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• Data generated through 12 in-person focus groups with both learners and teachers. • This study explores the multifaceted and dynamic nature of learner agency. • Social relationships play a key role in how learners construct and distribute agency. • It is crucial to foster both the individual and collective agency of learners. While learner agency and self-regulation are known to be interconnected, the factors underlying their dynamic interplay have gone largely overlooked in educational research. This study explores the multifaceted nature of learner agency, focusing on the socially constructed and distributed dimensions of the construct. Data were generated through eight focus groups conducted with 13 secondary students over the course of one school year, and four focus groups with five teachers working intensely with these students. Findings revealed the key role of social relationships in how learners constructed and distributed their agency for self-regulated learning. The article concludes by considering how these findings can inform interventions to foster learners' agency and their awareness of their self-regulatory behaviour within and beyond school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore personal and socio-contextual factors that supported or hindered the wellbeing of 13 late-career language teachers from Austria and the UK. Data were generated through in-depth life-history interviews, and analysed following a Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). Findings revealed the interplay of various personal and socio-contextual factors that influenced teachers' wellbeing and willingness to stay in the profession. Findings also showed four different pathways to retirement: Perceived stress and wanting to leave the profession; loved being a teacher but mentally preparing for retirement; busy with work, not thinking about retirement; and, thriving and not planning retirement. • Thirteen late-career teachers from Austria and the UK participated in the study. • Interplay between personal and contextual factors that influence late-career teacher, retention and wellbeing. • Perceived saturation with the profession and changes in the respective countries' educational systems caused stress. • Passion for teaching, sense of meaning, and positive workplace culture supported participants' long-lasting careers. • Findings reveal four pathways to retirement in relation to participants' wellbeing and willingness to stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate the wellbeing of 14 pre-service language teachers from Austria and the UK. Data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews which were analysed following principles of Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006). The data were compared across the two settings and the analysis revealed a number of individual but also systemic ecological factors that play a role in the pre-service teachers' wellbeing. These factors include time management, work-life balance, relationships, finding purpose and meaning, the structure of study programs, as well as the status of teaching and the specific language in each respective society. • Data generated through 14 in-depth semi-structured interviews. • Study takes an ecological perspective with comparative design. • Data analysed following principles of Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006). • Results: Individual and systemic factors appear to influence pre-service language teacher wellbeing. • Other factors include work-life balance, relationships, structure of study programs, and the status of language teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-service teachers face a number of challenges which might threaten their wellbeing, including negotiating their student and teacher roles, and difficulties in managing their pupils and workload (Day & Gu, 2010). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they have been confronted with additional challenges resulting from the transition to online learning and teaching, as well as social problems caused by lockdowns. In this study, we explore the wellbeing of six pre-service language teachers through individual interviews conducted during the first wave of the pandemic. The study has two main aims. Firstly, we seek to identify how these pre-service teachers coped with the challenges of becoming a teacher in the context of a major disruption to their wellbeing. Secondly, we aim to contribute to theoretical work in this field by examining their wellbeing from a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008) perspective to explore the dynamic and complex nature of the construct. Findings revealed that the pandemic served as a critical incident leading to diverse attractor states for each individual's wellbeing. They also show how agency played a key role in guiding the trajectory of the teachers' wellbeing system, and that this was contingent upon individual perceptions of environmental affordances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a positive psychology perspective, a resource-based view of wellbeing, and an ecological perspective, this article provides an in-depth account of Chinese language teachers' wellbeing in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 teachers who teach Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) at secondary-school level in the UK. This study identified four ecological systems that interconnected with one another that are associated with these CFL teachers' wellbeing: the ecology of the school, the ecology of work and life, the ecology of the education system, as well as the societal ecology of teaching generally and modern foreign languages (MFL) specifically. The study also found that these CFL teachers drew on a number of psychological, social, and contextual resources to manage their wellbeing and remain positive in the face of challenges. This study provides an ecological understanding of CFL teacher wellbeing in the UK and offers a broader lens for the design and implementation of effective prevention, intervention, and remedial actions to address teacher wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]