Conclusions, limitations, and suggestions were provided in this chapter. First of all, answers to the research questions were stated. Next, limitations of this study were explained.
And suggestions for future studies, government and teachers were provided.
Conclusions
Education was the basis of nurturing students. Teachers played an important role as a navigator in teaching students. How to encourage teachers and make them engaged was important issue, which was the main purpose for this study. The conclusion of this study was as follows.
1. Factors affecting work engagement of teachers in applied English departments in Public vocational high schools
The factors affecting work engagement of teachers in public vocational high schools were individual factors, organizational factors, and the overall situation.
Individual factors included motivation for career, personality and family. With the motivation for career, altruistic motivation weighed more than others. When English teachers hold their beliefs toward their career, they seldom were knocked down by the vicious conditions; instead, their self-efficacy supported them and helped them overcome obstacles.
Personality that most English teachers obtained was optimistic, responsible and innovative. They put emphasis on their career, and their students. They equally treated every students in their classes and accompanied them to improve their English competency. When encountered difficulties, they were not defeated; instead, they looked on the bright side to make good of their innovation to solve problems and help students learn. Family was unchangeable that it exercised influence over the individual either in choosing career or in variation of engagement.
Organizational factors meant to students, job demands and job resources. Students were
different individuals who hold various values, beliefs and expectations, it made the teaching situation more active and unpredictable. The most important item was students’ feedback during the classes which became the motivation of teachers to encourage them vary their teaching materials and activities.
Job demands especially non-teach-related work made English teachers feel under stress mainly because of overemphasized paper works. It lengthened time for preparing piles of paper work for documenting trivial things rather than simplified the processes in order to help teachers concentrate on preparing for materials and students’ learning situation. And teachers showed higher willingness upon teach-related work because they consider it to be meaningful to students and their career. Also, the increasing job demands signified the importance of work-life balance among English teachers.
Job resources school climate made differences among English teachers’ engagement. The practice for new-coming English teachers serve as administrators made them feel stressful.
Thanks for amiable working atmosphere helped new-coming English teachers to get through the hard time at the very beginning. Facilities at school now were adequate enough for English teachers to utilize during the class, but equipment was not a major issue that varied teachers’
engagement since there were alternatives way to teach.
The macro environment, the society, burdened English teachers nowadays. Changing rapidly policy without proper measure plan made teaching materials changed, which made English teachers need to prepare again and again. Also, the future for students from English department stressed English teachers because there were more competitors from different systems.
2. Differences in work engagement between junior and senior English teachers
Work load has increased when compared with past few years due to internal and external factors such as low birth rate. For senior teachers, it was more likely for them to catch up with
the flow, modify their own pace, and face to the challenge forward based on their working experiences. On the other hand, junior teachers were less familiar with the work environment nowadays since they just attended for few years. Differences between junior and senior English teachers were listed as below: (1) the cognition of teaching hours, and (2) time for preparation.
The cognition for junior teachers toward teaching hours was merely around 12 hours and they were not supposed to be the administrator. But actually, it was usual that teachers were assigned for classes around 20 hours. The official required teaching hours for teacher was 12-16 hours depends on your position whether the home-room teacher or the administrator. But with insufficient amount of teachers at school, teaching hours would keep increasing instead of decreasing.
Although each class was English class, teachers need to prepare different materials. Also, they judged the differences among students and modify their teaching during the class, which also required amounts of experiences to support teachers. Therefore, it took more time for junior teachers to prepare for classes and other stuff because everything was new for them at the very beginning.
The cause of differences between two groups of teachers was teaching experiences.
Teachers learned by doing, which was teaching. They accumulated experiences from classes with different students and discussion with other teachers. With rich experiences, teachers could more easily cope with problems and vice versa.
3. Similarities in work engagement between junior and senior English teachers
Students have impacts on either junior or senior teachers due to the expanded gap among the competence of students. The gap challenged teachers on preparing suitable materials for students in the same class. Teachers were unwilling to lag off any group of students, but they were forced to sacrifice because of limited time. Hence, teachers prepared not only materials for classes but also supplementary for those who were lagged behind, which took teacher more
time for class preparation.
When it comes to teaching, English teachers were energetic and passionate. Ideas popped up in their mind for them to enrich the courses. They were proud of their career that education brought more than just teaching to them. On the contrary, they considered teaching to be a career with meaningful contribution toward the society.
Limitations
Though the researcher reached participants from seven different schools, there were five limitations in the study. First, 13 participants took part in were all female. Whether gender would vary the engagement of teachers was failed to be included in the study. Second, the study focused on English teachers in public vocational high school. Thus, transferring the study analysis to other schools in Taiwan should be conducted with caution. Third, information provided by participants was all self-reported since participants might feel uncomfortable and avoid to making comments on others. This also limited the analysis of the study. Fourth, the researcher might have been biased during the analyzing process. In order to avoid the problem, the researcher recorded every interview and typed the transcription according to the interview contents. And, all transcriptions were double checked by participants to ensure accuracy of the contents they had shared during the interviews. Last, regions of participants were concentrated on center of Taiwan, where most public vocational high school with AED located. There was no difference among participants from different regions in this study; however, the number of participants was unequally distributed in each region. Whether there was possibility that regions affected the variation of teachers’ engagement were still remain unsure.
Suggestions
In this part, the researcher included suggestions for three groups, the education authorities, teachers, and future studies. They were discussed separately as follows.