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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Foreign Language Teacher Burnout: A Research Proposal

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description

Burnout is a serious psychological syndrome that can affect not only an individual’s well-being, but also the functioning of whole organisations, such as schools. It consists of three basic stages: exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Not only personal variables, but also work-setting characteristics influence burnout. The teaching profession is claimed to be extremely demanding, hence teachers seem to be prone to burnout. This may be the reason why the syndrome has already been investigated in reference to teachers of various subjects or school levels. Yet, there has been no research to date attempting to investigate burnout in foreign language teachers. It may be speculated that as learning a new language is different from learning any other school subject, also teaching it may require different skills on the part of the teacher, leading to different (most probably higher) levels of burnout. Consequently, a thorough investigation of foreign language teacher burnout in Poland should be proposed.