Mental burnout of english teachers and countermeasures

Abstract

The mental burnout of English teachers is detrimental to their work efficiency, teaching quality and the performance of their students. Therefore, this paper fully explores the mental burnout of English teachers, aiming to design suitable countermeasures. The research data were collected through a questionnaire survey in 5 universities and 7 middle schools in Beijing, China. Based on the data, the author analyzed the current situation of mental burnout of English teachers, evaluated the impacts of gender, age and workload on mental burnout, and identified the causes of mental burnout. On this basis, several suggestions were made to alleviate the phenomenon. The results show that a considerable proportion of English teachers suffer from relatively serious mental burnout; the main cause of mental burnout is emotional exhaustion, which is more serious among females than males; the most serious mental burnout is observed among English teachers in the age groups of 51~60, 41~50 and 31~40, and those who teach 0~8 hours and 9~12 hours; mental burnout mainly arises from the contradictions between expectation and reality, work and family, teachers and students, science and politics, as well as pay and return. This paper fully discloses the mental situation of English teachers and propels the English teaching reform.