Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS factors affecting teacher burnout an example of EFL university teachers

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
-----*-----

ĐINH THỊ BƯỞI

FACTORS AFFECTING TEACHER BURNOUT: AN EXAMPLE
OF EFL UNIVERSITY TEACHERS
(NHỮ NG YẾU TỐ LÀM GIÁO VIÊN CHÁN NGHỀ : MỘT VÍ DỤ VỀ CÁC
GIÁO VIÊN DẠY TIẾNG ANH Ở BẬC ĐẠI HỌC)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2014

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
-----*-----

ĐINH THỊ BƯỞI

FACTORS AFFECTING TEACHER BURNOUT: AN EXAMPLE
OF EFL UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

(NHỮ NG YẾU TỐ LÀM GIÁO VIÊN CHÁN NGHỀ : MỘT VÍ DỤ VỀ CÁC
GIÁO VIÊN DẠY TIẾNG ANH Ở BẬC ĐẠI HỌC)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Lê Văn Canh

HANOI – 2014

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DECLARATION
I certify that this thesis is entirely the result of my own work. I have provided
fully documented references to the work of others. The material in this thesis
has not been submitted for assessment in any other university or institution
wholly and partially.

Hanoi, 2014

Đinh Thị Bưởi

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from
a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Le Van
Canh, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through
all phases of the research. His stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions
have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher.
Second, my sincere appreciation is extended to all teachers at Faculty of Post
– Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies,
Vietnam National University, especially who taught me TESOL methodology
and research methodology. Their lectures as well as their suggestions for
teaching and researching inspired me to conduct this study.
Third, my gratitude is expanded to all university EFL teachers of the
university where I conducted this study for their enthusiastic and helpful
participations in this survey.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for the sacrifice they
have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic study.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EFL

: English as a Foreign Language

ELT

: English language teaching

TESOL : Teaching English to speakers of other languages
TEFL

: Teaching English as a foreign language

MA

: Master of Arts

PhD

: Doctor of Philosophy

MOET : Ministry of Education and Training
CEFR

: Common European Framework Reference

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Teacher burnout levels based on the questionnaire ....................... 21
Table 3.3: Main factors leading the EFL teachers to burnout ........................ 22

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ABSTRACT
Although teacher burnout has attracted scholarly interest for several decades,
it was not until recently the topic caught the attention of scholars, researchers
and teacher educators in the field of English language teaching (ELT). This
thesis reports on a survey conducted in a university in Vietnam to explore the
degree of burnout among a group of university EFL teachers. Participants in
the survey were 33 EFL teachers of the researched university. Two
instruments of data collection used in this survey were questionnaires and
interviews. The findings of the survey show that burnout is an issue among
EFL teachers though the level was just moderately high. Factors leading to
teacher burnout were low salaries, heavy workload, students, administration,
collegiality, education policy, and family. The study also provides some
suggestions for preventing teacher burnout so that educational quality could
be raised.

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TABLE OF CONTENT
DECLARATION ............................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................ ii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... iv
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... v
TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................... vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1
1. Rationale of the study................................................................................... 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study .................................................................. 2
3. Significance of the study ............................................................................... 2
4. Research questions of the study .................................................................... 2
5. Scope of the study ......................................................................................... 3
6. Methods of the study ..................................................................................... 3
7. Structural organization of the thesis.............................................................. 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................. 5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 5
1.1. Definition of terminology: Teacher burnout ......................................... 5
1.2. Teacher burnout vs. teacher demotivation ............................................ 6
1.3. Research on teacher burnout in general education .............................. 8
1.4. Research on EFL teacher burnout ....................................................... 10
1.5. Teacher burnout in Vietnam ................................................................. 14

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CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY............................................ 16
2.1. Context of the study ............................................................................... 16
2.2. Participants ............................................................................................. 16
2.3. Data collection instruments ................................................................... 17
2.4. Data collection procedures .................................................................... 19
2.5. Data analysis methods............................................................................ 20
CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................ 21
3.1. The findings ............................................................................................ 21
3.1.1. Quantitative data ............................................................................... 21

3.1.1.1. The levels of burnout experienced by the EFL teachers .............. 21
3.1.1.2. Factors leading the EFL teachers to burnout................................ 22
3.1.2. Qualitative Data ................................................................................. 25
3.2. Discussions of the findings ..................................................................... 32
3.2.1 Burnout level of the EFL teachers .................................................... 32
3.2.2. Factors leading the EFL teachers to burnout ................................. 33
PART C: CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 34
1. Recapitulation of major findings................................................................. 34
2. Implications of the study ............................................................................. 34
3. Limitations of the research and suggestions for future studies ................... 35
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 37
APPENDIX A ................................................................................................... I
APPENDIX B................................................................................................. III
APPENDIX C ................................................................................................ IV

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APPENDIX D ................................................................................................. V
APPENDIX E.............................................................................................. VIII

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
In this part, the rationale of the study is presented. This is followed by the

statement of the aims and objectives as well as the research questions and
research methods that were used for the study. Finally, the structure of the
thesis is presented.
1. Rationale of the study
Teachers play a central role in educational innovation. Therefore, teacher
motivation in teaching is of critical importance. However, work stress has
been reported to lead to teacher burnout, which in turn has had negative
influences on teacher motivation. Therefore, battling burnout in educational
institutions is one of the most critical issues. As with many human service
occupations, teaching in the modern world is associated with significant
levels of burnout. It is true that the incidence of teacher burnout has received
major attention over the last twenty years (Maslach and Leiter, 1999).
Teachers have to be well-prepared, capable, skillful, and have creative ideas
because they always must face enormous challenges in interconnected,
competitive, global society. The role of today's teachers is extremely
comprehensive. Teachers not only confront a heavy workload in teaching, but
also have to cope with parental pressures, rapid changes in curricular
demands, pressures from bureaucrats and administrators. The consequences of
these issues are teacher burnout and burnout appears to be a main factor in
teachers‟ decision to leave the teaching profession in many countries. Thus,
measuring the levels of burnout and finding out factors leading teachers to
burnout in the Vietnam educational context are necessary and we wish to
employ preventive and restorative strategies to tackle the phenomenon early.

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In Vietnam, the problem of teacher burnout is mentioned in short newspapers

and articles on the media only. There has not been any in-deep study of the
issue in specific situations. That is the reason why factors causing teacher
burnout are discussed vaguely, and it is very hard to deal with the root of the
issue. Many teachers, when asked about their job, said that they were bored
with the job but did not know why they were. Hence, this study is carried out
to the subjects of the English teachers at a university in Vietnam, with
purpose of discovering at which level they fell bored, and factors leading
them to burnout at the time of study.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
The overall purpose of this study is to gain understanding of the issue of
professional burnout among a group of Vietnamese EFL teachers working in
one university. Specifically, the following objectives were set up for the
study:
a) to explore whether teacher burnout is a reality or not, and the current
degrees of burnout of the teachers if this problem exists;
b) to find out factors leading to burnout among the EFL teachers working
in the surveyed university
3. Significance of the study
The findings of this survey will inform educational administrators and teacher
educators of the degree of teacher burnout and the causes of this phenomenon.
The empirical evidence provided in this study is helpful in working out
appropriate policies on teachers in an attempt to prevent teacher burnout
thereby enhancing teacher motivation to teach, especially when the new
policy on English language education is being implemented.
4. Research questions of the study
With the above objectives, the research questions in this study are:

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1. What are current levels of burnout among a group of EFL university
teachers?
2. What are factors triggering burnout among these teachers?
5. Scope of the study
Teacher burnout is one of the most burning issues that needs to be studied.
However, the present study only focuses on the EFL teachers in a university
in Vietnam. Furthermore, the study only focuses on finding out factors
leading these teachers to burnout because this may help administrators,
government, and even teachers to solve this problem.
6. Methods of the study
In order to achieve the objectives mentioned above, this study is designed
integrating both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The
quantitative part of the study reports the results of a survey, in which the
“Teacher Burnout Scale” (see Appendix A), which is designed by
MacCroskey, Richmond, Wrench and Gorham (2001) was used to find out the
degree of burnout among EFL teachers in the researched institution. The
qualitative part used interviews to identify factors leading to teacher burnout
(see Appendix B).
7. Structural organization of the thesis
This thesis consists of three parts as follows:
The first part is introduction which included rationale, objectives,
significance, research questions, scope, methods and organization of the
study.
The second part is development that consists of three following chapters:
chapter one is literature review that provides a theoretical and empirical
framework for the study by reviewing the literature on teacher burnout. It
commences with a review of definition of teacher burnout, proceeding to

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examine teacher burnout and teacher demotivation. More importantly, it
researches teacher burnout in general education and with a particular focus on
the key area that informs this study – EFL teacher burnout. Chapter two
explains the methodology and methods that have been used for conducting the
research and for analyzing the data. It includes a description of selection of
the participants. It also describes the two instruments used for data collection
(questionnaire and interview) and outlines how the data was analyzed.
Chapter three is findings and discussions and which presented and discussed
the results of the study.
The third part is conclusion which includes summary of main points raised in
the study, implications of the study, a discussion of the study‟s limitations and
suggestions for further research.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the studies on teacher burnout as a means of providing a
theoretical framework for the study. In particular, the chapter discusses
previous educational researches on teacher burnout, especially EFL teacher
burnout. The discussion will highlight the need for a better understanding of
EFL teacher burnout.

To provide a clear picture for discussion of teacher burnout, the chapter
commences by giving definition of teacher burnout. The discussion then
proceeds to teacher burnout and teacher demotivation, followed by teacher
burnout research in general education. With this backdrop, there will be a
detailed examination of EFL teacher burnout and related studies. In doing so,
the discussion will identify the factors influencing teacher burnout.
1.1. Definition of terminology: Teacher burnout
Maslach, Leiter and Schaufeli (2008: 90) defined burnout as “a psychological
syndrome in response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job". This
response is manifested through three dimensions: emotional exhaustion,
depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. These dimensions
are explained in general setting by Maslach et al. (2008: 89) as follows: the
first dimension has been described as wearing out, loss of energy, depletion,
debilitation, and fatigue. The second dimension refers to negative or
inappropriate attitudes toward clients, irritability, loss of idealism, and
withdrawal. The third dimension is described as depression, low self-esteem,
low morale, reduced productivity or capability and an inability to cope.
These dimensions were expanded by Horn, Schaufeli, Greenglass and Burke
(1997: 372) as follows: Emotional exhaustion is characterized by a depletion

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of one‟s emotional resources and the feeling that one has nothing left to give
to others psychologically. Such feelings are likely to occur when teachers
show strong involvement with the personal and social needs of students.
Depersonalization refers to indifferent, callous, negative, and detached
attitudes towards students. This is assumed that teachers distance themselves

from their students to suffer their feelings of emotional exhaustion. The third
dimension shows a negative evaluation of one‟s personal accomplishments
when they work with other people. Teachers perceive themselves as
ineffectiveness in their work, particularly with regard to teaching students
(see Horn, Schaufeli, Greenglass and Burke, 1997). Cephe (2010) pointed that
if these three dimensions are taken as criteria to understand teacher burnout, it
is likely to conclude that a teacher suffering from burnout may display at least
one of these dimensions. For example, a teacher may easily feel emotional
exhausted if he works forty hours a week. This may lead to a decrease in job
satisfaction. The following reaction is that the teacher can find the feeling of
personal dissatisfaction. This chain of devastating behaviors may trigger
burnout, which may end in even more devastating conclusions, like teachers
leaving profession.
In sum, teacher burnout is reflected in feelings of emotional exhaustion and
apathy, physical fatigue, lack of energy, psychosomatic illness, increased
alcohol and drug consumption, cynicism, inappropriate anger, depression and
low personal achievements.
1.2. Teacher burnout vs. teacher demotivation
While there has been extensive literature on both teacher burnout and teacher
demotivation, no distinction is made between the two concepts.
Demotivation, as defined by Dornyei (2001 b), is a decrease or drop in level
of motivation. It does not result from distractions of a more attractive option,

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a gradual loss of interest across a period of time, or internal triggers.
Demotivation starts from an external locus, a demotivating trigger, before it

becomes an internalized process, and motivation must exist before there can
be a subsequent decrease. The manifestation of demotivation is “the lack of
effort, need and desire in teaching process” (Aydin, 2012: 1).
Gavrilyuk, Loginova and Buzovkina (2013) state that,
… teaching represents nowadays a complex of increasing
stressful situations that may have positive or negative consequences
for them [teachers] as well as for students they work with. Being
unable to cope in an efficient way with these transformations, some
teachers

are

becoming

frustrated,

dissatisfied,

depressed,

demotivated, hopeless, physically and psychologically depleted.
Teachers‟ coping unsuccessfully with chronic stress can lead to
work burnout. (p. 52)
In other words, teachers who are unable to work in situations of extensive
stress and work pressure are likely to become demotivated and suffer burnout.
Askar et al. (1986, cited in Al-dyiar and Salem, 2013: 118) argue that,
Teachers‟ lack of interest in their work with students leads to
teachers‟ burnout that makes them to teach students in a careless
way. In addition, teachers‟ burnout causes certain psychological
syndromes such as pessimism, carelessness, demotivation, change

resistance, lack of creativity in teaching and unjustified absence (p.
118)
The above quotation can be interpreted that burnout is behavioural while
demotivation is emotional. Demotivation leads to burnout, and burnout leads
to further demotivation. In other words, the relationship between burnout and

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demotivation is circular. Therefore, understanding and taking action against
teacher burnout will help to retain teacher motivation.
1.3. Research on teacher burnout in general education
Burnout is regarded as a serious problem among teachers (Horn et al., 1997:
372). Because teachers who are burned out were experienced as feelings of
powerlessness in attempt to educate students and make school pleasant for
students, lack of enthusiasm to prepare lessons, difficulty in motivating
themselves to come to work, loss of energy, loss of memory and lack of
interest in the subject (as cited in Mashhady, Fallah and Gaskaree, 2012: 372).
Research on burnout among teachers has received considerable attention in
many countries such as the United States (Bruce, PharmD and BCPS, 2009;
Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001), England (e.g., Maslach and Leiter,
1999), The Netherlands (e.g., Horn et al., 1997; Horn, Schaufeli and
Enzmann, 1999), Turkey (e.g., Cephe, 2010; Öztürk, 2013), Canada (e.g.,
Fernet et al., 2012). The results of these studies show that teaching has been
characterized as a stressful occupation. There are a variety of sources that
trigger burnout for teachers such as problems in society, e.g, the erosion of
public respect for and support of teachers, problems in organization, e.g.,
classroom discipline, apathy, administrative insensitivity, bureaucratic

incompetence, overcrowded classrooms, and inadequate salaries (Farber,
1991, as cited in Zang and Sapp, 2008: 155), and personal factors e.g., age,
sex, marital status and educational status (Maslach et al., 2001: 409-410).
These factors cause teacher burnout syndromes such as emotional and
physical exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. After that teachers may have
some behavioral reactions such as tardiness, absenteeism, poor job
performance, and lack of interest and commitment (Farber, 1991, as cited in

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Zang and Sapp, 2008: 155). As a result, teachers who are burned out often
have teaching ineffectiveness.
Maslach and Leiter (1999: 2-3) showed some factors triggering teacher
burnout: (1) Teachers are pressed to do more work with fewer resources but
they receive fewer rewards and less recognition for their efforts. (2) Students
do not make visible and significant improvements in a realistic period time.
(3) Pupils, colleagues, principal, parents, inspectorate, and central
administration care more their high expectation than teachers‟ needs. (4)
Skeptical colleagues who are already burned out can have a detrimental
effect. (5) Unmotivated or undisciplined students are a crucial source of
emotional exhaustion. (6) School principals can function as administrative
managers, taking no responsibility for affective or relational matters within
the school. (7) The poor relationship between teacher and pupils can be a
problem with serious consequences both for the teaching career and for the
learning outcomes of pupils. The two researchers concluded that these factors
lead to frequent absences, lowered commitment, episodic or prolonged
illnesses, physical ailments, undue stress, and ultimately burnout and teachers

leaving the job.
In educational settings, burnout is regarded “a concern of many educators and
is frequently caused by high levels of prolonged stress related to excessive
time pressure, weak relationships with colleagues, large classes, lack of
resources, fear of violence, isolation, behavioral problems of students, role
ambiguity, role conflict, limited promotional opportunities, lack of support
and lack of participation in decision-making” (as cited in Toker, 2011: 116).
Besides, Özkanal and Arikan (2010: 166) showed that when many teachers or
instructors feel depressed in their workplaces due to some reasons, like stress,
which affect their motivation and will for work negatively. This causes

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unhappy feeling and unwilling to work. Toker (2011: 116) indicated that
university academicians are potential candidates for burnout syndrome due to
their relationships with large numbers of students, personnel, and
administrators.
Bruce et al. (2009) revealed that factors contributing to burnout in educators
are the work environment (competition, heavy workload, fearfulness, and
dissatisfaction). Another research of Horn et al. (1999: 91) which investigated
burnout among 249 Dutch elementary and secondary school teachers
identified that at interpersonal (teacher – student) level, teachers get to higher
burnout levels because of low outcomes from students, at organizational
(teacher – school) level, teachers get to higher burnout levels because schools
give low investments.
In sum, the studies which are above presented showed that teacher burnout
received major attention of many researchers. The factors leading teachers to

burnout were shown clearly.
1.4. Research on EFL teacher burnout
Although the issue of teacher burnout was first studied among general
education teachers, scholars, researchers, and teacher educators in the field of
English language education have recently been interested in studying the issue
of burnout among EFL teachers (e.g. Ganizadeh and Ghonsoody, 2014;
Motallebzadeh and Ashraf, 2014; Vaezi and Fallah, 2011).
Like general education teacher burnout, EFL teacher burnout is influenced by
the environment and by personal interests. Afsaneh and Behzad‟s (2014)
study indicated that EFL teacher burnout is associated with external and
uncontrollable attributions. The results of Cephe‟s (2010) research showed
that all the English instructors with a higher degree of burnout display all the
symptoms of burnout. These symptoms were presented by researchers

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Maslach et al. (2008) namely depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and
reduced personal accomplishment. Besides, the English instructors with a
high level of burnout display „Alienation to professional identity‟.
Ghonsooly and Raeesi (2012: 122) stated that there are a fairly large number
of English language teachers suffering from burnout. This is widely believed
to be a by-product of workload. They also indicated that there are many
studies conducted to uncover the murky points of EFL teachers leaving
profession. However, quite a few factors were found to play a crucial role in
triggering burnout among English teachers.
Vaezi and Fallah (2011) used questionnaires to investigate the relationship
between self-efficacy and stress among 108 Iranian EFL teachers and found a

strong correlation between teachers‟ perceived self-efficacy and burnout.
These authors concluded that enhancing teachers‟ self-efficacy and
developing their skills in monitoring their stress tend to help to prevent or
reduce teacher burnout.
Cephe (2010) studied 37 EFL teachers in the English preparatory school of a
University in Turkey. Through questionnaires and interviews he uncovered 18
EFL teachers (48.6%) displaying a high degree of burnout. Also he revealed
four groups of factors leading English teacher to burnout: the academic
factors (e.g., lack of in-service training, extra work burden and need for a
supervisor), the administrative factors (e.g., rudeness, indifference to the
problems, rules without explanation, incompetency, and detachment), the
governmental factors (e.g., low salaries, economic conditions and no civil
supporting association) and the personal factor (e.g., reduced personal
accomplishment, loneliness in professional development, doubtful about
career choice and emotional exhaustion). Ultimately, he concluded that major
factors of EFL teacher burnout are the administrative applications in

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institution. Öztürk (2013) used questionnaire and interview to survey 139
Turkish English instructors working at eight different state universities. The
findings showed that the level of burnout is moderate and major reasons of
this burnout were heavy workload, students, and institutional problems.
Other research of Jashidirad, Mukundan and Nimehchisalem (2012) studied
this subject from a different perspective and he surveyed 28 English language
teachers in Malaysia. They used questionnaires to investigate the effect of
gender on burnout level of the English language teachers. The findings

showed that in general gender has no an effect on burnout level of
these

teachers. Azar and Reyhane (2014) conducted a study with 110

English language teachers from both private and public educational
sectors in Mashhad, Iran. Through questionnaires, the findings indicated that
levels of burnout of the EFL teachers in private institutes are higher than that
in public schools.
A study about job burnout of 86 English teachers is carried out in secondary
schools of Wenjiang District of Chengdu and the city of Chongzhou, China.
By using questionnaires and interviews the researcher showed that the causes
of English teachers‟ job burnout lie in external factors, such as unfair school
policy, colleague pressure, student-management pressure, exam pressure,
unfriendly atmosphere of the school, heavy workload, and internal factors,
such as financial pressure, misunderstanding and lack of support from family,
knowledge exhaustion, lack of skills in reflection and self-adjustment.
However, the burnout level of the English teachers in this institution is not
very serious (Zhouchun, 2011).
Mukundan and Khandehroo (2010) conducted a survey research in which they
questioned randomly 184 EFL teachers in primary and secondary schools in
Malaysia. The results showed that burnout is evident at high levels among

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these teachers. Moreover, this study pointed that age and workload factors
related to burnout levels. The two authors also conducted one other research

in 2009. They surveyed 120 EFL teachers in Malaysian primary and
secondary schools. The findings showed that burnout levels among the
participants are high in all dimensions of Maslach et al. (2008). This research
also stated that gender, experience and educational level are relevant the
presence of burnout dimensions.
Bardakci, Dolas and Arpaci (2013) conducted a study by surveying 224
Turkish EFL teachers in a certain district. One of objectives of this research is
finding factors affecting the occupational burnout levels of the Turkish EFL
teachers. The results showed that gender and working years are irrelevant
with their burnout levels. However, the participants who take part in
interviews indicated some other factors triggering burnout, such as dealing
with overcrowded classes and doing things other than teaching, feeling
overwhelmed with their students‟ problems, and the administrators‟ neverending requests.
Motallebzadeh, Ashraf and Yazdi (2014) also used The Maslach Burnout
Inventory to survey 200 experienced Iranian EFL university teachers. The
result showed that the participants‟ self-efficacy has a reverse relationship
with their burnout. In addition, a significant relationship was observed
between teachers‟ age, gender, and their reports of burnout.
In conclusion, this part shows the previous studies of the issue of burnout
among EFL teachers to help the present study to have a theoretical
background. The researches which are above mentioned indicated that factors
triggering EFL teacher to burnout also may be those leading teacher burnout.

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1.5. Teacher burnout in Vietnam
In Vietnam, teacher burnout has recently been reported despite the lack of

empirical studies. The issue has been frequently raised on the mass media. For
example, Nguyen Thi Binh and 26 other authors (2013) surveyed 6000
participants and concluded that approximately 10% to 20% of the surveyed
teachers suffered burnout largely because of low salary and workload (Khánh
An, 2013). Another survey which was conducted by Vietnam Institute of
Educational Science with 950 administrators and teachers in 36 primary,
secondary and high schools . One of the questions asked was “If selected to
another job, he (she) has chosen the teaching profession again?” The result
showed that about 50% teachers wanted to select another job for two reasons:
low salary and work pressure (Vương Tâm, 2012). Vu Trong Ry, The author
of this study, elaborated the findings of this study and came to the conclusion
that teacher burnout was caused by several reasons. These included heavy
workload (teachers had to teach 1.5 times or 1.8 times more than the norm of
40 hours per week), pressure from students, parents, and from educational
administrators as well as pressure from the community. Low salary and the
morally distorted image of the teacher promoted on the mass media were also
contributors to teacher burnout (Tô Hội, 2012). Tran Thi Bich Lieu (2013)
wrote on the Vietnamnet that asymmetric power and the lack of financial
transparency were factors that killed motivation of university lecturers.
In conclusion, the literature review shows a great interest among international
scholars in researching teacher burnout. It is indicated in this literature review
that, the number of studies on EFL teacher burnout is far smaller than those
on general education teachers. Most of the studies on EFL teacher burnout
that have been documented in the literature were conducted in Iranian and
Turkish contexts. This literature review also reveals the lack of empirical

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research on teacher burnout in Vietnamese settings. While there have been
few studies on the issue of teacher burnout among general education teachers,
research on Vietnamese EFL teacher burnout, to the best of my knowledge,
remains extremely rare. This gives rise to the need to explore the issue among
Vietnamese EFL teachers in order to inform concerned authorizes of the need
to have sound policies to prevent teacher burnout. This is the purpose behind
the study reported in this thesis.

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