spoken narratives. Using inductive and deductive thematic analysis, findings revealed her different understandings of the emotional labor in the two families, respectively, during the program. Further analysis of the data revealed some factors that impacted her emotional labor and how they impacted her teaching in a family-based context. We concluded our study with a discussion of the implications of these findings for teaching CAL in similar contexts.

Chinese English as a Foreign Language Teachers' Immunity and Mindfulness as Predictors of Their Work Engagement

Considering the significant contribution of teachers' professional triumph in the prosperity of students, the current study aims to investigate the existence of any relationship among three factors influencing teachers' success: immunity, mindfulness, and engagement. Furthermore, we attempt to investigate whether English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' immunity and mindfulness can predict their work engagement. To this end, a Likert-scale questionnaire including items on teacher immunity, mindfulness, and work engagement was distributed to 582 EFL teachers in China through the WeChat application by employing a convenient sampling. To analyze the collected data, the Spearman Rho correlation index and linear multiple regression analysis are employed. The findings are that there does exist an indication of a direct relationship among EFL teachers' immunity, mindfulness, and work engagement. Also, it is found that immunity and mindfulness can predict EFL teachers' work engagement. The current study's findings support the necessity of training language teachers to cope with the EFL context adversities.

Authoring Selves in Language Teaching: A Dialogic Approach to Language Teacher Psychology

The teacher self is a composite psychological construct which encompasses the cognitive, affective, emotional, and social dimensions of teaching. This qualitative study draws on Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, answerability, and addressivity to discuss how English language teachers negotiated the shifting and conflictive context to construct selves in relation to the promoted communicative language teaching approach. Based on narrative interviews and classroom observations with five tertiary English teachers in China, we found that these teachers were actively engaged in the dialog with their prior learning experiences and active, responsive in answering their contexts while authoring selves in everyday teaching practice. The multiple-case study data support a Bakhtinian understanding that teachers are active users and producers of theory in their own right, highlighting teachers’ agency, creativity, and autonomy. Based on Bakhtin’s dialogism and the case study findings, we bring cognition, identity and practice together and conceptualize the teacher self as having multiple facets and layers: the autobiographical self, the discursive self, and the pedagogical self. The three selves are constitutive of the consummated whole of the teacher self instead of being separate entities functioning individually. The study is concluded with implications for language teacher education and teacher development.

A Study of Student-Teachers' Emotional Experiences and Their Development of Professional Identities

A reciprocal relation has been identified between teacher emotion and teacher professional identity. However, the underlying mechanism explaining this complex interaction remains underexamined. Moreover, limited attention has been paid to the emotional dimension of student-teachers' development of professional identity during university coursework. To bridge this gap, the present study explores how student-teachers' emotions reciprocally interact with their professional identities, drawing data from questionnaires, reflections, and interviews with students taking courses related to language teaching in a teacher-training university. Both quantitative and qualitative data delineated the intertwined trajectories of student-teachers' emotional experiences and the development of professional identity in the learning process of becoming teachers. Mainly triggered by course-related factors, student-teachers experienced a wide array of emotions, of which the polarity and intensity were determined and mediated by their goals and actions deriving from their professional identities. Those aroused emotions, in turn, signaled the developmental process of professional identity and promoted or hindered their emerging identities. This paper concludes with some implications for initial teacher education programs.

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.

A Case Study on the Impacts of Social Contexts on a Chinese English as a Foreign Language Learner's L1 and L2 Identities Development

Informed by the poststructuralist theory, this study investigates the case of Ming, a Chinese professor of English, about the impacts of his first language (L1) and second language (L2) learning experience, and the changes of social contexts on his L1 and L2 identities construction. It was found that being a learner of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Ming's identities development aligned with the poststructuralist theory, in which it is considered dynamic, fluid and conflicting. Ming negotiated and renegotiated his identities in various social contexts in China and the United States and finally gained acceptance into the L2 academic community. This study not only analyzes Ming's experience with his language learning and identities, but also unravels that conflicts may be part of the process of identities construction, and encourages learners to be persistent and emotionally resilient, while using certain strategies to retain a stable L1 identity so that they can navigate through the negative encounters during the second language acquisition (SLA) process to sustain the development of their identities and L2 abilities.

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.

Using Assessment for Learning: Multi-Case Studies of Three Chinese University English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Teachers Engaging Students in Learning and Assessment

Student engagement is an important issue in learning and teaching given its positive effects on students' learning outcomes. Assessment for Learning (AfL), an assessment and pedagogic innovation, if done well, can fully engage students in the learning and assessment process. Adopting a multi-case design, the present study explored how Chinese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers used AfL to facilitate student engagement in their classrooms and what factors influenced their AfL practices. Three EFL teachers were recruited on a voluntary basis from two universities in Northwest China. Data collected from semi-structed interviews, stimulated recall interviews, and classroom observations suggested that teacher participants demonstrated differed assessment practices, representing Assessment of Learning (AoL), convergent, and divergent AfL, respectively. Three factors: teacher assessment literacy, teachers' beliefs about the relationship between goal orientation and motivation, as well as a trusting relationship between teachers and students, were identified as contributing to teachers' different assessment practices. Our study calls for teacher educators' efforts to equip teachers with necessary assessment-related knowledge and skills, encourage teachers to negotiate learning goals with students, and help teachers establish a trusting environment in their classrooms, if AfL is to be fully embedded in classroom instruction.

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.