Examining the resilience of two early career world language teachers: a two-year case study

Language teachers' resilience, or their socially-mediated capacity to adapt to adverse conditions and thrive, has garnered attention amidst evolving challenges to language education and bilingual teachers in diverse spaces. Taking an ecological-collective perspective towards language teacher resilience, this qualitative case study examined the experiences of two early career Spanish world language teachers in the United States, paying particular attention to the personal and contextual resources they leveraged for their resilience during and after their transition into teaching. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, three themes were identified representing the varied purposes for which the Spanish teachers mobilised resources for their resilience at different times: planning for resilience in advance during the job search, maintaining resilience amidst initial struggles, and reestablishing resilience. Findings show that the types of resources used by the early career world language teachers shifted over time and based on need, the most salient of which included their knowledge of their teaching context, their agency and persistence, support and autonomy from their school administrators, and connections with networks of other language teachers. Implications for teacher education programmes, language teacher resilience, and future research are discussed.