Speculative studies on job burnout of EFL teachers in China are mainly focused on definition, causes and countermeasures of teacher burnout. Fan and Yang (2015) defined teacher burnout, arguing that teacher burnout refers to the emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal achievements caused by the constant consumption of various pressures and emotional resources arising from work, organization and society, and it is a result of teachers being overwhelmed by work for a long time and failing to cope with a series of emotional, cognitive and behavioral psychological fatigue and tension, thus restricting their professional development. Song (2013) believed that job burnout and professional development are in essence a pair of interrelated categories. Job burnout is not only the biggest obstacle affecting the professional development of college English teachers and college English teaching efficacy, but also the natural result of the weakening of professional development of English teachers. Strengthening teachers’ professional development is an effective way to eliminate teacher burnout (Song, 2013). Based on the influence of job burnout on the professional development of teachers, Hu and Liu (2017) proposed countermeasures to improve the job burnout state of college teachers and promote their professional development, such as creating a reasonable campus mechanism and strengthening teachers’ personal quality.

Empirical studies on job burnout of EFL teachers in China mainly adopt quantitative methods and qualitative methods. As for qualitative studies, a majority of researchers used interviews to analyze the job burnout of EFL teachers in China (Zhang, 2011). A few studies combined interviews with other methods. For example, based on qualitative data including multiple semi-structured interviews, class observations, teacher reflective notes, student feedback, and institutional documents over 18 months, Ding et al. (2022) explored the dynamic and diachronic emotion labor of two veteran English lecturers in Chinese universities and found that the long-term surface acting of depressing negative emotions is positively related to job burnout and negatively correlated to teachers’ efficacy. Wang and Song (2022) adopted a qualitative method of interviews and online classroom observations conducted with 20 Chinese English teachers to explore the changes on EFL teachers’ emotional labor brought about by online teaching, and found that a variety of factors, such as the degree of adaptation to online teaching technology and the invisibility of the online teaching space, contribute to EFL teachers’ emotional labor that can cause job burnout and professional identity dilemmas. Guo (2022) adopted narrative research to narrate the dynamic formation process of a primary school English teacher’s job burnout, through observation, interviews and information analysis of the interviewee’s Wechat, Weibo and Douyin contents.

Since the middle and late 1980s, scholars abroad began to compile and measure job burnout scales, which opened the curtain of quantitative research on teacher burnout. Some influential scales (Pines et al., 1981; Ford et al., 1983; Demerouti et al., 2003; Kristensen et al., 2005) emerged successively, among which the most influential and widely-used one is Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) (Maslach and Jackson, 1981, 1986), with its series of scales of MBI-HSS (MBI-Human Services Survey) (Maslach and Jackson, 1996), MBI-ES (MBI-Educators Survey) (Maslach et al., 1996b) and MBI-GS (MBI-General Survey) (Maslach et al., 1996a). Compared with European and American scholars’ research on job burnout scales, Chinese scholars started late, and currently they mainly stay in translation or chinesization (Shao and Gao, 2005; Cheng, 2006; Wu, 2010), revision (Wang et al., 2003, 2005; Zhang et al., 2015), compilation (Li and Wu, 2005; Xu and Han, 2010; Guo and Xu, 2017) of those western scales.

Most quantitative studies on job burnout of EFL teachers in China are based on MBI (Zhang, 2012, 2022; Hu, 2014; Li, 2016; Fan et al., 2017; Li and Zhang, 2020; Bing et al., 2022; Ding and He, 2022; Song, 2022; Yang, 2022). Some empirical studies revised some items of MBT and added some items to highlight China’s national conditions and cultural specificity (Chen and Lin, 2008; Xu, 2010; Yao, 2011; Tang and Zhao, 2013; Tang, 2020). A few scholars independently compiled teacher burnout scales (Wang, 2011; Liu, 2013), but the academic value of the scales still needs further verification.

There are also some studies adopting both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore job burnout of EFL teachers in China, most of which adopted interviews and questionnaire surveys based on MBI (Tang, 2011; Liu L., 2014; Liu P., 2014; Hu, 2016, 2021).

Generally speaking, EFL teachers in China are in moderate or mild level of job burnout, while the proportion of EFL teachers in high level of job burnout is relatively low. However, from the detection rate of single factor of job burnout, different studies have not reached a consistent conclusion. Tang (2011) evaluated the comprehensive burnout level of 59 college English teachers in 9 universities in China, and found that 69, 46, and 8% of teachers had mild, moderate and high levels of job burnout respectively. And the detection rates of burnout level of reduced personal achievements, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were 34, 32, and 24% respectively. This is basically consistent with the findings of Xu (2010), who found that the job burnout level of college English teachers was mild to moderate, with a detection rate of 75.4%. However, Chen and Lin (2008) investigated 120 English teachers in 15 higher vocational colleges in Guangzhou and showed that there was obvious job burnout among English teachers in higher vocational colleges. Zhang (2012) investigated 267 college English teachers in Henan Province and also found that the job burnout of college English teachers was at a relatively serious level, with a score of 3.47 in the dimension of emotional exhaustion, 3.11 in the dimension of depersonalization, and 2.87 in the dimension of reduced personal achievements.

However, Li (2016) investigated the job burnout of 155 English teachers in 12 colleges and universities in Guangdong Province, and found that college English teachers have a certain degree of job burnout, and that there are differences in the three dimensions of teacher burnout: emotional exhaustion almost reaches the moderate level, depersonalization reaches the mild level, and reduced personal achievements are at the moderate and mild level. Through the MBI questionnaire survey on 203 English teachers from three colleges and universities in Zhejiang Province, Fan et al. (2017) also found that college English teachers have a certain degree of job burnout, but it is not particularly serious, and the level of emotional exhaustion is also the highest among the three dimensions. However, Hu (2021), based on the questionnaire survey of 297 English major teachers in 18 Chinese public universities and the interviews with 9 of them, found that the overall level of job burnout among English major teachers in universities is not very high. She believed that this may be because teachers with rich teaching experience, relatively low research pressure and senior titles and teachers with teaching experience of more than 15 years account for about one-third of the samples. Moreover, teachers with low professional titles and young teachers still have relatively high enthusiasm and expectation for career development, so the overall job burnout shown in the samples is not serious.

Yin (2011) attributed the causes of job burnout of college EFL teachers in China to the increasing requirements of society on college EFL teaching, the challenge of college EFL teaching activities brought by the differences of students’ English proficiency, the improvement of EFL teachers’ teaching assessment standards, the heavy workload of college EFL teachers brought by school enrollment expansion, the emphasis on scientific research over teaching in the job appointment system, the lack of interdisciplinary knowledge structure of college EFL teachers and the individual personality of EFL teachers. Similarly, Bao (2016) believed that job burnout of college EFL teachers can be attributed to the pressure brought by the innovation of college EFL teaching, the impact brought by the adjustment of teaching quality evaluation mechanism, the overload caused by the expansion of colleges and universities, the troubles caused by the evaluation of teachers’ professional titles, and the negative impact brought by the characteristics of teachers’ profession. In addition, Zhang (2011) found that the following pairs of contradictions are the main reasons for the job burnout of college EFL teachers: the contradiction between teachers’ high pay and low return to students, the contradiction between teachers’ repeatability and creativity in teaching work, the contradiction between teachers’ teaching work and their own professional development, the contradiction between teachers’ teaching work and the research-oriented evaluation mechanism, and the contradiction between teachers’ labor remuneration and market demand. Jiao (2014) analyzed the causes of job burnout of EFL teachers from the perspective of ecological philosophy, and found that changes in the niche of EFL teachers as well as the negative energy transmission of information among various factors that constitute the ecosystem of EFL education caused their psychological imbalance, which then led to the generation of their job burnout. Zhang (2014) analyzed the job burnout of young EFL teachers in engineering colleges and universities and its causes from the aspects of students, teachers, schools, society and economic pressure. Wang and Wang (2020) analyzed the causes of occupational burnout of EFL teachers in higher vocational colleges, including low social recognition of higher vocational education, poor quality of students in higher vocational colleges, negative effects brought by curriculum reform and requirements for improving teaching and scientific research ability, imperfect evaluation standards for EFL teachers, and the comprehensive quality of EFL teachers to be improved.

To sum up, job burnout of EFL teachers in China is mainly attributed to weak professional development (such as low educational level, lack of language ability and subject teaching knowledge, lack of training opportunities, low level of scientific research), EFL teachers’ work characteristics (such as heavy teaching workload, conflicts between test-taking pressure and teaching innovation, few opportunities to “recharge”, negative impact of work characteristics on interpersonal relationship, professional title evaluation trouble), and social expectations and pressure (such as the improvement of teaching requirements, the differences of students’ English proficiency affecting the development of teaching activities, and the improvement of EFL teachers’ teaching assessment standards).

Research on job burnout of EFL teachers in China analyzed the influencing factors mainly though demographic variables, such as gender, age, length of teaching, educational background, professional title, and marital status. However, there is no unanimous conclusion between demographic variables and job burnout severity of EFL teachers in China.

Gender. Some studies have shown that there is a significant difference in the level of job burnout between male and female EFL teachers in China. For example, Xu (2010) found that the level of reduced personal accomplishments of female EFL teachers is significantly higher than that of male EFL teachers, while Tang (2011) found that the level of reduced personal accomplishments is significantly lower than that of male counterparts. Li (2016) found that female EFL teachers are more serious than male EFL teachers in terms of emotional exhaustion, and that there is a significant difference between them, but there is no significant difference between them in terms of depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishments. Liu (2013) found that among college EFL teachers, the job burnout level of female teachers was significantly higher than that of male teachers. However, Tang and Zhao (2013) found that male teachers’ job burnout was higher than female teachers, and that male teachers’ average burnout in three dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishments was higher than female teachers, and the difference reached a significant degree in the dimension of depersonalization. However, many studies have shown that there is no significant difference in job burnout level between male and female EFL teachers in Chian (Zhang, 2012; Liu L., 2014).

Age. Many studies have shown that there are statistically significant differences in teacher burnout levels among different age groups. Liang and Liu (2007) found that among rural middle school teachers in China, the job burnout of 46–50-year-old teachers is the highest, followed by 26–30-year-old teachers, and the job burnout of 31–35-year-old teachers is the lowest. However, Hu (2021) believed that the younger the EFL teachers in colleges and universities are, the lower their educational level and the more serious their depersonalization degree will be. There are also studies showing that the burnout level of EFL teachers in China presents an inverted U-shaped development trend with the growth of age. For example, Tang (2011) found that 30–39-year-old teachers are prone to job burnout, and that their burnout level is the highest among all age groups in terms of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishments. Yao (2011) believed that EFL teachers aged 30–50 in rural middle schools are prone to job burnout.

Length of teaching. Many studies show that there is a significant correlation between length of teaching and job burnout of EFL teachers in China (Ding and Liu, 2020), but the research results on the relationship between length of teaching and job burnout are not the same. Liang and Liu (2007) found that those who taught for 2–5 years and 21–26 years had the highest burnout level, and that the latter was higher than the former. Zhang (2011), Tang and Zhao (2013) also believed that the longer the length of teaching and the richer the teaching experience, the higher the degree of job burnout. However, Liu L. (2014) found that teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience scored significantly lower than teachers in other age groups in emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishments, and had the lowest level of job burnout. From the perspective of single factor analysis, Xu (2010) showed that there were significant differences in emotional exhaustion of EFL teachers in 5 different age groups, teachers with 16–20 years of teaching experience having significantly higher emotional exhaustion than teachers in other age groups, but there was no significant differences in depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishments. Liu (2013) and Li (2016) came to a similar conclusion in their studies, which respectively concluded that teachers with teaching experience of 15–20 years and more than 16 years had the most severe emotional exhaustion. However, Tang and Zhao (2013) found that the development trend of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization in different teaching age groups basically increased first and then decreased, while the development of reduced personal accomplishments has been continuously strengthened.

Educational background. Many studies show that there is a significant negative correlation between job burnout and educational background, and the degree of job burnout among EFL teachers with bachelor’s degree is the highest (Xu, 2010; Liu, 2013; Tang and Zhao, 2013; Hu, 2021). However, the research of Liu L. (2014) showed that college EFL teachers with master’s degree showed the highest degree of overall burnout and the dimension of emotional exhaustion. Ding and Liu (2020) also found that EFL teachers with higher educational background in rural areas of China had significantly higher burnout than those with lower educational background. There are also studies showing that educational background has no significant influence on the burnout level of EFL teachers (Tang, 2011).

Professional title. Most studies show that there is no significant correlation between professional title and job burnout of EFL teachers in China (Xu, 2010; Tang, 2011; Liu L., 2014; Ding and Liu, 2020). Other studies have reached different conclusions. For example, Liu (2013) showed that with the promotion of professional titles, EFL teachers are more prominent in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, while the job burnout of associate professors is at the most serious level. Tang and Zhao (2013) found that teachers with different professional titles have certain differences in the degree of teacher burnout. Lecturers had the highest level of emotional exhaustion, followed by associate professors and teaching assistants. Li (2016) found that teachers with different professional titles had significant differences in emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishments, among which associate professors scored the highest and teaching assistants the lowest.

Marital status. A vast majority of studies show that marital status has no significant influence on overall job burnout of EFL teachers in China (Wang, 2011; Tang and Zhao, 2013; Ding and Liu, 2020). From the perspective of single factor analysis, marital status has a significant difference in the dimension of reduced personal accomplishments, and the level of reduced personal accomplishments of married EFL teachers is significantly higher than that of unmarried teachers (Xu, 2010; Wang, 2011).

To sum up, scholars have not reached a consistent conclusion on the correlation research between teacher demographic variables and job burnout of EFL teachers in China, and studies show different linear or non-linear relationships between teacher demographic variables and the three dimensions of job burnout. Although the current research shows that gender has no significant effect on English teachers’ job burnout, many studies have shown that middle-aged and elderly teachers, teachers with more than ten years of teaching experience, teachers with associate professor titles and married teachers are more prone to job burnout.

In view of the job burnout of EFL teachers in China, researchers mainly discussed the coping strategies from the two levels of teachers and schools. Firstly, researchers generally agreed that the individual professional development of EFL teachers is the key to alleviating job burnout. Fan and Yang (2015) believed that EFL teachers are the main force for their professional development. Teachers should have lifelong learning and reflective consciousness, pay attention to the development of interpersonal communication and self-management ability, and improve self-efficacy, so as to effectively resist job burnout and realize their own professional development. EFL teachers should also take an active part in training and learning, cultivate the awareness of scientific research (Song, 2013), actively conduct teaching reflection and action research, and adapt to the changes of ecological environment (Li, 2016), so as to reduce the chances of burnout. Liu P. (2014) pointed out that college English teachers should pay attention to cultivating their ability to withstand pressure, enhance their ability to adapt to the environment, respond appropriately and effectively to the reality, and realize the harmony between psychological environment and external environment. Hu and Liu (2017) believed that teachers should start from their own factors, strengthen their personal quality, establish reasonable beliefs and maintain a good physical and mental state.

Secondly, at the school level, the fundamental way to alleviate job burnout of EFL teachers in China lies in the reform of college management system. Many studies have suggested that it is imperative for schools to actively promote the reform of personnel system and improve the measures of performance appraisal management (Bao, 2016; Hu and Liu, 2017; Wang and Wang, 2020; Hu, 2021; Guo, 2022), fully consider the professional characteristics of English teachers, and develop a scientific and reasonable professional title evaluation system (Yin, 2011; Li and Zhang, 2020). In addition, schools should build a professional development platform for EFL teachers and provide them with cognitive and vocational training to protect themselves from job burnout (Fan and Yang, 2015; Li and Zhang, 2020). Universities with qualified conditions should be encouraged to set up foreign language teaching and research journals, so as to provide more teaching and research exchanges for EFL teachers (Yin, 2011). Li and Zhang (2020) believed that schools should earnestly implement the provisions of teacher-student ratio, actively introduce EFL teachers with high education and high level, match the number of EFL teachers, optimize the structure of EFL teachers, and effectively solve the problem of teaching overload of EFL teachers due to insufficient staffing. At the same time, schools should strive to change the classroom environment of EFL teaching in large classes, establish more convenient network and voice teaching platforms, and provide favorable conditions for EFL teachers to carry out new teaching practices such as MOOCs and teaching research and research activities. Ding and Liu (2020) proposed that schools should attach importance to the influence of teacher burnout on students’ achievements, establish a normalized evaluation mechanism for teacher burnout, and commission third-party institutions or school psychological consultation rooms to timely understand the trend of teacher burnout, so as to better prevent and eliminate some burnout emotions of EFL teachers and improve their career happiness.