The Relationship among Anxiety, Motivation, and Burnout: A Study of Iranian EFL Teachers

Over the years, teachers are considered as one of the most influential factors, which play an important role in pedagogical and educational settings. Numerous research studies have been done about teachers and their performance in the classrooms. Among the investigated factors motivation, anxiety, burnout can be considered as having higher importance concerning related literature. Therefore, the present study sheds light on their interaction and relationship with Iranian language teachers’ performance. To this purpose, 80 male and female English teachers with at least 10 years of teaching experiences were selected in Neyshabur, and their motivation, anxiety, and burnout were examined through filling out the related questionnaires. The design of the study was correlational, focusing on the correlation between each two variables. The data analysis showed that there is a significant correlation between teachers’ burnout and the research factors such as their motivation and anxiety. Finally, some pedagogical implications of the study concerning the improvement of teachers’ performance at schools are presented. The findings of the present study put much emphasis on designing and administrating teacher-training programs with especial regard to psychological traits such as language teachers’ motivation and anxiety to reduce the probable great burnout, which the majority of language teachers may feel after several years of teaching experiences.