A Study Of High School EFL Teachers’ Job Burnout And Its Causes

In high school EFL teaching administration, a systematic understanding of teachers’burnout is important to the scientific development of teachers and the improvement ofteaching quality. Studies of teachers’ burnout in general have made apparent progress, but sofar there have not been enough studies of high school EFL teachers’ burnout. On the basis ofrelevant theories of psychology and pedagogy, and adopting an integrated methodologycombining empirical and theoretical procedures, this thesis will be devoted to the systematicinvestigation of the manifestations and causes of high school EFL teachers’ burnout.Firstly, based on relevant theories of job burnout, and employing an inventory of fourdimensions (including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment andknowledge effeteness) extended from MBI, this thesis conducts a survey on the job burnout of115EFL teachers as participants from five high schools in Shandong Province. Results show(1) that female teachers were more inclined to experience emotional exhaustion,(2) thatteachers with higher academic degrees were more prone to emotional exhaustion anddepersonalization,(3) that class teachers were more likely than others to suffer fromemotional exhaustion,(4) that income level has a remarkable effect on the four types ofteachers’ burnout, and (5) that special attention should be paid to female teachers with6-10years of teaching and male teachers with0-5years of teaching. Secondly, based on suchpsychological and pedagogical theories as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Role ConflictTheory, and through such empirical procedures as interviews and such theoretical proceduresas deduction and induction, this thesis explores the causes of job burnout of some of thesubjects. Results suggest that sources of their teaching burnout were manifold, mainly relatedto their educational systems, working loads, leadership, social status, students’ situation,interpersonal relationship, self-fulfillment and family life.This thesis may be theoretically significant in that the findings of the reported study maybe helpful to the formulation of certain strategies for reducing high school EFL teachers’burnout so as to enhance the quality of teachers and their teaching. It may also beacademically valuable as the reported study may hopefully compensate for the inadequateresearch of high school EFL teachers’ burnout.