efl teachers' persistence in foreign language teaching: the role of mindfulness and grit

As personality traits, mindfulness has been defined as one s ability to pay attention to the momentary activities with a non-biased attitude and curiosity and grit as one s passion and perseverance to reach their long term goals. further, persistence is referred to as likelihood to continue efforts to solve problems in the face of difficulties. although some empirical findings have been accumulated about the significant roles of grit and mindfulness in success across different populations in various academic and non-academic areas, they are obviously scant and limited, probably due of the fact that most research has looked into domain-general mindfulness, grit, and intensity rather than as attributes related to teaching second or foreign languages. expanding upon this nascent line of research, this interdisciplinary study, informed by positive psychology, investigates whether, and to what extent, mindfulness and l2 teaching grit are linked with teachers persistence in foreign language teaching, considering their background variables, such as age, gender, year of study and experience in teaching english. toward this end, the present study aimed to test a structural model of english as foreign language (efl) teachers’ grit, mindfulness, and teaching intensity. the participants were 200 iranian efl teachers who took three electronic surveys. the results of structural equation modelling (sem) revealed that efl teachers’ teaching intensity was significantly influenced by their mindfulness and grit. the findings highlight the importance of using positive psychology in the teacher education programs and expand our understanding of the antecedents of foreign language teachers’ intensity in efl settings.