Previous studies indicated that K-12 teachers generally felt reluctant to incorporate sustainable development in their teaching due to a lack of skills, knowledge and interest, particularly language teachers. This qualitative case study, grounded in the Social Cognitive Career Theory, aims to identify the significant factors influencing English teachers’ motivation of incorporating the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their teaching. Data were collected from multiple sources including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. By examining how teachers’ self-efficacy develops in relation to outcome expectations and performance goals, the findings showed that teachers’ personal beliefs, attainment of teaching goals and supportive school management can positively influence their self-efficacy and boost their motivation in incorporating SDGs in their English teaching. Such findings can be useful for educators, school management, educational institutes, universities and policy-makers to develop strategies to facilitate teachers’ active roles in ESD by fostering greater collaboration across disciplines and providing relevant professional development and goal-relevant supports.

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This literature review aims at exploring two career theories, one career model, and their applications to facilitate the comparison of their advantages and shortcomings in understanding contextual and personal factors influencing teachers' career choices. It first examines the chosen career theories and models in teachers' professional development, namely, Fuller's Concern Stage Theory, Fessler's Eight-stage Teacher Career Cycle Model The Social Cognitive Career Theory. Common factors encapsulated by those theories are outlined, and a close examination of how those theories prioritize contextual and personal factors are also discussed. This literature review also highlights some current research gaps of examining teachers' their career choices: an ambiguous interplay between personal and environmental factors, an ambivalent attitude towards considering psychological factors, neglecting in-service teachers in late-career development and exit stage, inadequate synchronic and diachronic studies on contextual and personal factors, and a weak association between influencing factors, teachers' sense of identity and their career choices. Through a discussion of those teachers' career theories, models and their applications, this literature review probes into the importance of examining the interplay between personal and environmental factors in order to understand how and why experienced teachers become demotivated and frustrated in different career stages. It also provides a more holistic view and insight on retaining experienced in-service teachers and alleviating the global teacher attrition and shortage problem.

Schools have been switching to online learning to ensure students’ learning continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a paucity of studies examining language teachers’ motivations and decisions for continuing online teaching in the future. This study aims at investigating the significant factors influencing language teachers’ motivations and decisions on online teaching. Based on the aim of this study, three research questions guided this study: (1) What was language teachers’ experience of online teaching? (2) What motivates language teachers to teach online after the COVID-19 pandemic? (3) What demotivates language teachers to teach online after the COVID-19 pandemic? Eight language teachers coming from six countries and regions, namely, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, and Taiwan, were selected to have two one-on-one semi-structured interviews. The researcher used Social Cognitive Career Theory as a theoretical framework and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as the methodology to examine language teachers’ experiences in-depth. This study found that better time management and a positive learning environment are the reasons for continuing online language teaching, while personal beliefs on education and negative teaching outcome expectations are the reasons for stopping online language teaching. The findings can provide insights for the education institutions, school management and policy-makers to devise appropriate strategies to boost language teachers’ motivations to incorporate online teaching in the post-pandemic era.

Current studies of Chinese heritage language education mainly focussed on learners' motivations, behaviours and the appropriate pedagogies. Very few studies focussed on heritage language teachers' motivations. To close such research gap, this study aimed to examine Chinese immigrant teachers' motivations in heritage language teaching in Australia with the guidance of Social Cognitive Career Theory. With the aim stated above, the research was guided by two research questions: first, how do Chinese immigrant teachers describe their experiences of teaching heritage language in Australia; second, why do Chinese immigrant teachers decide to continue their heritage language teaching. This study adopted a qualitative approach to scaffold their mental representation of their teaching experiences and decision-making process by conducting 120 one-on-one semistructured interviews and 24 focus group meetings with 60 Chinese immigrant teachers who are currently teaching Chinese heritage language in Australian schools. Three themes and six subthemes were categorised. The findings reflected that traditional Confucian beliefs, a favourable learning environment and the attainment of teaching goals are the factors motivating the teachers to continue teaching heritage language. The information can be useful to utilise the talents of immigrant teachers to alleviate the teacher shortage problem and provide better support for heritage language teachers.