‘That Class is Stressing Me Out!’: How Teachers Cope with Stress in a Turkish University - English Preparatory School
Ahmet Bikmen, Qatar
Ahmet Bikmen worked at Bahcesehir University for 4 years between 2007 and 2011 and now works for the Academic Bridge Program, an English preparatory school for Qatar Foundation, where local and international students prepare for study abroad or at the local campuses of such world famous universities as Georgetown, Texas A&M, Weill Cornell and Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds a Master of Arts degree in English Language Teaching, from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. He first began researching occupational stress and burnout whilst teaching at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey.
E-mail : abikmen@qf.org.qa
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Abstract
Introduction
Research Context
Results and Discussion
Conclusion
References
Stress has been defined as the body’s nonspecific response to any demand. Four English-as-a-second language instructors and one administrator from a preparatory school described how they coped with stress during tape recorded interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed for perspectives on the phenomenon of stress and stress coping styles. The results indicated that all individuals held ‘bad classes’ responsible for a great deal of stress. One individual felt that a lack of flexibility on the part of the management and lack of decision-making-authority on the part of the teacher, contributed to her levels of stress.
Teaching might well be one of the most stress-ridden professions that exist. There is also a definite link between teacher attrition rates in schools and teacher stress. This phenomenon is a global one. Dr. Mary Brabek, Ph.D., Dean of the Steinhardt School of Human Development, Education and Culture, New York University, claims that the attrition rate is particularly high in Turkey (Lecture Notes p.21 line 5).
Outsiders to the profession commonly believe that teachers are not required to exert much effort in their jobs, and hold lawyers and doctors in high esteem, and consider them to serve more vital functions in society (Eggleston, 1992). This lack of understanding can only have a negative effect on a teacher’s self esteem, and might even contribute to teacher stress. (Friedman, 2000: 595). The clearly detrimental nature of occupational stress has led researcher to document stress coping styles. In order to save educational institutions the enormous cost of replacing teachers, we must examine how teachers cope with job-related stress as it applies to the profession of teaching.
The profession of ELT (English Language Teaching) has its own particular stresses. For example, the teacher might either feel obliged, or might be obliged by the school, to speak English, or even a particular dialect of English, such as American English as opposed to Indian English (Kiziltepe, 2007). English teachers :
...are faced with the danger of burnout which is one of the results of prolonged stress over the body or brain due to the doubled responsibilities: the responsibility of being a teacher and the responsibility of teaching a foreign language. (Petek, 2008: 32)
This article attempts to analyze ESL teachers’ subjective accounts their coping styles in a Turkish university. A major theme in this study was the stress factors specific to a language school. Such a study will 1) lead to a better understanding how coping styles might help teachers , and 2) inform in-house social support programs for teachers at preparatory schools.
Stress is defined as the as the human body’s non-specific physiological response to any demand (Selye, 1956:12). Hobfoll (1988:25) calls stress ‘…a reaction to the environment where you either lose resources, stand the threat of losing them, or cannot get back those resources that you invested.’ Hobfoll also introduces the idea of coping behaviors, or reactions to stress; for example, biting one’s nails, asking for help, drinking, etc. Much research has been done on the different way individuals perceive stressful situations (Beck & Emery, 1988) and whether these differences can be measured from individual to individual, (Lazarus, 1995).
Several studies have focused on the causes of stress, anxiety and boredom in the workplace (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), the effects of low decision-making latitude (Karasek (1982) organization demands (Holmes and Rahe, 1967), role ambiguity (Shabracq, Winnubst and Cooper 1996), and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Research studies have also led to the development of measurement scales designed to assess how individuals cope with stress (Holmes and Rahe, 1978; Maslach, 1993; Cooper, Sloan and Williams, 1988).
Teaching, like other jobs, has been described extensively in the literature with respect to the definition of teacher stress; for example, Kyriacou (1991: 28), describes it as 'negative, unpleasant emotions.' Sources of teaching stress are intensive interpersonal communication, overcrowded classrooms, lack of support and time pressures, lack of support from the central government, constant changes within the profession, lack of respect for teaching by the public, isolation , repetitive monotonous schedules and apathy, the phenomenon of deskilling, devolved school management and teacher overload, poor school conditions and social support, pupil behavior, work ‘overload’ and handling relationships with staff (Borg, 1990; Burke, 1995:189 ; Chaplain, 2001: 191; Chitty, et al 1993; Eggleston, 1992; Fullan, 1986; Hargreaves, 1978; Schultze, 1993; Travers and Cooper, 1989; Wessemen 1984; Özdemir, 2003).
Kyriacou (1998) reports that stress affects teaching by either 1) causing indifference, 2) making the stressed teacher much less tolerant in dealing with class difficulties, which means she might have trouble establishing rapport.
In the case of English teachers, Petek (2008) asserts that working as an English teacher means maintaining enthusiasm and improving one's own command of spoken and written English in order to provide students with a good example. Clearly, the case of the foreign language teacher is a unique one. Since language learning is an anxiety-provoking situation on its own, it is a necessity for language teachers to manage their own emotions as well as their students’ emotions, including the recurrent affective crises which are a part of the learning process. (Williams & Burden, 1997; Horwitz, 1991). Cannessa (2006) describes the nonnative English teacher, who must operate in a foreign language, and therefore has feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.
Coping Strategies refer to the way we cope with stress; that is, how we act to remove stress from our lives, or do certain things to reduce it. There are palliative strategies, which reduce the stress but do not address its source. The second, direct action strategies do address the source of stress by effective managing or organizing of oneself by developing new knowledge, skills and working practices or negotiating with colleagues so that the stressful situation is changed with the help of others (Kyriacou, 2001). Folkman and Lazarus (1984) separated coping strategies into two types: Problem-focused coping strategies, where the individual directly deals with the problem, and alters their immediate environment to remove the cause of stress, and emotion-focused coping strategies, where one attempts to regulate distressing emotion in one's mind, avoids the stressful situation and typically denies the existence of stress. Bergin and Soldman (1995) found that school administrators who chose to use emotion-focused coping strategies 1. redefined the stress-causing problem 2. increased physical activities 3. utilized relaxation techniques to deal with negative feelings. Those who used problem-focused coping strategies 1. developed action plans 2. gathered information 3. developed problem solving approaches 4. engaged in discussions of the issues while focusing on the positive aspects 5. derived specific goals and targets.
This study was conducted on the premises of a private university in Istanbul, Turkey. There were about fifty teachers working at the school, of which approximately six were male. The current researcher was also a member of this staff. The entire staff was instructed to speak only English during class hours via an email stating that English should be spoken in class exclusively. The school’s policy towards the use of English was therefore clear-cut.
With the exception of MA, who was the director of the school, all participants were full-time teachers at the location where the study took place.
Such information as age, marital status and health are included in the table because of the research findings (Önkol,2002; Kızıltepe, 2007; Ursin and Eriksen, 2004) connecting the above variables with stress levels. (Please refer to the literature review for the relevant sources.)
As can be seen from Table 1, some teachers either held or were candidates for the MA degree, albeit not all of them were in the field of ELT; for instance, AD's degree was in Conflict Resolution, and MH's was in English literature. No data on certification or university degrees was available for AÖ or AP.
This study utilized focus group interviews, and one-on-one interviews as its principle data collection instruments, between the dates of 13 November 2009 and 8 January 2010. All of these sessions were audio recorded with the participants' permission in order to aid in the analysis process. Also, field notes were taken during IA's regular classroom hours. Additional data collection instruments included artifacts emails sent by the administration to the researcher, and unwritten observations of the subjects dating back to September 2008.
The participants' perceived causes of stress included: ‘bad or troublesome classes,’ and ‘organizational demands.’ All participants reported organizational demands or ambiguous job descriptions as a perceived cause of stress. Five out of seven (about 71%) respondents felt as though troublesome students or bad classes were a cause of stress. However, one respondent, AD, felt as though his teaching skills were deficient enough to warrant it being a cause of stress. 66% (four out of six) of the respondents expressed a feeling of low self-efficacy. This figure is derived by neglecting to count MA, who does not teach any classes (hence 4 out of six instead of four out of seven.)
Overall, it was found that EB and MA had predominantly problem-focused approaches to coping with stress. MH, who was very close to EB both physically (they sat right next to each other in the Teachers' Room) and in terms of friendship, seemed to pick up on EB's coping style and adopt it as her own. For example, When EB focused on a positive incident, MB would attempt to do the same.
IA played the polar opposite to MA and EB. In other words, she presented classical emotion- based approach tendencies.
The findings below were chosen because they illustrate the principles of coping strategies.. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed a framework of emotion-focused and problem focused coping strategies. Later Bergin and Solman (1995) identified six behavioral elements which fall under the heading of the 'problem-focused approach.' The following two participants, EB and MA, conform especially well to this framework in that they primarily apply problem-focused coping strategies
1. MA
In the problem-focused approach coping strategy, an individual tries to gather information. Put differently, ‘information gathering’ was one of the six methods an individual uses to cope with stress. The following is from an interview conducted with MA on 4 January 2010:
Ahmet: I read that sports keep the anxiety level down. (How do you interpret this?) MA: One way of interpreting this: sports (equal) time for self. Now (you have) time to organize everything in life... Then you will have a better perspective. (When you are) anxious (you are) always like this ((puts head down near table.)) 'Hey what’s going on?' ((Picks head up)) ... (Now) you become aware of what input is coming to you and try to put yourself into this flow.
In this excerpt we note that MA employs 'information gathering' which was one of the six elements head teachers were found to apply in the problem-focused approach. Recall that the problem-focused approach to coping with stress includes attempting to solve the underlying cause of stress rather than simply avoiding it.
In the same interview, MA says:
I’ve got three notebooks (One is for) wherever I go. It’s -uhm -because I never shut down. .. Thinking (about) something. .. about what’s going on. Something I should remind the Level Coordinators. And I - even if I am having fun outside somewhere - even in the park with my daughter, something comes to my mind and I always have that notebook with me. The second one is for the office. I write down everything I need to do about my job...about my other responsibilities... The third one... Ten pages... I spend ten pages on the example I will be giving a presentation to the rector and the chairman of the university and they let me know two months before. Taking notes… on that. That’s one thing that I write on this book. ((Indicates notebook.)) Next years’ inductive sessions. Summer tasks. Some pages for the summer tasks.
Here, the problem-focused approach behaviors employed are 'developing action plans’ (Bergin & Solman, 1995). The act of jotting things into a notebook or any act of writing is a problem-solving act because writing focuses one's thoughts. Also, 'engaging in discussion of an issue while focusing on positive aspects' is illustrated here; by writing ideas in a notebook, MA engages himself in a sort of private dialogue or discussion.
In an interview conducted two days later, (7 January 2010) the following was recorded:
MA: When shall we meet (again)?
Ahmet: Tomorrow?... How do you feel about this interview session?
MA: (This session is) also good reflection (for) me. This is how I started. Let's ... After your eh, project, when you're done with the project, let's continue with … (these interviews).
MA says 'That's good reflection for me ... let's continue with this.' Here MA is interested in 'engaging in discussions of issues while focusing on positive aspects.' Also, he 'derives specific goals and targets' which is yet another subtype of the problem-focused approach. To clarify this, suppose that MA wanted to keep abreast of what the current researcher was doing both at work and in his academic life. The source of stress here is maintaining good relations and close contact with his employee (the current researcher.) Therefore, he sets the goal of meeting the researcher again after the study has been completed.
2. EB
Interviews with EB revealed elements of the problem-focused approach to coping strategies. The following is from an interview conducted on 4 January 2010:
EB: They keep shoveling (the workload) in… I think there is a limit … and unless we uhm express… these things in level meetings to the people like coordinators.. ehm I don’t know - directors in the appraisal sessions - they won’t be able to realize that this is becoming too much. If you don’t say anything people will think - and it’s normal - People will think, 'Oh everything is OK.'
EB is in the process of complaining about the high level of workload, but shifts gear in order to invoke a problem solving approach and also directs attention away from self and onto the requirements of the roles. Here the roles referred to are a teacher's role as someone who must speak up when given too much work. Cockburn, (2001) who recommends talking to bosses who bully workers with too many demands, would certainly agree that this problem solving approach is effective.
The following was transcribed from a focus group conducted Jan 4 2010:
Line 83: EB Sometimes (we need) help (finishing your masters projects). You’re expecting people to read your mind. We should cry for help when we need it... that's the thing. Without expressing ourselves - without attacking the other side (we cannot be successful.) . ((proceeds to demonstrate asking for help: ))
'This is too much because…’
See what I mean, like: ‘This is too much but if we did it that way' or 'maybe we can do it this way…'
When EB says 'we should cry for help' she clearly develops a problem solving approach. She even demonstrates what a student might say to his advisor: 'this assignment is too much, but if we did it this way...' etc. EB believes the most effective way to handle stress is speaking up and venturing suggestions, and this illustrates her problem-focused approach.
The other side of Lazarus and Folkman's framework, the emotion-based approach, was mentioned in the literature review. Bergin, et al (1995) proposed four characteristic behaviors: a) redefining the problem, b) increasing physical activities c) utilizing relaxation techniques to help deal with negative feelings and emotions and d) seeking emotional support while expressing emotions.
3. IA
IA presents a very interesting case indeed. Her age group (age=40) is marked as being the one highest in perceived stress levels (Bergin, et. al, 1995). However, in all three interview/ focus group events she consistently denied feeling any manner of stress at all. The following example is from the focus group conducted on 4 Jan 2010:
IA : 'I don't get stressed' (line 147.)
MH : Maybe you can suffer later.. I mean... (line 151)
EB : ((acting as if she were IA)) Oh, it’s fine! I’m losing weight! It’s no
problem!
This makes for a very clear case of denial. MH recognizes a degree of denial in IA and cannot help commenting on it indirectly. During the same interview, EB also makes several indirect references to IA’s apparent denial of stress symptoms: ((taking on the role of IA)) ‘Oh I’m fine, I’m losing weight. It’s no problem!’ Here we note that EB attempts to use humor in order to get IA to admit that she might feel a little bit stressed. Given that we identify IA as a having an emotion based coping approach and EB as having a problem-based coping approach (Bergin & Solman, 1995), perhaps EB is attempting to win IA over to her way of coping. Alternatively, perhaps EB simply wants to help her friend and is using humor as a non-threatening, gentle way to make IA aware of herself.
IA's tendency to ignore stress in the environment and to rely on friends and other distractions rather than actual steps for removing the source of stress, is not necessarily an inappropriate or bad strategy; in fact, this is open to interpretation. As the discussion below indicates, the only sure conclusion that can be made is that IA typically uses emotion-based coping strategies (Önkol 2002). Emotion-based strategies involve being highly dependent on friends to help distance the individual from stress. In the interview dated Dec 15, 2009, she claimed the following (referring to the current researcher):
1. IA: We didn’t like it (when you changed rooms) because you were such a good friend, you know. We were having fun. Sometimes in the staff room you know you can’t just ((pause)) work all the time. You need some people who are not … you know … working or talking about the lessons all the time. There are some people like that. All they talk about is how to prepare the lesson (or) what they did in the classroom… Planning and stuff... But sometimes, you need your friends to have fun to have a good time apart … you know.. you can talk about your lesson, you can talk about your plans … sometimes you need …
2. Ahmet : Me fun?
3. IA: Yes of course! You make us laugh. When you’re stressed you need that kind of stuff.
Another characteristic of the emotion-based approach is to deny any source of stress in order to regulate distressing emotions. From the information gathered during the first interview, it became instantly clear that IA adopts an emotion-focused coping strategy (Bergin & Solman, 1995). IA consistently expressed the idea that 'fun' or having a 'good time' were necessary 'when you're stressed.' She also mentioned that friends help one to relieve stress. From her statements, it is clear that IA is well aware of her personal need to deal with work-related stress by 'seeking emotional support while expressing emotions' (Thomson 2005:32) By distancing herself from the 'emotional impact of the stressor,' she finds a way to deal with the unavoidable stress at work (Thomson, 2005: 31).
There were numerous limitations in this study. First and foremost, the concept of negative stress, or distress (Selye, 1956) might cause the interviewee great discomfort, owing to its negative nature, and because of its association with failure. Stress is perceived as a bad thing by its very nature, and is therefore viewed by individuals as unacceptable. That is, those individuals who suffer from great stress either due to individual tolerances or due to inappropriate coping methods, are likely to feel great shame and personal embarrassment as a result. Logically, to surmount such barriers would require many interview sessions in order to get to the participants' inner voices. For example, the question:
What aspect of being a language teacher do you find most stressful?
…is unlikely to meet with such a rewarding answer as 'I fear losing my ability to speak in front of a class, or making pronunciation errors in English.' However, stress is not always bad; in fact, two forms of stress exist: eustress and distress. Eustress is defined as positive stress; for example this is the type of stress that gets a teacher out of bed in the morning to plan lessons for a classroom full of hardworking students that are a pleasure to teach. Distress, or negative stress, is the type of stress which people associate with symptoms such as butterflies in the stomach, cold feet, or clammy hands (Selye, 1956). Positive stress coexists with negative stress. Therefore, during interviews, one technique employed was to start with a survey of positive stress, using such questions as ‘What do you enjoy most about your job?’ before moving on to questions about negative stress. This technique helped put the interviewee at ease.
Another difficulty was the elusive nature of stress. Stress involves personal opinions, and to conduct an objective analysis of people's responses in a short period of time is all but impossible. Another shortcoming in this study was a lack of questions well-suited to answer research question number one. A lack of time and research experience was responsible for this.
A gradual theme that emerged was most or all of the participants were very eager to conduct interviews or any other necessary procedures in English, even though most of them spoke L1 Turkish. Although this study defined stress as something negative (Selye, 1956), it must not be forgotten that eustress, or positive stress (Selye, 1956) is also present. This is the stress that motivates us to get out of bed and succeed. Although the administration at the current institution demanded that all teachers speak English to the exclusion of other languages while in the workplace, this might seem redundant, especially because the teachers seemed to enjoy the challenge of operating and cooperating in a foreign language (English) environment. In other words, we must be aware that positive as well as negative stress exist in close communion.
As stated before, one central assumption made by the researcher is that stress and its effects have no clear causal relationship; that is, like the proverbial chicken and egg, we cannot be sure whether stress results from or is the cause of certain issues. Put another way, stress might result from certain environmental or organizational variables, but it might also be the cause of certain situations. For example, if a teacher reacts to stress by becoming unrealistically intolerant of misbehavior in class, (Kyriacou, 1998) this might damage teacher-student rapport, which in turn causes more stress. This snowball effect poses very interesting research questions which might be addressed in future studies. Such a study might investigate whether emotion-focused coping strategies eventually lead to more stress as compared to problem-focused coping strategies. One might also study the interaction between heavy teaching workloads and stress levels.
An additional theme in this research project has been a consideration of the unique or field-specific or sources of stress in a language school environment where English is a foreign language. When one considers that the school is run according to the principle that English must be spoken during certain times and by certain individuals including students, a naturally stressful environment is set up which might not exist in any other organizations or institutions in this country. Future studies therefore ought to look at student stress resulting from mandatory 'English only' rules being enforced in class and throughout a school. Such studies would have a double benefit; that is, they would benefit the student and the teacher, since student stress is a putative source of teacher stress.
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