Anxiety and labor resilience in accreditation of English Language teachers

Abstract

The requirement demanded of teachers of the English as a foreign language subject to continue functions in the teaching profession in Ecuador is one of the main causes of anxiety. This work aims to activate resilient capacity as a route that contributes to teachers' professional development and well-being as a foreign language in Ecuador. This work subscribed to the post-naturalistic paradigm. It used a fusion of the qualitative and quantitative approaches of socio-educational research during 2019-2021. The participants are two hundred and sixty teachers in service (45%) and in training stage (55%) domiciled in the province of Manabí. It used the Valero Anxiety questionnaire and the resilience strategies of the American Psychological Association. The instruments used are focus groups, participant observation, and a Likert-type questionnaire. The results show participants' perceptions regarding the access, complexity, and relevance of the international certification process are presented, a categorization of the manifestations of anxiety presented during the accreditation process, and the changes in the levels of resilience in pre-test and post-test. It concluded that anxiety levels could be reduced by working on resilience through educational interventions during the preparatory process for the international accreditation.