Iranian EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of the Interplay between Professional Commitment and Academic Burnout
محورهای موضوعی : Teaching
Samira Hamzevand
1
,
Sorayya Behroozizad
2
,
Davud Kuhi
3
1 - Department of English, Mar.C., Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
2 - Department of English, Mar.C., Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
3 - Department of English, Mar.C., Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
کلید واژه: Academic burnout, EFL teachers, Professional commitment, Teaching communities,
چکیده مقاله :
Although diverse perspectives exist regarding the foundations and conceptualizations of reflective practice in educational contexts, there is broad scholarly agreement that reflection plays a central role in shaping teachers’ professional identity and enhancing their ongoing professional development. Reflective practice enables teachers to critically examine their instructional decisions, classroom behaviors, and underlying beliefs, thereby fostering more informed and adaptive teaching. Against this backdrop, the present study aimed to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of the reflective skills characterizing effective EFL teachers in the Iranian context. To achieve this objective, the study adopted a qualitative research paradigm and employed a grounded theory design to allow key categories and relationships to emerge inductively from the data. The participants comprised 30 conveniently selected female intermediate EFL learners from a language institute in Mashhad, Iran, who were considered capable of articulating informed perceptions of effective teaching practices. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and written reflective journals, which provided rich and complementary sources of qualitative data. The collected data were analyzed manually using thematic analysis, following the systematic procedures of open, axial, and selective coding to ensure analytical rigor and conceptual coherence. The findings revealed a comprehensive set of reflective skills perceived as essential to Iranian effective EFL teachers. These included behaving in a socially acceptable manner, motivating students, managing the classroom effectively, attending to learners’ diverse needs, planning appropriate teaching and evaluation methods, and engaging in skillful, critical, and creative thinking. Additional reflective competencies identified were verbal activeness, the ability to give and receive feedback, self-evaluation of teaching practices, and making informed modifications to instruction. Interestingly, the results indicated that attending to students’ diversity of needs and motivating students were perceived as the least important reflective skills, whereas self-evaluation, instructional modification, skillful thinking, effective planning, and classroom management were regarded as the most critical. Generally, the findings underscore the multidimensional nature of reflective practice in EFL teaching and highlight areas of emphasis and neglect within current perceptions. The study offers important implications for policymakers, teacher educators, and recruitment authorities, particularly in designing teacher education programs and professional development initiatives that systematically cultivate reflective skills among EFL teachers.
Although diverse perspectives exist regarding the foundations and conceptualizations of reflective practice in educational contexts, there is broad scholarly agreement that reflection plays a central role in shaping teachers’ professional identity and enhancing their ongoing professional development. Reflective practice enables teachers to critically examine their instructional decisions, classroom behaviors, and underlying beliefs, thereby fostering more informed and adaptive teaching. Against this backdrop, the present study aimed to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of the reflective skills characterizing effective EFL teachers in the Iranian context. To achieve this objective, the study adopted a qualitative research paradigm and employed a grounded theory design to allow key categories and relationships to emerge inductively from the data. The participants comprised 30 conveniently selected female intermediate EFL learners from a language institute in Mashhad, Iran, who were considered capable of articulating informed perceptions of effective teaching practices. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and written reflective journals, which provided rich and complementary sources of qualitative data. The collected data were analyzed manually using thematic analysis, following the systematic procedures of open, axial, and selective coding to ensure analytical rigor and conceptual coherence. The findings revealed a comprehensive set of reflective skills perceived as essential to Iranian effective EFL teachers. These included behaving in a socially acceptable manner, motivating students, managing the classroom effectively, attending to learners’ diverse needs, planning appropriate teaching and evaluation methods, and engaging in skillful, critical, and creative thinking. Additional reflective competencies identified were verbal activeness, the ability to give and receive feedback, self-evaluation of teaching practices, and making informed modifications to instruction. Interestingly, the results indicated that attending to students’ diversity of needs and motivating students were perceived as the least important reflective skills, whereas self-evaluation, instructional modification, skillful thinking, effective planning, and classroom management were regarded as the most critical. Generally, the findings underscore the multidimensional nature of reflective practice in EFL teaching and highlight areas of emphasis and neglect within current perceptions. The study offers important implications for policymakers, teacher educators, and recruitment authorities, particularly in designing teacher education programs and professional development initiatives that systematically cultivate reflective skills among EFL teachers.
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