Do well-being and resilience predict the Foreign Language Teaching Enjoyment of teachers of Italian?

Abstract

The present quantitative study is part of the new wave of research into the psychology of language teachers and their emotions (Gkonou, Dewaele & King, 2020). It also answers the call for more studies on languages other than English (LOTEs) by considering feedback from 174 Italian as Foreign Language (FL) teachers based in Italy and abroad. The study investigated the relationship between two psychological factors, Well-being and Resilience and one novel emotional factor, namely Foreign Language Teaching Enjoyment (FLTE), adapted from previous studies on learners' Foreign Language Enjoyment. Correlations analyses followed by a multiple regression analysis showed that Resilience was the strongest predictor of FLTE, explaining 12.4% of variance, followed by Well-being which explains a further 3.9% of variance. The findings of the study are discussed in the light of previous studies. We suggest that happy and resilient teachers who enjoy their profession constitute the very basis of students' progress, as the positive emotional atmosphere they establish in the classroom is a pre-condition for linguistic and psychological growth. The new 9-item scale is recommended for future research on FLTE. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.