Being a student, becoming a teacher: The wellbeing of pre-service language teachers in Austria and the UK

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate the wellbeing of 14 pre-service language teachers from Austria and the UK. Data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews which were analysed following principles of Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006). The data were compared across the two settings and the analysis revealed a number of individual but also systemic ecological factors that play a role in the pre-service teachers’ wellbeing. These factors include time management, work-life balance, relationships, finding purpose and meaning, the structure of study programs, as well as the status of teaching and the specific language in each respective society.