The Effective Role of Professional Vitality and Language Awareness on Burnout Level: A Case of Iranian EFL Teachers

Teachers’ burnout as a psychological disease has attained great attention over the past few years. Also, research revealed that many factors affect burnout level of teachers. In the same vein, the present quantitative research study aimed at investigating the relationship between EFL teachers’ professional vitality and burnout. In addition, the interplay between EFL teachers’ language awareness and burnout was examined. Moreover, by utilizing multiple regressions, the study tried to probe the predictive ability of EFL teachers’ professional vitality and language awareness on their burnout. The data were gathered through the application of three questionnaires including the language awareness test developed by Alderson, Clapham, and Steel (۱۹۹۶), a modified version of professional vitality; one of the subscale of Skovholt Practitioner Professional Resiliency and Self-Care Inventory (۲۰۱۰), and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators’ Survey. The participants were ۹۶ EFL teachers from various universities and language institutes in Shiraz, Iran. They were from both genders and various age groups. The results from Pearson Product Correlation demonstrated a significant negative relationship between EFL teachers’ professional vitality and burnout. Furthermore, the results showed that participants’ language awareness has a reverse relationship with their burnout. Finally, the findings revealed that professional vitality was a better predictor of teachers’ burnout levels. Concerning the pedagogical implications, EFL teachers should enhance their professional vitality and language awareness as they can weaken the effects of burnout in the educational contexts.