See discussions, st ats, and author pr ofiles f or this public ation at : https:www .researchgate.ne tpublic ation321126163 [613816]

See discussions, st ats, and author pr ofiles f or this public ation at : https://www .researchgate.ne t/public ation/321126163
Teachstrong: The Power of Teacher Resilience for L2 Practitioners
Chapt er · Dec ember 2018
DOI: 10.21832/[anonimizat]-018
CITATIONS
8READS
1,300
1 author:
Some o f the author s of this public ation ar e also w orking on these r elat ed pr ojects:
Comple xity and Dynamic Syst ems Theor y for Sec ond Languag e De velopment R esearch View pr oject
Philip Hiv er
Florida St ate Univ ersity
36 PUBLICA TIONS    337 CITATIONS    
SEE PROFILE
All c ontent f ollo wing this p age was uplo aded b y Philip Hiv er on 26 F ebruar y 2018.
The user has r equest ed enhanc ement of the do wnlo aded file.

Publication date: 31/01/2018
This title is available on the Multilingual Matters website: www.multilingual-matters.comEbook versions are also available.LANGUAGE TEACHER PSYCHOLOGY
Edited by Sarah Mercer (University of Graz) and
Achilleas Kostoulas (University of Graz)
Editor Information
Sarah Mercer is the Head of the ELT Research and Methodology section at the University of Graz, Austria. She is
interested in all aspects of language learning psychology, in particular self-related constructs, motivation, affect, agency,
mindsets, and belief systems. She is co-editor of Positive Psychology in SLA (with Peter MacIntyre and Tammy Gregersen)
and Multiple Perspectives of the Self in SLA (with Marion Williams). Achilleas Kostoulas taught English in schools in Greece
before moving into language teacher education. He completed a PhD at the University of Manchester, UK and now works
in the Department of English Studies at the University of Graz, Austria, where he teaches courses in ELT and Applied
Linguistics. His research interests focus on the psychology of language learning and teaching.Contents
Zoltán Dörnyei: Foreword
1. Sarah Mercer and Achilleas Kostoulas: Introduction to
Language Teacher Psychology
2. Phil Hiver, Tae-Young Kim and Youngmi Kim: Language
Teacher Motivation
3. Paula Kalaja and Katja Mäntylä: ‘An English Class of My
Dreams’: Envisioning Teaching a Foreign Language
4. Taguhi Sahakyan, Martin Lamb and Gary Chambers:
Language Teacher Motivation: From the Ideal to the
Feasible Self
5. Manka M. Varghese: Drawing On Cultural Models and
Figured Worlds to Study Language Teacher Education and
Teacher Identity
6. Wendy Li and Peter I. De Costa: Exploring Novice EFL
Teachers’ Identity Development: A Case Study of Two EFL
Teachers in China
7. Anne Feryok: Language Teacher Cognition: An Emergent
Phenomenon in an Emergent Field
8. Mark Wyatt: Language Teacher Self-Efficacy Beliefs: An
Introduction
9. Jim King and Kwan-Yee Sarah Ng: Teacher Emotions and
the Emotional Labour of Second Language Teaching10. Christina Gkonou and Sarah Mercer: The Relational
Beliefs and Practices of Highly Socio-Emotionally
Competent Language Teachers
11. Jean-Marc Dewaele and Sarah Mercer: Variation in ESL/
EFL Teachers’ Attitudes towards Their Students
12. Cynthia J. White: Language Teacher Agency
13. Joseph Falout and Tim Murphey: Teachers Crafting Job
Crafting
14. Phil Hiver: Teachstrong: The Power of Teacher
Resilience for L2 Practitioners
15. Achilleas Kostoulas and Anita Lämmerer: Making the
Transition into Teacher Education: Resilience as a Process
of Growth
16. Tammy Gregersen and Peter D. MacIntyre: Signature
Strengths as a Gateway to Mentoring: Facilitating
Emergent Teachers’ Transition into Language Teaching
17. Rebecca L. Oxford, Andrew D. Cohen and Virginia G.
Simmons: Psychological Insights from Third-Age Teacher
Educators
18. Mehvish Saleem: Exploring Language Teacher
Psychology: A Case Study from a Holistic Perspective
19. Achilleas Kostoulas and Sarah Mercer: Conclusions:
Lessons Learnt, Promising Perspectives.Description
This book examines teachers and their psychology from a variety of theoretical and
methodological perspectives. It covers well-established areas of teacher psychology plus
areas that have only recently begun to be explored. The 19 chapters in this volume make a
significant contribution to the emerging field of language teacher psychology.The chapters in this book have succeeded in laying out a rich, colourful and textured landscape of research into
language teachers. With its diverse conceptual frameworks and innovative methodologies, the book is bound
to become a primary reference for anyone wishing to orient themselves in this terrain and/or contribute to it.
Maggie Kubanyiova, University of Leeds, UK
In contrast to the study of learners, the study of teachers in the field of second language acquisition has
been noticeably rare. In this masterful collection of recent research, Mercer and Kostoulas draw together a
compelling rationale for attention to teachers as central players in language learning. The chapters in the book
are compulsory reading for anyone wishing to gain deeper insights into language teacher psychology.
Anne Burns, University of New South Wales, AustraliaPublication News
Series: Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching Hbk ISBN 9781783099450 £109.95 / US$149.95 / €134.95
Pbk ISBN 9781783099443 £34.95 / US$49.95 / €44.95
Territory: World Level: Postgraduate, Research/Professional
Pages: 368pp Format: 234 x 156 mm Pub Date : 31/01/2018Subject (BIC) : CJ Language Teaching & Learning, CJA Language
Teaching Theory & Methods, EBA ELT: Teaching Theory & Methods,
JNF Educational Strategies & Policy

1

Chapter 14
Teachstrong: The Power of Teacher
Resilience for L2 Practitioners

PHIL HIVER

Introduction
In this century of transnational mobility, growing multilingualism, and cross -cultural
interactions, language teaching remains a crucial profession. The majority of instructed language
learning worldwide occurs in increasingly diverse classroom settings, characteri sed by complex
and challenging conditions. Languages are often compulsory subjects taught in large, mixed –
ability groups. Howeve r, the climate in many institutions is one of increasingly stringent
accountability measures and unpredictable reform mandates , accompanied by a lack of support
and teacher autonomy ; these can undermine teachers’ professional self -worth and psychological
well-being. These structural conditions of the language teaching profession may prevent teachers
from developing feelings of effectiveness and building confidence and self -reliance. Enter
teacher resilience : the positive capacity of teachers’ to maintain ef fective functioning in their
practice despite threatening circumstances and to develop increased productivity through
consistent achievement in the classroom (Day et al., 2007; Gu & Day, 2013) . The aim of this
chapter is to explore the applicability of this commonplace personal strength in the work and
lives of second and foreign language (L2) practitioners. The first part of the chapter will provide Hiver, P. (2018). Teachstrong: The power of teacher resilience for L2 practitioners. In S.
Mercer & A. Kostoulas (Eds.), Language Teacher Psychology (pp. 231 –246).
Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

2
an in -depth, conceptual overview of the construct. Then, I will examine its utility for the
language teachin g profession , with particular implications for L2 pedagogy. Finally, I propose an
agenda for research specific to the field of applied linguistics that endeavours to accommodate
the dynamic, multifaceted, and relational nature of teacher resilience.

A little bit of background
The beginnings of r esilience research can be traced back to developmental psychologists in the
1970s and 80s studying the origins of mental illness and behavio ural problems (e.g. Garmezy et
al., 1984 ; Rutter et al. , 1976; Werner, 1 982). These researchers were surprised to find that many
children and adolescents who appeared to be at severe risk for psychopathology due to genetic or
experiential hazards were in fact developing well. Studies of youngsters raised in extreme
poverty, fo ster homes and other institutional settings, and children of criminal or abusive parents
grown to adulthood consistently showed that even in the face of extreme deprivation or threats to
their development, these children possessed protective factors that p rovided a form of
invulnerability (Werner, 1993 ). This resilience was defined by Ann Masten, one of the influential
originators of the construct, as the capacity to recover from experiences of psychological
adversity, and to function effective ly and grow adaptively while navigating these traumatic
circumstances (Masten, 2001).

Conceptuali sing resilience
The very first operational definitions interpreted resilience as a latent intrapersonal quality (e.g.
Masten et al. , 1990) . From this perspective, resilie nce is a trait -like resource that exists within an
individual and functions to protect th at individual from adversity. A related conceptualisation, an

3
outcome -oriented approach, regards resilience as a behavioural outcome, distinct from lay
definitions of invulnerability. Resilient individuals, in this sense are individuals who, when
encountering a demonstrable risk or threat, effectively adapt or achieve a positive outcome
through it (Hu et al. , 2015). This view of resilience signifies the achievement of positive
adaptation or adjustment which defies expectations in the face of significant adversity (Wilkes,
2002) . Two complementary aspects of this early definition are sustainability —i.e. the capacity
for individuals to maintain a positive outcome despite the occurrence of traumatic experiences,
and recovery —i.e. the ability of individuals to bounce back from these challenges (Zautra et al.,
2008) . The agenda of the first two decades of resilience research was to systematically uncover
the characteristics w hich foster resilience by differentiating individuals who thrive in the face of
substantial risk and adversity from those who succumb to destructive forces (Richardson, 2002).
These factors concern (a) attributes of the resilient individuals themselves, (b ) aspects of their
relationships with significant others, and (c) characteristics of their wider social -cultural
environments (see e.g. Wu et al. , 2013).
The second wave of resilience research (i.e. since 2000 ) saw researchers begin to view
resilience in terms of a dynamic developmental process involving the interaction of
psychological and social factors in a given environment that enable individuals to successfully
resolve or adapt to risks and threats (Chiccetti, 2010). Researchers recogni sed that id entifying the
factors which help individuals turn adversity into advantage —as in the earliest studies —was
crucial, but also that approaching resilience as an underlying protective process would allow
them to investigate exactly how and why resilient indivi duals achieve this outcome of effective
functioning despite traumatic events (Ungar, 2012). The consensus in most current theori sing is
that the development of this self -righting and steeling capacity is the result of fundamental

4
systems for human developm ent and adaptation operating normally, and that it can be found in
every human to varying degrees at various times in one’s life span (Reich et al. , 2010). This
perspective is more inclusive as it proposes multiple pathways to resilience, and sees the
individual as an a ctive participa nt in this developmental process in context and across time, with
prior experiences and interactions shaping the organi sation of this protective functioning
(Bonanno, 2004). Clear implications for prevention and intervention emerged from this
developmental perspective . Through this focus on the mechanisms underlying resilient
functioning, researchers beg an to study how t o engineer the conditions for resilience to develop,
for instance , by increasing the relative balance of prote ctive factors over risk factors (Luthar et
al., 2000).
Another prominent issue to come out of this expanding research agenda concerns the
surprisingly widespread occurrence of resilience (Murray & Zautra, 2012). The design of i nitial
studies on the development of resilience was only sensitive to the most extreme forms of the
context, and as such implied that successful adaptation in the face of debilitating circumstances
was an extraordinary capacity , which was not questioned until more recen tly (Masten, 2001 ).
Masten has termed this ‘ordinary magic ’ (2009) to emphasi se that resilience is a naturally
occurring phenomenon that arises from the interaction of the adaptive systems that foster and
protect human development and psychological recover y. Lately, some scholars have highlighted
the need to refine previous concept ualisations of resilience (Rutter, 2006; Windle, 2011). One
reason for this is the recognition that positive adaptation may not occur across all spheres of life,
and thus the dyna mics of resilience across varied domains need to be probed more fully. Another
reason relates to the nature of risk and the extent of adversity: resilience has typically been
associated with acute and chronic adversities, but may also apply equally well to individuals who

5
are faced with more routine hassles, setbacks, challenges, and pressures that are part of the
ordinary course of life —what some have called an ‘everyday life ’ approach to resilience (Ong et
al., 2009) .
While there is no shortage in psychology of models and theories related to constructive
explanatory styles and mindsets, positive emotionality, beliefs about self and personhood, and
faith, hopes, and goals for the future (for one review see Seligman et al. , 2005), resilience
provides what is perhaps the most comprehensive picture of the relational processes and
emergent qualities that enable an individual to adapt effectively and function positively despite
challenging circumstances (Lipsitt & Demick, 2012). Resilience research has become
multidisciplinary and is moving rapidly into fields across all the social and human sciences; there
is also growing evidence for the importance of building resilience in educational settings
(Martin, 2013 ). The potential impact of resilience on health, well-being, and quality of life has
received increasing interest from those involved with policy and practice over the last decade ,
and this has brought insights and agendas from this positive ly oriented psychology literature to
educational research. I will now turn to focusing on the growing body of research that examin es
the phenomenon of resilience in connection to teachers and the work of teaching (e.g. Day & Gu,
2014) .

Situating teacher resilience
Teacher resilience is most meaningful if it is located within the discourse of the twenty -first
century educational environments that provide context . With regards to education policy more
broadly , the emphasis on standards, outcomes, and teacher accountability has intensified in m any
educational settings , as the progress and achievement of students faces greater scrutiny than ever

6
(Darling -Hammond & Lieberman, 2012 ). Socially and culturally in many countries, the makeup
of the local communities which schools serve has become more diversified, pushing schools and
teachers to manage a broader role in supporting their community (Wentzel & Ramani, 2016) .
The field -specific concerns and contributions of the language teacher ha ve also begun to receive
increasing attention from applied linguists considering particular political, societal, and cultural
challenges and questions of the twenty -first century , such as policies of language ideology and
power, growing linguistic commodif ication and social marginalization, and the rising norm of
multilingualism and transnational mobility (Crookes, 2013 ; Hall, 2016 ). In their proposed
reconceptuali sation of the language teacher’s roles for the twenty -first century, Kubanyiova and
Crookes (2 016) argue that language teachers’ stance towards their own roles, the pedagogical
choices made regarding instructional practices, and the language practices promoted
institutionally and beyond ( e.g. use of language assessment as a policy tool) suggest cri tical
value -oriented, moral, and ethical dimensions of language teaching —and indeed of language
teacher education.
In the context of these increased challenges and pressuri sed conditions in contemporary
teaching settings , a fairly in -depth understanding of the reasons for teacher burnout and attrition
exists in mainstream teacher research (see e.g. Borman & Dowling, 2008) that has only begun to
be explored with language teachers (Hiver, 2016 a; Swanson, 2012). Research into t eacher
resilience is part of the shift towards models of success and perseverance that promote retention
and teacher effectiveness ; it is concerned with how teachers manage and sustain their motivation
and commitment, recover in the face of adversity, and develop increased self -efficacy through
consistent achievement in the classroom ( Hong, 2012 ).

7
Teacher resilience has been defined as a teacher using all the resources available to maintain
personal well -being alongside professional productivity in the face of adversity and detrimental
conditions, what Gu and Day (2013) have termed ‘the capacity to maintain equilibrium and a
sense of commitment, agency and moral purpose in the everyday worlds in which teachers teach ’
(p. 26). However, t his concept ha s experienced limited crossover to the applied linguistics
literature or to language teacher research. Indeed, a dopting a psychological perspective of what
language teacher s do, why they do what they do, and how they adapt and develop is still
relatively new for the domain of applied linguistics concerned with the knowledge base of
language teachers and the purposes and practices of language teacher education and professional
development (cf. Burns et al. , 2015 ). Mercer et al. (2016) have proposed that ‘in respect to
psychology in language learning specifically, (…) teachers have been somewhat neglected ’ (pp.
213-214), but that this lack of attention may be wrong in light of the central role language
teachers play in the dynamics of the classroom ecology and i n learners’ engagement within that
instructional setting.
Relationships , clearly, are at the centre of teachers’ work (Day & Gu, 2010) , and teachers’
professional worlds are organi sed around critical role relationships —teachers with learners, and
teachers with other colleagues or superiors in the workplace ; this is equally the case in the
language teaching profession (Benesch, 2012) . Teacher resilience, perhaps more so than
resilience for other professionals , must be viewed as relational , developme ntal, and dynamic
rather th an an innate individual trait ( Luthar, 2006) . This is echoed in the work of Noddings
(2012 ) and Zembylas (2014) who propose that, fundamentally, teaching should be seen as the
creation of caring connections and encounters between individuals. In language teaching, t he fact
that these relationships cannot be taken for granted but must be cultivated as a matter of effort

8
acknowledges the role of individual agency in language teachers’ work to reach and engage their
students regardle ss of the challenges this might bring them ( Feryok, 2012 ). Teacher resilience,
then, is constructed as a dynamic process within a given context . It encompasses the teachers’
sense of purpose, entails meaningful action and participation, and is shaped in the interaction of
personal and social dimensions.

Lessons from teacher resilience research
There are extensive programs of research on teacher resilience in Australia ( e.g. Johnson et al. ,
2014; Le Cornu, 2013) and the United Kingdom (e.g. Day & Gu, 2014; Day et al. , 2007) , with
equally important —although less prominent —work also being done across North America (e.g.
Castro et al. , 2010), Africa ( e.g. Ebers öhn, 2014), a nd Asia (e.g. Gu & Li, 2013). The current
educa tion climate of many of these contexts places teacher quality at the forefront of educational
reforms and initiatives to boost student outcomes and ongoing professional learning. Because of
this, the picture emerging from these studies of thousands of teachers at various career phases is
that a form of psychological invulnerability may be a key factor in teachers’ instructional
effectiveness , their capacity to adapt and survive, and their long-term commitment to the
profession (Gibbs & Miller, 2014 ). While there is very little existing research on language
teacher resilience, these characteristics parallel recent research on the complex, emergent, and
contextually -mediated role of language teacher m otivation ( Hiver, 2015 ; Kubanyiova, 2012),
language teacher agency (Feryok, 2012), language teacher identity (Johnson & Golombek, 2011;
Kanno & Stuart, 2011), and language teacher cognition (Burns et al. , 2015; Kubanyiova &
Feryok, 2015) in the work and li ves of language teachers. This suggests that evaluating and

9
integrating established insights from teacher resilience into the growing body of language teacher
research would be relatively straightforward.
As it is multidimensional and socially -constructed in nature, teacher resilience should not be
seen as an idealised state—it is developed and sustained by drawing on multiple capacities (Gu
& Day, 2007) . The socio -emotional resources r esilient teachers draw on are perhaps the most
noteworthy part of existing research. Resilient teachers approach their practice with higher self-
efficacy and draw more on active coping stra tegies. They possess the meta -cognition and self-
regulation skills needed to be auton omous, exhibit greater altruis m and sense of purpose in life,
and have positive self -perception s and a generally optimistic disposition . At the collegial level of
their work , they build positive relationships with competent and nurturing colleagues and
superiors , seek out friends and partners who are supportive, and us e the support and attachment
of social networks in their professional lives. A variety of personal and social or professional
factors can enhance or inhibit the extent to which teachers acquir e these resilient qualities
(Mansfield et al. , 2016 ), and a s teacher resilience manifests itself in response to situational
demands , it can develop and change continuously with emerging conditions or contexts ( Gu,
2014 ). Thus, rather than an essentiali sed view of teacher resilience as innate, it should be seen
instead as a dynamic, relational, and developmental quality ; I provide further examples of this
immediately below.
Several researchers have focused specifically on the potential for resilience in pre -service or
novice teachers ( e.g. Howard & Johnson, 2004 ). For instance, Tait’s (2008) analysis of the
teacher recruiting, training and induction process in Canada indicated that resilient teachers
developed characteristics, such as mirroring more h ighly efficacious and emotionally intelligent
teachers, which appeared to provide the foundation for success and long -term commitment to the

10
profession. Johnson et al. (2014) identified similar components of teacher resilience in teachers –
in-training, citi ng productive relationships, career competence and skills, personal ownership,
and a sense of accomplishment as the necessary resources for teachers to develop resilience early
on in their careers. Given the varying levels of preparation and competence of beginning
teachers, these studies all argue that resilience is a crucial contributor to career preparation,
teaching effectiveness, and persistence in the profession past the first year or two ( Gibbs &
Miller, 2014 ). There are parallels here with the small body of work on novice language teachers
(see e.g. Farrell, 2008, 2012 , 2016 ). Although th is scholarship has not been framed from a
resilience perspective , the psychological resources available to novice language teachers in their
early years have been re cogni sed as influential for how success fully these practitioners navigate
their first years in the classroom (Freeman & Johnson, 1998 ) and develop over the ir careers
(Tarone & Allwright, 2005 ). Develop ing a strong sense of agency and self-efficacy gives
beginning language teachers the ability to remain in control of events occurring to them and
around them ; strong professional networks contribute a culture of collaboration and support; and,
gaining a sense of purpose and competence provides the necessary stimulus for identity
growth —all of which contribute to their survival (Farrell, 2008, 2012 , 2016 ).
The agenda of o ther recent research has been to investigate whether teachers can practice
resilience and thus d evelop it through intervention (Beltman et al. , 2016; Mansfield et al., 2016) .
The research to -date provides evidence not only that teacher resilience can be built, but also that
developing it is necessary to sustain teachers’ commitment to the profession and help them
achieve optimal teaching effectiveness. For instance, teachers employ ing specific resilience
strategies when experiencing anxiety -provoking or disruptive encounters at school are able to
overcome the pressures and adversity inherent in these situations ( Castro et al. , 2010) . Le

11
Cornu’s studies (2009, 2013) have examined the potential role of learning communities in
fostering and building resilience during the professional experiences of teachers. She reported
that providing opportunities for peer support, explicitly teaching protective skills or attitudes, and
adopting clear supportive roles in the workplace contributed to mutual empowerment and
resilience building in teachers who previously did not exhibit this capacity. Collecting data from
teachers work ing in inner city high schools in California, Brunetti (2006) also reported that in
spite of the challenges these teachers faced, they were able to sustain their resilience while under
fire, persist in the profession, and even achieve a measure of success with their students. These
findings suggest that resilience can be enhanced, strengthened or honed if the conditions and
support teachers need to perform at their best are available.
Resilience research offers a way to investigate the attitudes and beh aviours of teachers within
the context of their work and profession al lives , and sheds light on how these individuals
maintain their commitment, motivation, and engagement (Mansfield et al. , 2012). However, t he
broader implication from this research is tha t teacher resilience plays a n additional role: that of
maximi sing students’ well-being, progress , and achievement . Research into academic resilience
has shown that the capacity for resilience in students is linked to prosocial behavio ur and peer
acceptance, school attendance, class participation and perseverance , self -efficacy, motivation and
aspirations, and , ultimately, long -term academic success (Martin & Marsh, 2006, 2008). Some
have stated explicitly that students cannot be expecte d to develop resilience if their teachers do
not ex hibit this ability themselves , and that educators who want their students to develop the
capacity to successfully adjust to challenging circumstances and overcome setbacks and failures
must first develop r esilience themselves (Day, 2004 ; Parker & Martin, 2009 ). This is echoed in
recent scholarship on the impact of language teachers’ vision on students’ learning and processes

12
of sense -making (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014). L earner vision cannot flourish withou t teacher
vision , but if the teacher is disengaged and lacks vision, this is just as readily transmitted to
students through the socially -mediated encounters of the language classroom (Dörnyei & Ryan,
2015) . For this reason, teachers who hope to foster pos itive capacities in their learners must first
develop those capacities , and the picture emerging from the above review is that teachers can
intentionally cultivate these character strengths in their own practice.

Beyond resilience to immunity
When conceptuali sed as dynamic, relational and contextual , resilience is both immediately
relevant and valuable to understanding language teaching . In addition, b uilding from the
literature examinin g the psychological aspects of teaching and ways to maximi se teacher
psychological well -being , a very recent line of research with L2 teachers has extended this by
integrating notions of professional identity and teacher cognition and exploring how these might
interface with the contextual realities that influence classroom practice . This work has identified
a novel , construct —language teacher immunity (e.g. Hiver, 2015 , Hiver 2016 b; Hiver &
Dörnyei, 2015 ). In this section I briefly introduce this construct which grew out of the
application of resilience for L2 teaching and learning as it remains one of the few applications of
the core invulnerability metaphor from resilience in the L2 teaching and learning field. Language
teacher immunity has been conceptuali sed (see e.g. Hiver & Dörnyei, 2015) in close parallel to
the biological definition of acquired (also known as adaptive ) immunity , and it describes a robust
armo uring system that emerges in response to high -intensity threats and which allows teachers to
mainta in professional equilibrium and instructional effectiveness. Existing evidence suggests that
L2 teachers who are emotionally well -adjusted, open to change and resilient to burnout, and

13
motivated and productive in their practice possess this superordinate p sychological quality which
other teachers have not developed.
When contrast ed with resilience , the uniqueness of the metaphor of teacher immunity revolves
around three aspects (Hiver & Dörnyei, 2015). First, like an acquired immune response to viral
pathogens, language teacher immunity emerges only through a self -organi sed (i.e. spontaneously
coordinated) adaptive reaction to repeated instances of domain -specific crisis. Thus, r ather than
an innate, trait -like disposition, teacher immunity is a situated and teaching -specific construct
which emerges in relation to conflicts that are particular to classroom practice. Given its primary
function of ensuring the system’s survival, developing a robust teacher immunity appears to be
indispensable to surviving i n the profession (see also Day & Gu, 2014) . However, unlike teacher
resilience , this outcome is not the commonplace result of ordinary systems for development and
adaptation. Secondly, language teacher immunity develops a protective configuration that is
dual-natured —at times, serving a necessary safeguarding purpose, but , at others , threatening the
individual’s functioning and becoming a professional liability by mounting resistance to change.
Resilience, by definition , cannot promote either resistance to change or maladaptive functioning
because it has only positive valence (Richardson, 2002; Wilkes, 2002 ). Language teacher
immunity , however, sim ilar to its biological parallel may develop into a counterproduc tive form
that unexpectedly threatens the survival of the individua l through cynicism, apathy, or
fossili sation . Finally, language teacher immunity is integrated into the fabric of teachers’
professional identity through the formation of analytical narratives that consciously legitimi se
classroom experiences (e.g. Johnson & Golombek, 2011 ; McAdams & McLean, 2013 ).
Resilience, on the other hand, has not been implicated explicitly in the more global scheme of
professional identity formation or as part of the self -concept. Thus, the metaphor of langua ge

14
teacher immunity provides a more nuanced and balanced appraisal which sheds light not only on
practitioners’ psychological well -being , but also on issues such as teachers’ adaptivity and
openness to change, their commitment to the profession and investm ent in the quality of
students’ learning .
Work fram ed from a complexity theory perspective , in which t eacher immunity is seen as an
emerge nt outcome, has suggested that teacher immunity manifests itself in four global categories
within which precise archetypes develop : L2 teachers may be (a) productively immuni sed (i.e.
possessing a robust, beneficial form of teacher immunity); (b) maladaptively immuni sed (i.e .
possessing a rigid, counterproductive form of teacher immunity); (c) immunocompromised (i.e.
having not developed any coherent form of teacher immunity); or, (d) partially immuni sed (i.e.
having developed half -way features of teacher immunity). Additionally, the developmental
process has been shown to follow a self -organi sed sequence of four stages —triggering, linking,
realignment, and stabili sation —with unique signature trajectories or pathways of development
for particular outcomes. In each case, the teacher immunity outcomes are assembled into
teachers’ professional ident ity through analytical narratives designed to make sense of the events
that are part of their experience and help them gain resolution and purpose from this adversity
(Johnson & Golombek, 2011 ). These outcomes are ultimately displayed in language teachers’
emotions and beliefs, instructional practice, and commitment and persistence within challenging
instructional settings. Thus, th is multifaceted and dynamic construct provides a potential tool for
integrating teacher resilience into larger questions surrou nding the profession and revolutioni sing
the way in-service teachers are mentored and new language teachers are prepared.

15
Researching language teacher resilience
This section provides a brief look at several existing tradition s of resilience research, both in
developmental and educational psychology, in order to propose a principled agenda for resilience
research that connects to the life, work, and experience of language teachers. These approaches
can be exploited to explore th e field -specific contribution of teacher resilience beyond
established constructs and existing frameworks , and to make explicit links to the work of
language teachers —i.e. creating rich, meaningful L2 learning environments for their learners —
and the accomp anying objectives and outcomes of their classroom practice.
First and foremost, research will need to establish the relevance of teacher resilience to our
field empirically and conceptually —its applicability cannot be assumed a priori. Resilience
research emerged from phenomenological studies looking for explanatory clues in the
characteristics of survivors living in high -risk situations , rather than from theoretically grounded
model s (Richardson, 2002). The typical design of these person -based studies of teacher resilience
identified educators with a resilient profile , often compar ing these with individuals from the
same high -risk context who ha d a maladaptive functioning in order to determine what attributes
account ed for the differences in outcom e (Day & Hong, 2016 ). Whil e a range of protective
factors has been identified consistently in the teacher resilience literature, there are notable
instances where protective factors were shown to be in operation and yet resilient outcomes did
not result. This issue reflects the complexity of resilience formation and implicit in this approach
to resilience research is the fact that personal and contextual factors may exert an influence on
each other at different levels and thus impact important outcomes ( Gu, 2014 ).
With regard to determining precisely what relevance teacher resilience has to our field, t his
attention to situational and within -individual factors lends itself well to investigating whether

16
language teachers routinely encounter the type of si gnificant challenges and adversity necessary
for resilience to blossom —and i f this initial criterion can be established , to explore what sets
apart language teachers who achieve positive adaptation and adjustment despite these high-risk
environments . While language teacher resilience research designed in this way is likely to be
exploratory and build incremental insights, it does not follow that a person -focused program of
language teacher resilience research must result in disconnected idiographic fin dings unique to
certain individuals and settings. Because it can pay close attention to commonalities and still
remain sensitive to variations in time and context, this approach is well -suited to searching for
patterns and characteristic differences among the qualities, components, and subtle influences
that make some teachers more resilient and others less so (Beltman et al. , 2016 ).
As the early resilience research gradually became more applied, v ariable -focused approaches
began to identify links betwe en the degree of adversity, outcome, and individual or contextual
qualities that exert a protective function from the consequences of the adversity, usually relying
on multivariate statistical procedures to do so (Masten, 2001). In contrast to the sense of the
whole in many person -based studies, this variable -focused design is better suited to searching for
links between individual predictors, such as risks and assets, and resilience outcomes across
larger samples of teachers (see e.g. Rutter, 2012). One objective of researching these main
effects is to offer models of intervention that might offset the risks by counterbalancing or
mediating them with positive assets ( Mansfield et al. , 2016 ). This type of teacher resilience
researc h often measures the independent contribution that a combination of risks or assets makes
to the outcome of resilience and the implications this has for the roles and practices teachers
adopt professionally.

17
The strength of this tradition of teacher re silience research is that it encourages explicit links to
be made with constructs already established within research specific to the field of language
teachers —such as their agency, beliefs, and emotions —in order to investigate areas of
convergence as well as the unique insights that language teacher resilience might bring to applied
research in the sense of its contribution to reflective and innovative L2 classroom practice. Th is
program of language teacher resilience research is likely to take a more integrated and
transactional view of all the individual and contextual variables that contribute to the
development of this outcome, as doing so would enable researchers to incorporate these finding s
within contemporary frameworks for the study of the work and life of language teachers such as
language teacher cognition, language teacher identity, and language teacher development
(Mercer et al. , 2016) .
Finally, w hile research from both of the abov e approaches has argue d for the multidimensional
situated nature of teacher resilience, very few designs are concerned with its dynamic, adaptive
nature, nor have they fully addressed the question of how teacher resilience is developed .
Teacher resilience is not absolute, and even resilient individuals show considerable fluctuation
over time . However, l ittle attention has been paid to fluctuations and adjustment s of teacher
resilience in situ (Robertson et al. , 2015 ). This issue is perhaps not surprising given that few
teacher resilience studies are designed to collect longitudinal data or record the fluctuations of
adaptation that some suggest is the norm in most resilient individuals . Thus, an agenda for
language tea cher resilience should be to investigate the dynamic interaction between the various
people, practices, & policies at play in the social ecology of the language classroom ( cf. Mercer,
2016 ) and how these may lead to productive or maladaptive developmental pathways and

18
outcomes over the course of teachers’ professional lives —as in the strand of work on language
teacher immunity .

Conclusion
This chapter has explored how the capacity of resilience might advance the field’s understanding
of L2 practitioners’ psychological well -being, and their commitment and effectiveness in the
increasingly complex, challenging L2 classroom settings worldwide. It is apparent from this
overview that, r ather than a fixed, latent capacity, teacher resilience should be seen as
dynamically shaped by the social and professional contexts in which ordinary teachers work and
live. My position throughout has been that, because teacher resilience provide s unique
explanatory power for practitioners’ psychological, emotional, behavioural and even cognitive
functioning in professional settings, it may be an indispensable quality for understanding how
language teachers manage and sustain their passion, enthusiasm, and commitment to making a
difference in the L2 classroom. Situating the study of language teachers in the larger discourse of
educators more broadly will allow a more robust psychological perspective of what language
teachers do, why they do what they do, and how they adapt and develop. However, while there is
particular promise fo r future research avenues specific to language teachers, this program of
research must establish the precise contribution of teacher resilience to L2 teachers and teaching
and embed this research within existing frameworks for studying the work and life of language
practitioners .

19
References
Beltman, S., Mansfield, C. and Harris, A. (2016 ) Quietly shari ng the load? The role of school
psychologists in enabling teacher resilience. School Psychology International 37 (2), 172 –
188.
Benesch, S. (2012) Considering Emotions in Critical English Language Teaching: Theories and
Praxis . New York: Routledge.
Bonanno, G. (2004) Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underes timated the human
capacity to thrive after extremely averse events? American Psych ologist 59 (1), 20-28.
Borman, G. and Dowling, N. (2008) Teacher attrition and retention: a meta -analytic and
narrative review of the research. Review of Educational Research 78 (3), 367 -409.
Brunetti, G. (2006) Resilience under fire: Perspectives on the work of experienced, inner city
high school teachers in the United States. Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (7), 812 –
825.
Burns, A., Freeman, D. and Edwards, E. (2015) Theorizing and studying the language -teaching
mind: Mapping research on language teacher cognition. The Modern Language Journal 99
(3), 585-601.
Castro, A., Kelly, J. and Shih, M. (2010) Resilience strategies for new teachers in high -needs
areas. Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (3), 622 -629.
Chiccetti, D. (2010) Resilience under conditions of extreme stress: A multilevel perspective.
World Psychiatry 9 (3), 145 -154.
Crookes, G. (2013) Critical ELT in Action: Foundations, Promises, Praxis . New York:
Routledge.

20
Darling -Hammond, L. and Leiberman, A. ( eds) (2012) Teacher Education Around the World:
Changing Policies and Practices . New York: Routledge.
Day, C. (2004) A Passion for Teaching . New York: Routledge.
Day, C. and Gu, Q. (2014) Resilient Teachers, Resilient Schools: Buildi ng and Sustaining
Quality in Testing Times. New York: Routledge .
Day, C. and Hong, J. (2016) Influences on the capacities for emotional resilience of teachers in
schools serving disadvantaged urban communities: Challenges of living on the edge.
Teaching an d Teacher Education 59, 115 -125.
Day, C., Sammons, P., Stobart, G., Kington, A . and Gu, Q. (2007) Teachers Matter: Connecting
Lives, Work and Effectiveness . New York: McGraw -Hill.
Dörnyei, Z. and Kubanyiova, M. (2014) Motivating Learners, Motivating Teachers: Building
Vision in the Language Classroom . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dörnyei, Z . and Ryan, S. (2015) The Psychology of the Language Learner R evisited . New York :
Routledge.
Ebersöhn, L. (2014) Teacher resilience: Theorizing resilience and poverty. Teachers and
Teaching: Theory and Practic e 20 (5), 568 -594.
Farrell, T. S.C. (ed.) (2008) Novice Language Teachers: Insights and Perspectives for the First
Year. London : Continuum.
Farrell, T. S.C. (2012) Novice -service language teacher development: Bridging the gap between
pre-service and in-service e ducation and development . TESOL Quarterly 46, 435-449.
Farrell, T.S.C. (2016) Surviving the transition shock in the first year of teaching through
reflective practice. System 61, 12 -19.

21
Feryok, A. (2012) Activity theory and language teacher agency. The Modern Language Journal
96 (1), 95-107.
Freeman, D. and Johnson, K. (1998) Reconceptualizing the knowledge -base of language teacher
education. TESOL Quarterly 32, 397 -417.
Garme zy, N., Masten, A . and Tellegen, A. (1984) The study of stress and competence in
children: A building block for developmental psychopathology. Child Development 55, 97 –
111.
Gibbs, S. and Miller, A. (2014) Teachers’ resilience and well -being: A role for educational
psychology. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 20 (5), 609 -621,
Gu, Q. (2014) The role of relational resilience in teach ers’ career -long commitment and
effectiveness. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 20 (5), 502 -529.
Gu, Q . and Day, C. (2007) Teachers resilience: A necessary condition for effectiveness.
Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (8), 1302 -1316.
Gu, Q . and Day, C. (2013) Challenges to teacher resilience: Conditions count. British
Educational Research Journal 39 (1), 22-44.
Gu, Q. and Li, Q. (2013) Sustaining resilience in times of change: Stories from Chinese teachers.
Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 41 (3), 288 -303.
Hall, G. (ed .) (2016) Routledge Handbook of ELT . New York: Routledge.
Hiver, P. (20 15) Once burned, twice shy: The dynamic development of system immunity in
language teachers. In Z. Dörnyei, P.D. MacIntyre and A. Henry ( eds) Motivational
Dynamics in Language Learning (pp. 214 -237). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

22
Hiver, P. (2016 a) The triumph over experience: Hope and hardiness in novice L2 teachers. In
P.D. MacIntyre, T. Gregersen and S. Mercer ( eds) Positive Psychology in SLA (pp. 168 –
192). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Hiver, P. (2016b) Tracing the signature dynamics of langua ge teacher immunity . Unpublished
doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham, England .
Hiver, P . and Dörnyei, Z. (2015) Language teacher immunity: A double -edged sword. Advance
Online Access. Applied Linguistics . doi:10.1093/applin/amv034
Hong, J. (2012) Why do some beginning teachers lea ve the school, and others stay?
Understanding teacher resilience through psychological lenses. Teachers and Teaching :
Theory and Practice 18 (4), 417 -440.
Howard, S. and Johnson, B. (2004) Resilient teachers: Resisting stress and burnout. Social
Psychology of Education 7 (4), 399 -420.
Hu, T., Zhang, D. and Wang, J. (2015) A meta -analysis of the trait resilience and mental health .
Personality and Individual Differences 76, 18-27.
Johnson, B., Down, B., Le Cornu, R., Peters, J., Sullivan, A., Pearce, J. and Hunter, J. (2014)
Promoting early career teacher resilience: a framework for understanding and acting.
Teachers and Teaching 20 (5), 530 -546.
Johnson, K. and Golombek , P. (2011) The transformative power of narrative in second language
teacher education. TESOL Quarterly 45, 486 -509.
Kanno, Y. and Stuart, C. (2011) Learning to become a second language teacher: Identities ‐in-
practice. The Modern Language Journal 95 (2), 236-252.
Kubanyiova, M. (2012) Teacher Development in Action: Understanding Language Teachers’
Conceptual Change . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

23
Kubanyiova, M. and Crookes, G. (2016) Re -envisioning the roles, tasks, and contributions of
language teachers in the multilingual era of language education research and practice. The
Modern Language Journal , 100 (s1) 117-132.
Kubanyiova, M. and Feryok, A. (2015) Language te acher cognition in applied linguistics
research: Revisiting the territory, redrawing the boundaries, reclaiming the relevance. The
Modern Language Journal 99 (3), 435 -449.
Le Cornu, R. (2009) Building resilience in pre -service teachers. Teaching and Teacher
Education 25 (5), 717-723.
Le Cornu, R. (2013) Building early career teacher resilience: The role of relationships.
Australian Journal of Teacher Education 38 (4), 1-16.
Lipsitt, L . and Demick, J. (2012) Theory and measurement of resilience: Views from
development. In M. Ungar ( ed.) The Social Ecology of Resilience: A Handbook of Theory
and Practice (pp. 43 -52). New York: Springer.
Luthar, S. (2006) Resilience in development: A synthesis of research across five decades. In D.
Chiccetti & D. Cohen ( eds) Developmental Psychopathology (Vol. 3) (2nd ed n) (pp. 739 –
795). Hoboken , NJ: John Wiley.
Luthar, S., Chiccetti, D . and Becker, B. (2000) The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation
and guidelines for future work. Child Development 71 (3), 543 -562.
Mansfield, C., Beltman, S., Broadley, T . and Wetherby -Fell, N. (2016) Building resilience in
teacher education: An evidenced informed framework. Teaching and Teacher Education
54, 77 -87.

24
Mansfield, C., Beltman, S., Price, A. and McConney, A. (2012) ‘Don‘t sweat the small stuff ’:
Understanding teacher resilience at the chalkface. Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (3),
357-367.
Martin, A. (2013) Academic buoyancy and academic resilience: Exploring ‘everyday’ and
‘classic’ resilience in the face of acade mic adversity. School Psychology International 34
(5), 488 -500.
Martin, A . and Marsh, H. (2006) Academic resilience and its psychological and educational
correlates: A construct validity approach. Psychology in the Schools 43 (3), 267 -281.
Martin, A . and Marsh, H. (2008) Academic buoyancy: Towards an understanding of students’
everyday academic resilience. Journal of School Psychology 46 (1), 53-83.
Masten, A. (2001) Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development . American Psychologist
56 (3), 227 -238.
Masten, A. (2009) Ordinary magic: Lessons from research on resilience in human development.
Education Canada 49 (3), 28 -33.
Masten, A., Best, K. and Garmezy, N. (1990) Resilience and development: Contributions from
the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopathology 2 (4),
425-444.
McAdams, D. and McLean, K. (2013) Narrative identity. Curr ent Directions in Psychological
Science 22 (3), 233 -238.
Mercer, S. (2016) Complexity and language teach ing. In G. Hall (ed .) The Routledge Handbook
of English Language Teaching (pp. 473 -485). New York: Routledge.
Mercer, S., Oberdorfer, P . and Saleem, M. (2016) Helping language teachers to thrive: Using
positive psychology to promote teachers’ professional well -being. In D. Gabryś -Barker and

25
D. Gałajda (eds) Positive Psychology Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning and
Teaching (pp. 213 -232). Switzerland: Springer.
Murray, K . and Zautra, A. (2012) Community resilience: Fosterin g recovery, sustainability, and
growth. In M. Ungar ( ed.) The Social Ecology of Resilience: A Handbook of Theory and
Practice (pp. 337 -345). New York: Springer.
Noddings, N. (2012) The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education 38, 771 -781.
Ong, A., Bergeman, C. and Boker, S. (2009) Resilience comes of age: Defining features in later
adulthood. Journal of Personality 77 (6), 1777 -1804.
Parker, P., & Martin, A. (2009) Coping and buoyancy in the workplace: Understanding their
effects on teachers’ work -related well -being and engagement. Teaching and Teacher
Education 25 (1), 68-75.
Reich, J., Zautra, A . and Hall, J. (eds) (2010) Handbook of Adult Resilience . New York: Guilford
Press.
Richardson, G. (2002) The metatheory of resilience and resiliency . Journal of Clinical
Psycholog y 58 (3), 307 -321.
Robertson, I., Cooper, C., Sarkar, M. and Curran, T. (2015) Resilience training in the workplace
from 20 03 to 2014: A systematic review. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology 88 (3), 533 -562.
Rutter, M., Tizard, J., Yule, W, Graham, P. and Whitmore, K. (1976) Research report: Isle of
Wight studies, 1964 -1974. Psychological Medicine 6 (2), 313-332.
Rutter, M. (2006) Implications of resilience concepts for scientific understanding. Annals of the
New York Academy of Science s 1094, 1 -12.

26
Rutter, M. (2012) Resilience: Causal pathways and social ecology. In M. Ungar ( ed.) The Social
Ecology of R esilience: A Handbook of Theory and Practice (pp. 33 -42). New York :
Springer.
Seligman, M.E.P., Steen, T., Park, N. and Peterson, C. (2005) Positive psychology progress:
Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist 60 (5), 410 -421.
Swanson, P. (2012) Second/foreign language teacher efficacy and its relationship to professional
attrition. The Canadian Modern Language Review 68 (1), 78-101.
Tait, M. (2008) Resilience as a contributor to novice teacher success, commitment, and retention .
Teache r Education Quarterly 35, 57 -75.
Tarone, E . and Allwright, D. (2005) Language teacher -learning and student language learning:
Shaping the knowledge -base. In D.J. Tedick ( ed.) Language Teacher Education:
International Perspectives on Research and Practice (pp. 5 -23). Mahwah , NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Ungar, M. (2012) Social ecologies and their contribution to resilience. In M. Ungar ( ed.) The
Social Ecology of Resilience: A Handbook of Theory and Practice (pp. 13 -31). New York :
Springer.
Wentzel, K . and Ramani, G. (eds) (2016) Handbook of Social Influences in School Contexts:
Social -emotional, Motivational, and Cognitive Outcomes . New York: Routledge.
Werner, E. (1982) Vulnerable but Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and
Youth . New York: McGraw -Hill.
Werner, E. (1993) Risk, resilience, and recovery: Perspectives from the Kauai longitudinal study.
Development and Psychopathology 5 (4), 503 -515.

27
Wilkes, G. (2002) Introduction: A second generation of resilience research. Journal of Clinical
Psychology 58 (3), 229 -232.
Windle, G. (2011) What is resilience? A review and concept analysis. Reviews in Clinical
Gerontology 21 (2), 152 -169.
Wu, G., Feder, A., Cohen, H., Kim, J., Calderon, S., Charney, D . and Mathé, A. (2013)
Understanding resilience. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 7 (10), 1 -15.
Zautra, A., Hall, J . and Murray, K., (2008 ) Resilience: A new integrative approach to health and
mental health research. Health Psychology Review 2, 41-64.
Zembylas, M. (2014) Ma king sense of the complex entanglement between emotion and
pedagogy: Contributions of the affective turn. Cultural Studies in Science Education 9, 1-
12.
View publication statsView publication stats