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

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.

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Xue

2021

“…While several studies have been conducted on different factors contributing to teachers' work engagement (e.g., Hultell and Gustavsson, 2011;Bao et al, 2021;Greenier et al, 2021), two important variables of emotion regulation and teacher resilience have received less attention. Moreover, no empirical research has probed these variables simultaneously to examine the role of emotion regulation and teacher resilience in predicting teachers' work engagement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Xie

2021

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.

“…Student engagement has no doubt become an important issue in learning and teaching across different education institutions in recent decades (Kahu, 2013 ; Lim, 2017 ; Bao et al, 2021 ; Harris and Leeming, 2021 ; Rahimi and Zhang, in press ). Many studies have shown that student engagement is related to student satisfaction and experience, their learning outcomes and achievements (Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005 ; Carini et al, 2006 ; Lei et al, 2018 ; Teng and Zhang, 2018 , 2020 ; Gan et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Zhang

Liu

2021

Self Cite

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.