The Impact of Covid-19 on Iranian EFL Teachers’ Academic Optimism and Psychological Wellbeing: A Mixed-methods Design Abstract Mohammad Aliakbari1, 1 Seyyed Pedram Allahveysi 2 1. Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Ilam, Iran. m.aliakbari@ilam.ac.ir 2. PhD candidate at the university of Ilam, Iran. SPA9574@gmail.com Covid-19 pandemic has globally and dramatically infected the world and caused numerous challenges for people in many aspects of social life. One of the most significant challenges worldwide has occurred in the educational system, since the classes were used to be held in person and teachers were accustomed with the traditional ways of teaching in the classrooms. Some teachers may not have been trained well according to the standards of virtual and online classes; therefore, many problems were introduced to the literature of education worldwide. Iran has not been an exception since the first cases were announced in January 2020 and the same challenges were faced with. In this study, it was tried to shed more lights on teachers’ academic optimism and psychological well-being during this global pandemic and the problems that EFL teachers have encountered. The authors developed online questionnaires through google docs and sent them to the participants via Telegram application for the quantitative phase of the study. So as to conduct the qualitative part, 3 participants were interviewed through Skype application. In the quantitative part, it was discovered that this global pandemic has negatively affected teachers’ psychological well-being and academic optimism. In the qualitative phase, it was revealed that the anxiety of losing their job and financial problems were the most significant factors negatively affecting teachers’ psychological well-being and academic optimism. The lessons learned from Covid-19 may help us develop some programs and curriculums for the possible future crises, both to support teachers and educational system. .
