Understanding Emotional Well‐Being and Self‐Directed Professional Development of Language Teachers in a Private School: An Ecological Perspective

ABSTRACT Adopting a nested model of ecological systems, this study investigated how language teachers working in a private elementary school in Turkey experienced their emotional well‐being and what factors affected their emotional well‐being and self‐directed professional development. A biodata questionnaire, semi‐structured interviews, and journal writing were leveraged to identify the participants’ dynamic changes in their well‐being and professional development. The language teachers’ emotional well‐being and their teaching experiences were qualitatively analyzed under four categories namely, micro‐, meso‐, exo‐, and macrosystems of the nested ecosystem model. A grounded theory approach was used for the qualitative analysis, and the emergent codes were compared to reveal the dimensions of the dynamic ecological changes. The findings of the study provided evidence to support the dynamically changing trajectories and variables in language teachers’ emotional well‐being and their self‐directed professional development related to individual and contextual factors, namely feeling emotionally depleted and on edge in a volatile world, precarious employment, unstable schedules, and parental pressure eclipsing teacher roles. However, the sense of cooperation and collegiality among the language teachers allowed them to cope with the challenges and empowered them to tap into their professional career goals. The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge of language teachers’ well‐being and resilience in their instructional environment and provide implications for future research for language teacher professional development.