Enhancing the wellbeing of English teachers at the tertiary level in Vietnam – Technological support for a smooth transition from novice to experienced teachers

Abstract

It has been argued that a supportive community is necessary for a sustainable wellbeing in the ELT field (Mercer, 2021; McGrath & Noble, 2003). In fact, Mercer (2021), in her 2021 article advocating for research into language teacher wellbeing, mentions that "essentially, the entire ELT community needs to see any threats to individual well-being as a collective community issue" (Mercer, 2021, p. 19). While some teachers regard CALL as an advantage to language teaching and learning, others may perceive it as a threat, which eventually makes them feel reluctant toward its implementation into their teaching practice. As long as this gap exists, any effort to implement CALL into English teaching may not be able to welcome desirable outcomes. As such, this presentation reports an investigation into the extent to which CALL affects language teacher wellbeing. Particularly, focusing on the context of English education in Vietnam at the tertiary level, novice and experienced teachers’ perspective toward CALL and its influences on their wellbeing are examined using semi-structured interviews. After the interviews were transcribed by the researcher, the data were analyzed using line-byline-coding and memo technique proposed by the Ground Theory Approach (Charmaz, 2014). Together with the outline of the data analysis procedure, the presentation also provides findings obtained from two stages of coding (i.e., initial and open coding). Overall, findings suggest that CALL may have influenced teachers’ wellbeing differently depending on their teaching experience. As a result, the presentation hopes to provide the audience with practical insights to handle stress and sustain wellbeing. It is hoped that language teachers may be able to utilize those recommendations to improve their wellbeing independently based on their teaching experience.