An Assessment of Primary School EFL Teachers’ Job Burnout

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VII, Issue VII, July 2020 | ISSN 2321–2705

An Assessment of Primary School EFL Teachers’ Job Burnout

Teshale Ayalew¹, Getachew Seyum², Adege Alemu^3
1PhD Student, ²Associate Professor, PhD in TEFL, ³PhD in TEFL
Department of English Language and Literature, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Jimma University

Abstract: The study is to examine the level of EFL Teachers’ Burnout in Jimma Zone, Oromiya Regional State, Ethiopia for many public primary schools EFL teachers in the Zone have shown their dissatisfaction and demotivation towards their job in different ways. The phenomenon implies that teachers in the Zone might experience occupational stress. To enable EFL teachers discharge their full responsibility, their problems need to be assessed and addressed properly. This is because the teachers who experience negative emotional states and burnout cannot care about their work, their students, their colleagues, and even for themselves. Moreover, the teachers who experienced such harmful feeling cannot get prepared for everyday lessons properly, cannot teach and assess students meaningfully, and can miss classes frequently, etc. because they are emotionally ill and react to such state of mind wrongly. The objectives of the study are to examine the level and impact of burnout among EFL teachers’ and which gender group does burnout affect more seriously; thus, descriptive survey with mixed design was applied. The result obtained suggests that most EFL teachers in the Zone experience high level of burnout. Specifically, female EFL teachers experience higher level of burnout compared to their male counterparts.

Key words: Burnout, Emotional Exhaustion, Reduced personal Accomplishments.

I. INTRODUCTION

Education is a key to build a nation because it enlightens citizens and ensures overall development. Through education, as we know, human beings pass their knowledge and skills, their culture and way of life from generation to generation. Education is indeed one of the fundamental rights of human beings to which every nation discharges a great deal of resources to deliver an efficient education system for citizens and to create vital human capital via training and other educational programmes (Ayalew, 1991, Eyasu, Aweke, Kassa, Mulugeta, and Yenealem, 2017).

Education, as the core system for all systems, must be well founded. If so, it boosts up social capital; enhance economic growth and/or productivity; supply competent and qualified labor or human resource to various institutions. This makes the sector to be viewed as the backbone of every sector and a nation as well. In support to this, Herzberg (1976) as cited in Demeke (2014) points out that education helps to guide culture, politics, and socioeconomic development of a country. Above all, it helps to overhaul personality of citizens and to manage intellectual, behavioral, and attitudinal changes.

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