Teacher Burnout: A Case Study among EFL Instructors at the English Preparatory Schools at Universities in North Cyprus

Mubeher Urun Goker

doi:10.22158/grhe.v4n4p47

Abstract

The job of being an English language instructor is both demanding and challenging. Recently many researchers have been paying attention to determine teachers’ attitudes, burnouts, and self-efficacy towards the subject and to find a relationship between those psychological concepts and certain variables. However, there is not much research done in the field of English language teaching in North Cyprus, Turkey, and in the Middle East regarding EFL teacher burnout and self-efficacy. This study aimed to investigate the perceived levels of burnout among EFL Instructors at the English Preparatory Schools in Girne American University, Near East University and the European University of Lefke in North Cyprus using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Education Survey developed by Friedman. The study, in which 51 EFL instructors participated found that instructors experienced low levels of emotional exhaustion, low levels of depersonalization in relationships with students, colleagues, and others, and a high level of personal accomplishment in their work. An EFL instructor’s age, marital status, work experience, weekly teaching hours, job status, native or non-native status do not seem to influence instructors’ responses on each of the sub-scales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. However, variables gender and the university they work to influence their responses related to emotional exhaustion, but they do not influence their responses related to depersonalization and personal accomplishment scores on the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

Highlights

People especially learn English because it‟s the most common language spoken in the world
Since very little research has been done on teacher stress and burnout in the field of EFL/ESL, and there is not much research done in the field of English language teaching in North Cyprus, Turkey, and in the Middle East regarding teacher burnout and self-efficacy
Taking the low level of means of the participants related to depersonalization into consideration, this result might reveal the fact that EFL instructors in this study are far away from depersonalization because perception level to the item “I have become more callous toward people since I took this job” is very low (M=.27). 3.3 Results and Discussion of the Research Question 3 Research question 3 seeks answers as to the perceptions of EFL instructors regarding the perceived levels of burnout related to personal accomplishment-Personal Accomplishment (PA)

Summary

Introduction

People especially learn English because it‟s the most common language spoken in the world. Many teachers end up having more negative feelings about themselves, their students, and their profession than they were initially They start developing feelings of emotional exhaustion and fatigue, negative attitudes towards their students, and loss of feelings of accomplishment in their job. Maslach and Jackson (1981) argue that burnout comprises three factors: (a) “emotional exhaustion”, which is described as feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted, (b) “personal accomplishment”, which is experienced by teachers as decreased feelings of competence and achievement and a tendency to evaluate oneself negatively with respect to work and (c) “depersonalization” which is the development of negative feelings and attitudes about the profession. Organizational factors include institutional and job characteristics, e.g., inappropriate work demands, socioeconomic status of the school, and administrative support, etc. (Brissie, Hoover-Dempsey, & Bassler, 1988; Evers, Tomic, & Brouwers, 2004; Farber, 1984; Maslach et al, 2001)

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