Teaching can be considered as an extremely demanding and stressful occupation and being a language educator brings about its own distinctive challenges. In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, teachers worldwide experienced fundamental changes in their profession and their lives as a whole. Coping with such an unprecedented situation and responses to it have created new and extra stressful factors for teachers to cope with, including the difficulties created by quick transition from direct teaching to virtual and remote teaching. This study examined EFL teachers' coping strategies during the Covid-19 virtual education and their association with work engagement and teacher apprehension. A total of 296 language instructors contributed to this study by participating in a survey in January 2021. To determine what coping strategies teachers use in virtual teaching during Covid-19, the researchers adapted the Brief-COPE scale designed and validated by Carver (Int J Behav Med 4:92–100, 1997) to make it appropriate for virtual education. The survey measured 11 coping strategies divided into two broad types, approach and avoidant. For measuring work engagement, the Work and Well-being Survey (UWES) scale designed and validated by Schaufeli and Bakker (Test manual for the Utrecht work engagement scale, vol 3. Utrecht University, The Netherlands, pp. 44–52, 2003. http://www.schaufeli.com) was utilized. To assess teachers' apprehension, the research employed the Sources of Teachers' Apprehension Scale (STAS) developed by Ghanizadeh et al. (Asia-Pac Educ Res 1–14, 2020). The result demonstrated that the adapted coping strategies scale enjoys acceptable reliability and validity indices. The results estimated via structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that EFL teachers' approach coping strategies positively and significantly predicted work engagement (β = 0.72, t = 10.56). Work engagement was negatively predicted by avoidant coping strategies (β = − 0.29, t = − 3.36). Teacher apprehension was negatively influenced by approach coping strategies (β = − 0.44, t = − 5.57) and positively by avoidant coping strategies (β = 0.43, t = 5.29). The study proposes some practical recommendations for overcoming the Covid-19 related challenges which could further deliver valuable guidance for supporting future training of teachers.

教学可以被认为是一项要求极高且压力很大的职业，作为语言教育者会带来其独特的挑战。在 COVID-19 大流行之后，世界各地的教师在他们的职业和整个生活中都经历了根本性的变化。应对这种前所未有的情况和应对措施给教师带来了新的和额外的压力因素，包括从直接教学快速过渡到虚拟和远程教学所带来的困难。本研究考察了 EFL 教师在 Covid-19 虚拟教育期间的应对策略及其与工作投入和教师忧虑的关系。2021 年 1 月，共有 296 名语言教师参与了一项调查，为这项研究做出了贡献。为了确定教师在 Covid-19 期间在虚拟教学中使用的应对策略，研究人员采用了 Carver 设计和验证的 Brief-COPE 量表（Int J Behav Med 4:92-100, 1997），使其适合虚拟教育。该调查测量了 11 种应对策略，分为接近和回避两大类。为了测量工作投入，工作和幸福感调查 (UWES) 量表由 Schaufeli 和 Bakker 设计和验证（乌得勒支工作投入量表测试手册，第 3 卷。荷兰乌得勒支大学，第 44-52 页，2003 年。 http://www.schaufeli.com) 被使用。为了评估教师的忧虑，该研究采用了 Ghanizadeh 等人开发的教师忧虑量表（STAS）的来源。（亚太地区 Educ Res 1-14，2020 年）。结果表明，适应应对策略量表具有可接受的信度和效度指标。通过结构方程模型 (SEM) 估计的结果表明，EFL 教师的应对策略可以积极地预测工作投入（β = 0.72，t = 10.56）。回避应对策略对工作投入有负面预测（β = - 0.29，t = - 3.36）。接近应对策略（ β = - 0.44，t = - 5.57）和回避应对策略（β = 0.43，t = 5.29）对教师忧虑产生负面影响。该研究提出了一些实用的建议来克服与 Covid-19 相关的挑战，这些建议可以进一步为支持未来的教师培训提供有价值的指导。