Siyu Duan

Teacher resilience has recently received significant attention in psychology and general education. However, the research on English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher resilience, particularly among vocational school teachers, has been understudied. There is still a lack of exploration regarding the internal structure of EFL vocational school teacher resilience in the Chinese context. To address this gap, this study employed a structural equation modeling approach to investigate the structure of resilience among EFL vocational school teachers. The EFL Teacher Resilience Scale was completed by 265 Chinese EFL vocational school teachers. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a tri-dimensional structure of EFL vocational school teacher resilience involving professional, emotional and social and cultural dimensions. Additionally, the findings of this research indicated a significantly high level of EFL vocational school teacher resilience, both overall and across its three dimensions. These findings provided implications for the sustainable professional development of EFL vocational school teachers and suggestions for further research in this field.

While teacher resilience, as a multidimensional construct, has been increasingly focused in recent years, there is still a dearth of exploration into the inner structure of resilience with a highlight of characteristics of language teachers. To fill this gap, the current study developed a language teacher resilience scale and assessed it among 3992 Chinese high school English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the acceptable fit of the 22‐item EFL teacher resilience scale and yielded a four‐factorial structure of EFL teacher resilience involving professional, emotional, social, and cultural dimensions. Cultural dimension is newly developed and mirrors the specific features of language teacher resilience. Based on the findings, implications are provided for future research on language teacher resilience.

Teacher resilience has been an increasingly hot topic in the booming perspective of positive psychology. It has often been conceptualized as the capacity to bounce back from teaching adversities that form in the process of dynamic and complex interaction and interconnection between teachers and the context in which they operate. However, scant attention has been paid to unveiling the fluctuation and process developmental mechanism of early career English teacher resilience, especially from an ecological perspective. A self-narrative study could serve as a bridge to understand teachers’ capacity for resilience to navigate multiple challenges, discover and reconstruct themselves and ensure recovery and development in their daily interaction with their environment. Against this backdrop, the present study adopted a self-narrative method to explore the dynamic development and influencing factors of early career English teacher resilience. Results concerning early career English teacher resilience displayed an approximate V-shaped developmental trajectory evincing a Fighting–Lying flat–Seeking balance–Fighting–Fighting transition during the early stages of an educational career. Additionally, this was affected by various personal factors (i.e., previous experience, belief, motivation and well-being) and contextual factors (i.e., students, family and colleagues) over the past five years. In light of these findings, implications are proposed for fostering early career teachers’ resilience to deal with setbacks and promoting their sustainable professional development.

Recent studies have shown the crucial role of students’ perceived English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher support in their academic learning within their immediate social environments. Nevertheless, little is known about the intricate links among dimensions of perceived EFL teacher support and academic achievement as well as the mediating function of personalities (e.g., academic buoyancy). To close these gaps, in the current study, a quantitative approach was used to examine the effects of particular dimensions of students’ perceived EFL teacher support (i.e., academic, emotional, and instrumental support) on educational outcomes. The mediating role of academic buoyancy was also investigated. A total of 402 Chinese senior high school students who learn English as a foreign language were invited to complete the questionnaires to evaluate their academic buoyancy and three types of perceived EFL teacher support. The results of structural equation modelling indicate that none of these three dimensions of students’ perceived EFL teacher support could directly predict academic achievement. Students’ perceived EFL teacher support could only indirectly affect educational outcomes via the complete mediation of academic buoyancy. This study provides teachers with tips on fostering students’ personality traits and aiding their academic progress.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, online teaching became a significant method at different levels of education across the globe. The transition from traditional offline to online educational environments brought new challenges for language teachers. Buoyancy plays a crucial role for teachers to bounce back from challenging situations. However, there is a scarcity of empirical research on language teacher buoyancy in online contexts from an ecological perspective which is conducive to unfolding the complex and dynamic nature of buoyancy. To fill this gap, the current study utilized a qualitative research method to investigate the factors influencing English teacher buoyancy in online teaching and how they shape and exercise buoyancy in their negotiation with different ecological systems in online teaching guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. The findings revealed that teachers experienced multiple challenges from different ecological systems, such as ineffective classroom interaction, work–life imbalance, heavy workload, and higher school requirements. Additionally, teacher buoyancy was shaped by the dynamic interaction between teachers and ecological systems and was not only viewed as the individual’s ability but as a socio-ecological product. Based on the above findings, the paper provides some implications for developing and researching language teacher buoyancy in the future.