teacherphili

Mental Health and ELT #3

Brain_Tree_Roots_Psychology 2 (Pixabay)
(Photo credit: Pixabay)

Following my request on 1 December for people working in English Language Teaching to complete a survey, I received over 500 responses from around the world.  The response was so overwhelming – but in a good way – that I closed the survey after three weeks, in order to take stock and to begin to analyse the information shared.  It’s going to take a while, so please bear with me.

A full report of my findings will follow in 2018 ahead of a confirmed conference talk in Brighton on 10 April.  In the meantime, I thought I would share some of the public blog posts on this or similar topics.  I have previously linked to the first three from this blog and these ones contain links to other blog posts. Some of the links below were offered in the survey responses.  Several people wanted to share something that they have written but felt that doing so would compromise their anonymity so those have not been shared here. The remaining links were collated by me this year and were not part of the responses.  I’ve made them all user-friendly links, thanks to a suggestion I received.

If you took part in the survey and submitted a link but it is not listed here it might be unavailable or I couldn’t find the exact link to a relevant post on mental health or wellbeing from the information provided. If that is the case you could leave a comment with a direct link at the end.

Lizzie Pinard – Mental Health in ELT

Sandy Millin – Useful links on mental health in ELT

Elly Setterfield – A-Z of self-care for Teachers

+ How to Stay Sane

+ What to do when you can’t stop criticising yourself

Katherine Bilsborough – Self-development as a way to tackle low self-esteem

+ Winning the battle against low self-esteem

coperebecca – How many times do you have to start Again, Again, Again

Tyson Seburn – ELT ratio: your path to burnout

Clare Maas (Fielder) – Stress Awareness Discussion – teacher 5 a day

+ Beating burnout and avoiding stress – Top Tips

Roseli Serra – Burnout in ELT

Phil Nash – Five great ways to boost Language Teacher Wellbeing (BESIG)

Lama Obeid  – What do they know about Depression

Danny McNeive – Living with Depression

Kieran O’Driscoll – Bullying, harrassment and Workplace Abuses

Laura Patsko – Mental Health (in ELT)

+ Conferencing for Introverts

Paul Walsh (TaWSIG) – Interview with Phil Longwell about mental health

Parisa Mehran – I am More than a Stereotype

Teachers are Gold project (Australia)

Fiona Oates / ELTjam / Mental Health Friendly Initiative – Why mental health matters

Marie Delaney – Managing our own wellbeing (The Learning Harbour)

Denise Cowle – How should i deal with workplace anxiety

The Secret DOS – You don’t have to be mad to work here

Neil Millington – Be Kind to Yourself 

Mind – Supporting workplaces to be mentally healthy

Centre for Clinical Interventions – self-help and looking after yourself

One of the respondents, Helen Waldron, has written a book on Teacher Identity

Not ELT but this, from the Secret Teacher, is relevant – Class, I wish I had told you about my mental health

Again, not ELT but relevant – Kevin McLaughlin – The Depressed Teacher

Again, not ELT but relevant – Daisy Buchanan – How to support a friend who is struggling with their mental health

That’s it for now and that’s it for 2017!  Do look after yourself.

Published by teacherphili

My name is Phil Longwell. I live in the United Kingdom. I am known online as ‘Teacher Phili’, which was a nickname that some children in a Tanzanian orphanage called me and it stuck! It was my Twitter handle from 2009-2022. I have been an English language teacher since 2006. From September 2021 - August 2023, I was a study skills tutor with the Centre for Collaborative Learning at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. Previously, I was employed by Adult Learning (Norfolk County Council) as a non-accredited tutor and trainer (2017-21). Prior to that, I was an ESOL tutor with Norfolk Community Learning Services. For two consecutive summers (2020-21), I worked for the English Language Teaching Centre at the University of Sheffield, on their 10-week pre-sessional programme. I have worked for several other organisations over the years. For example, I was employed by INTO UEA (2017-20) on two consecutive pre-sessional courses and as an IELTS invigilator throughout the year. Between 2009-11, I had several short-term contracts with Bell Educational Trust, including one that lead to a six-month contract in Riyadh. I have also worked in South Korea (2007-8), Beijing (2009-10) and Vietnam (2012). I am also a freelance English language tutor who has previously taught face-to-face, but now offers only online tutoring. For three years (also 2017-20), I was a committee member of the IATEFL Learning Technologies Special Interest Group, including being newsletter editor, then webmaster. Finally, I have carried out promotional work for Teacher Training Videos (2017-2020), along with some occasional social media work for ELT Training since 2020. This WordPress site is my space to write about my experiences in teaching, attending conferences, delivering webinars, ELTchat summaries, reflections and a place to showcase some of the films that I have created (2006-23). It also acts as my personal and public space.

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