Teachers’ quality has long been researched in the field of general education. However, little attention has been paid to the professional qualities of excellent English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in the context of English curriculum reform, especially from an ecological perspective. To address this gap, this study adopted a qualitative approach to characterise the qualities of excellent senior high school EFL teachers in China and the development of their professional qualities using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model. Four interconnected dimensions of excellent EFL teachers’ professional qualities were confirmed: English language pedagogical content competence, beliefs about the foreign language teaching profession and professional ethics, beliefs about foreign language teaching and learning, and beliefs about language teacher learning and development. Meanwhile, the EFL teachers constructed and developed their professional qualities in their dynamic interaction with the complex ecological systems where they lived. The paper considers these various teacher-related factors in the ecological systems and provides some suggestions for sustaining EFL teachers’ professional development.

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While teacher resilience has gained significant attention in recent years, empirical exploration of this issue is still insufficient, particularly with regard to English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher resilience in China. In this context, this study employed a mixed-methods design to investigate Chinese EFL teacher resilience. Specifically, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC)-EFL Teacher Survey was distributed to 330 Chinese senior high school EFL teachers. Five volunteers in the survey sample participated in semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that resilience in Chinese senior high school EFL teachers was at a moderate to high level, and there was no significant difference in teacher resilience in relation to gender and years of teaching experience, but a small significant difference with teachers’ educational background. Possible reasons for interpreting EFL teacher resilience were provided from personal and contextual perspectives. Finally, the implications of these findings were discussed for developing teacher resilience.

Teacher self-efficacy has long been researched in the context of face-to-face teaching, but it has received less attention with regard to online teaching. To address this gap, the current study utilized a questionnaire adapted from Lin and Zheng as the major instrument and supplementary interviews to examine teacher self-efficacy in livestream teaching in the Chinese context. Exploratory factor analysis results from 486 senior high school English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in China yielded a two-factor structure of teacher self-efficacy comprising instructional self-efficacy and technological self-efficacy. Across the sample, EFL teachers had moderate-to-high self-efficacy in general, and they showed higher levels of technological self-efficacy than instructional self-efficacy. The interview data also indicated a fluctuation in technological self-efficacy at the onset of livestream teaching compared to 1 month into livestream teaching. This study results offer some useful suggestions for enhancing teacher self-efficacy.

While there has been much research into teachers’ professional quality in general education, scant attention has been paid to the professional quality of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers, especially those working in adverse areas, for their sustainable career trajectories. Drawing on Wu’s framework of EFL teachers’ professional quality, this study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the professional quality of experienced EFL teachers in China’s rural areas. A questionnaire was administered online to 367 Chinese EFL teachers from 15 high schools in the northeast part of China. Follow-up interviews were then conducted with four volunteers. The results of the exploratory factor analysis produced a two-module structure of teachers’ professional quality, addressing teacher beliefs and English language pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for their sustainable career development. The teacher belief module addresses beliefs about language teacher learning and development as well as beliefs about foreign language teaching and learning. The English language PCK module includes two subscales: English teaching capacity and English knowledge and skills. Descriptive analysis showed that these participants had high levels of professional quality. Possible explanations for the interpretations of EFL teachers’ professional quality are provided from the qualitative data. Based on the above findings, the paper offers some implications for sustaining EFL teacher development in the future.