Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
4th International Conference on Psychology for Language Teachers and Learners , İstanbul, Türkiye, 17 - 18 Ekim 2025, ss.16, (Özet Bildiri)
The capacity to exercise agency forms a core part of language teacher educators’ (LTEs) expertise, as it plays a
transformative role in supporting their continuous learning and enabling them to navigate contextual obstacles.
However, scholarship examining the ways in which agency informs LTEs’ professional practices is relatively
scarce. With this in mind and given that the exercise of agency is instrumental in shaping one’s wellbeing
trajectories, this qualitative study draws on data from a larger PhD project to explore university-based English-
as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teacher educators’ exercise of agency in promoting and sustaining their wellbeing in
the face of challenges. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of interview data from 8 participants revealed
that challenges and critical incidents faced served as triggers that made the participants realize the need to attend
to their wellbeing. This heightened awareness, in turn, led to strong agentic efforts for self-care across personal
and professional domains through engagement in personal interests and hobbies, reliance on meaningful social
connections, attempts to maintain a healthy work-life balance, and deployment of various emotion regulation
strategies. There were also reports of engaging in community building, introducing changes to course design, and
embracing a resolution-seeking attitude in the workplace as forms of self-care. Overall, these findings not only
advance our limited knowledge of the coping mechanisms utilized by LTEs in their situated communities but also
bring evidence for the crucial role of agency in making LTEs better equipped in promoting and sustaining their
wellbeing over time. The insights gained also suggest implications for institutions on ways to support and facilitate
LTEs’ self-care practices.