Job Burnout Of Secondary School EFL Teachers: Investigation, Analysis And Suggestions

In recent years, burnout has become a burgeoning issue in the psychological field. As society become more and more competitive, teachers endure greater and greater pressure and many of them are suffering from burnout. The burnout problem of teachers not only does much harm to teachers and students but restricts the sound development of education. Therefore, studying teacher burnout is greatly meaningful.Researches on teacher burnout at home mostly are the literatures of the theories and findings of the related studies abroad. The empirical studies are limited, let alone the empirical studies on teacher burnout of secondary school EFL teachers.This study aims to explore the overall burnout level of secondary school EFL teachers and the relationship between some important demographic variables and teacher burnout, by taking secondary school EFL teachers as samples. And according to the findings of this survey, the study provides some reference materials for individual teacher, school leaders and education administrative to learn about the burnout situation of secondary school EFL teacher and also suggest some specific and effective strategies for them.This study employs a questionnaire which is revised on the basis of Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), whose items are compiled into three dimensions:emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. The collected data are analyzed by Statistic Package for Social Science-SPSS 17.0 in the perspectives of overall burnout level of secondary school EFL teachers and the relationship between demographic variables and burnout. The findings of this survey are as follows:Secondary school EFL teachers suffer moderate overall burnout level, exhibiting high level of emotional exhaustion, moderate level of depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. There is no significant difference between different groups in the aspects of gender, age, years of teaching, marital status, education background, grade level and income. But male English teachers exhibit a little lower level of job burnout; younger and less experienced teachers are reported to exhibit higher level of burnout than older and experienced subjects; generally married English teachers suffer higher level of burnout in the three dimensions; teachers with lower level of education background suffer higher level of burnout generally and in the three dimensions; burnout level decreases as income increases. In the aspects of professional title and workload, there are significant differences between different categories. Specifically, secondary school EFL teachers with different professional title exhibit significant different level of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Teachers with senior title experience lowest level of burnout. In the dimensions of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and overall burnout level, teachers undertaking different workload experience significant different level of burnout. Teachers with above 20-period lessons exhibit highest level of burnout.Demographic factors are important contributors to teacher job burnout. Therefore, school leaders should try to scientifically distribute teachers, provide more convenient conditions for teacher professional development, reasonably allot teaching task and increase teacher income.