Practitioners respond to Carol Griffiths ‘What about the teacher?’ (Language Teaching, 56(2), 210–222)

Abstract

I read Carol Griffiths' article with great interest. This is due in part to being in what I feel is a privileged position as book reviewer for a UK journal, the EL Gazette,1 for whom I have read several titles by authors she references on teacher wellbeing, such as Mercer and Gregersen (2020). I wondered, however, why Brierton and Gkonou (2022) was not listed there as it also deals with issues raised by Griffiths such as how academic managers can help create an environment that reduces stress and mental health problems. It was also interesting to note that Griffiths, like myself, has spent most of her working life involved in English language teaching, almost all of which has taken place in Turkey. Her article also resonated with my own experience as a teacher-educator as it draws upon research carried out in a Turkish context (Griffiths & Sönmez, 2020).