Exploring Newly-Qualified ESOL Teachers’ Organizational Beliefs that Potentially Cause Reality Shock

Reality shock is an experience that happens due to the theory-practice gaps in teacher education. It not only causes attrition among early career teachers but also critically harms their well-being and emotions. Research has shown that reality shock primarily results from teachers' unrealistic beliefs about teaching practices and the school context. While studies that examine ESOL teachers' pedagogical beliefs are abundant, those that aim at their organizational beliefs are limited. This qualitative study, therefore, investigated newly-graduated ESOL teachers' beliefs about themselves as professionals in a school context. Particularly, it explored teachers' expectation about workload, challenges, professional support, autonomy and professional acknowledgement. It employed the semi-structured interview as the data collection tool, and six teachers were invited as participants. The results show that young teachers had very realistic beliefs about the workload and challenges that they might encounter in real teaching, probably thanks to the experience gained from their teaching practicum. However, they possessed somewhat over-pessimistic perceptions about professional support, autonomy and acknowledgement, which might lead to reality shock. Recommendations have been made for ESOL teacher education programs and newly-qualified teachers themselves.