A Study Of English Teachers’ Stressors In Rural Junior Middle Schools

There are considerable empirical researches indicating that teachers perceive their jobs tobe stressful. Johnson and Cooper (2005) did a survey to examine the connections between theoccupation and stress, and found that teaching was the second most stressful career. Theresearch about job burnout did by Liang Yunfang and Liu Li (2007) revealed that Englishteachers were considered to be the most stressful group. What’s more, teacher stress mayresult in reduced teaching efficiency. English education in rural areas is the significant part aswell as the weak and difficult link in our education system, yet has become a pressingproblem needs to be addressed urgently. Therefore my study attempts to identify Englishteachers’ stressors in rural junior middle schools.Maslow holds the view that human beings’ needs affect their behaviors, and thethwarting of needs is usually a cause of stress. Hence, to understand the English teachers’needs is the prerequisite for finding out the causes for their stress. According to Maslow’shierarchy of needs, English teachers’ needs can be divided into five levels correspondingly.1)Physiological needs, which include the aspects of salary, housing, and physical fitness.2)Safety needs, which contain job security, refraining from occupational diseases, poor workingconditions and accidents.3) Social needs, which mainly refer to excellent interpersonalrelationship and acceptance by the groups.4) Esteem needs, which consist of recognition andappreciation from leaders, students and parents, besides, higher social status and morerewards are included.5) Self-actualization needs, which involve the environment fordeveloping personal strengths, challenging work, and opportunities for training and promotion.Using the questionnaire survey, the study suggests67.7%of English teachers in ruraljunior middle schools are under higher stress. Through the demographic analysis, the following conclusions have been drawn. First of all, rural secondary schools are headingtowards the work environments that are non-masculinized. Male English teachers perceivemore stress than female teachers. Secondly, every age bracket of English teachers is unevenlydistributed; the whole structure tends to be aging. A lack of young English teachers hasalready been an impediment to the construction of teaching faculty. Furthermore, youngteachers in service are the most stressful ones, followed by the middle-aged teachers from30to45years old. Thirdly, the present study shows no significant relevance in occupationalstress and educational background. Fourthly, this study also reveals a negative correspondingrelationship between professional title status and stress level. Fifthly, English teachers whoteach the graduate classes suffer more pressure. In conclusion, the most stressful groups areyoung teachers, male teachers, teachers with low professional titles and teachers who teachgraduate classes.65validated questionnaires were collected for variables analysis with SPSS, then sixstressors have been abstracted for English teachers in rural middle schools; they are demandand expectation, students’ factors, treatment and status, workload, self-development andinterpersonal relationship. Among them, expectation and students’ factors are the mostcontributing stressors. With the help of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the study discovers thatEnglish teachers’ stress is mainly caused by the deprivation of esteem needs. Finally,suggestions are put forward to ease pressure according to five levels of needs theory. Theestablishment of objective evaluation system, in-service training and the improvement ofteachers’ social status could be the most effective measures.