Dealing with the Emotions of Teaching Abroad: Searching for Silver Linings in a Difficult Context

Abstract

Language teachers often experience significant amounts of stress in their workplace, especially when teaching internationally. In the present research we adopt a case study approach to examine an intervention from the literature on positive psychology called Finding Silver Linings, a cognitive reappraisal strategy that is proposed to alleviate some of the negative emotional effects of stress. The participant (whom we will call Elizabeth) enacted the intervention daily for a week in a stressful context. Results show complex effects that suggest the types of stressors faced by Elizabeth were not especially conducive to the Finding Silver Linings intervention, which yielded only temporary effects in the moment, and not long-lasting change. We conclude that the relationships among the individual, context and specific positive interventions interact to determine their efficacy. The implications of these results suggest that specific interventions should be evaluated at the individual level.