چکیده:
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are currently well-established university programs. These courses are run independently by English Language Teaching (ELT) instructors and content instructors without any collaboration. However, ELT instructors and content instructors do not receive the same level of collegiality and social support from the organizations and students. This paper probed burnout among Iranian EAP teachers, including content instructors and ELT instructors in 28 state universities and its variations in relation to their demographic and organizational characteristics. To this aim, the Persian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was administered to content instructors (N=185) and ELT instructors (N=86) in the state universities in Iran. The results of the study indicated that while most of EAP teachers, both content instructors and ELT instructors, had low burnout, a considerable number had mid-levels of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The findings of the study also indicated that the ELT instructors had higher emotional exhaustion than the content instructors, and it was also found that the content instructors with more than 13 years of experience and the ELT instructors with more than 20 years of experience in teaching such courses had the lowest burnout. Based on the findings of the study, educational administrators are suggested to take remedial and preventive actions against EAP teachers’ burnout and enhance ELT instructors’ occupational well-being. It also seems necessary to assist EAP teachers in adapting to the requirements of teaching EAP courses through pre/in-service teacher training courses to obviate the need for extensive experience for gaining expertise in it.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Regarding the separation and gap in the education of humanities and sciences and unfamiliarity of English teachers with the sciences (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), there can be variations in the workloads for ELT instructors in EAP courses for students of humanities, sciences, engineering, and medical studies.
Narrow-angled approach to ESP and the stance of ESP in the educational settings face ELT instructors with challenges such as content knowledge development (Anthony, 2011; Basturkmen, 2010; Campion, as cited in Ding & Campion, 2016; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), having less content knowledge than learners (Howe, as cited in Anthony, 2011), underestimating ELT instructors’ abilities in teaching content knowledge (Howe, as cited in Anthony, 2011), their need for content instructors’ cooperation and help (Anthony, 2011; Basturkmen, 2010; Robinson, 1991), inadequate social support and collegiality from the organizations (Anthony, 2011) and students (Johns, as cited in Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), lacking developmental opportunities (Ding & Campion, 2016), lower status of ESP as compared to ELT (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Robinson, 1991), marginalization and depersonalization (Hall, 2013; Robinson, 1991) of ESP teachers (better to say ELT instructors) and their lacking professional identity, detachment from other English teachers doing similar work, lack of contact with content instructors, lower status than subject teachers, and low priority in timetabling.
Furthermore, as the establishment and status of EAP courses affect EAP teachers’ identities, roles, and working contexts (Ding & Campion, 2016), ELT instructors’ higher PA and lower EE in EAP courses for Medical students can also be related to the high status and prestige of medical studies, in general, and the established status of language centers in such departments, in particular.
As for the variations in the facets of burnout among content instructors and ELT instructors with different years of experience in teaching EAP courses, results of the study, unlike the findings of Eghtesadi (2011) and Van Horn et al.