| In the context of education being highly valued,the requirements for teachers are constantly increasing.It is inevitable for teachers to assume more responsibilities and massive pressure.Teacher burnout appears when teachers cannot deal with their work pressure effectively.It not only has adverse influence on teachers’ physical and mental health and professional development,but also threatens the quality of education.Therefore,teacher burnout cannot be underestimated.In recent years,domestic researchers have attached great importance to the study of teacher burnout.However,the study on Chinese senior high school English teachers’ burnout is relatively fewer.Based on this,it is of necessity to investigate the current situation of Chinese senior high school English teachers’ burnout so as to enrich and develop this research field and also make contributions to value teachers’ physical and mental health and relieve their stress.The present study aimed to investigate the current situation of the senior high school English teachers’ burnout in the main urban area of Kunming.On the basis of the collection and analysis of relevant research at home and abroad,taking the affective filter hypothesis and the teacher career cycle theory as theoretical foundations,this research used a mixed methods and the research tools including questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.The present study mainly focuses on the three research questions:(1)What is the current situation of the senior high school English teachers’ burnout in the main urban area of Kunming?(2)What are the influencing factors of the senior high school English teachers’ burnout?(3)What measures can be taken to relieve the senior high school English teachers’ burnout?110 senior high school English teachers in the main urban area of Kunming participated this investigation,and 5 of them were selected as interviewees voluntarily.SPSS 22.0 was employed to analyze the data.The percentage analysis,descriptive statistics,independent-samples T-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted to test the differences in the burnout level,and multiple response analysis was conducted to test the influencing factors of the senior high school English teachers’ burnout.Then the countermeasures for preventing and relieving teacher burnout were proposed combined with the results of the interview of five English teachers.The major findings of this study are summarized as follows:(1)The current situation of the senior high school English teachers’ burnout in the main area of Kunming is not serious.However,in the core dimension of teacher burnout,they suffer severe emotional exhaustion.Their depersonalization and reduced personal achievement are both at a low level,which means they have a high sense of personal achievement in their work.(2)The factors affecting teacher burnout are discussed from the individual aspect and the environment aspect.From the demographic variables,there are significant differences in teacher burnout in regard to age,years of teaching experience,workload and income.No significance was found in gender and being the class teacher or not.But from the mean value,the female English teachers suffer a higher level of burnout than the male,while the class teachers experience a higher level of burnout than the other teachers.From the aspects of society,organization and occupation,the main influencing factors of teacher burnout consist of the expectations and requirements from society,the high living cost in the main area of Kunming,constant educational innovation,inspections and evaluations from the school,heavy workload and management of students.(3)Based on the factors affecting teacher burnout,the targeted countermeasures based on the interview analysis were proposed in order to prevent and relieve senior high school English teachers’ burnout in the main urban area of Kunming.From the social aspect,reasonable social expectations should be established,and teachers’ income and welfare treatment should be improved.From the organizational aspect,a supportive organization environment should be provided;the workload should be arranged reasonably,and the professional training should be available.From the individual aspect,such English teachers should learn the concept of teacher burnout and improve their ability of self-adjustment;they should also make a reasonable career plan and establish the concept of lifelong learning.This study makes a contribution to get aware of the current situation of senior high school English teachers’ burnout in the main urban area of Kunming.Theoretically speaking,this study is conducive to expanding the research on burnout among high school English teachers.The results and findings contribute to a better understanding of the effects of teacher burnout and may shed a different light on exploring effective measures to prevent and alleviate teacher burnout and providing a few of suggestions for future research. |
