Investigating Burnout among Iranian EAP Teachers: A Comparison of Content instructors and ELT Instructors

Abstract

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are currently well-established university programs. These courses are run independently by English Language Teaching (ELT) instructors and content instructors without any collaboration. However, ELT instructors and content instructors do not receive the same level of collegiality and social support from the organizations and students. This paper probed burnout among Iranian EAP teachers, including content instructors and ELT instructors in 28 state universities and its variations in relation to their demographic and organizational characteristics. To this aim, the Persian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was administered to content instructors (N=185) and ELT instructors (N=86) in the state universities in Iran. The results of the study indicated that while most of EAP teachers, both content instructors and ELT instructors, had low burnout, a considerable number had mid-levels of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The findings of the study also indicated that the ELT instructors had higher emotional exhaustion than the content instructors, and it was also found that the content instructors with more than 13 years of experience and the ELT instructors with more than 20 years of experience in teaching such courses had the lowest burnout. Based on the findings of the study, educational administrators are suggested to take remedial and preventive actions against EAP teachers’ burnout and enhance ELT instructors’ occupational well-being. It also seems necessary to assist EAP teachers in adapting to the requirements of teaching EAP courses through pre/in-service teacher training courses to obviate the need for extensive experience for gaining expertise in it.