Identification of stressors and coping strategies of ESL/bilingual, special education, and regular education teachers

The present study investigated the type of stressors that ESL/bilingual teachers encounter and the kind of strategies that they use to cope with them. Twenty-four matched triads of ESL/bilingual, regular education, and special education teachers (N = 72) from a Midwestern state completed a questionnaire about stress and coping. Counter to our hypotheses, the ESL/bilingual teachers and regular education teachers reported similar frequencies and stress levels in preparing students for problems outside their class. However, ESL/ bilingual teachers perceived preparation of students for problems outside their class to be more stressful than preparation for problems within their class, whereas regular education teachers found the two types of problems equally stressful. As hypothesized, ESL/bilingual teachers were more likely than regular education teachers to cope with stressors by sharing them with others. Also, special education and ESL/bilingual teachers tended to share similar views toward classroom stressors and coping, whereas regular education teachers tended to have somewhat different views.