School climate and language teacher immunity: A parallel mediation analysis with emotion regulation strategies

Language teacher immunity, a protective psychological system that helps teachers cope with professional challenges, has recently attracted increasing attention in second language acquisition research. However, limited research has examined how contextual and emotional resources jointly contribute to the development of language teacher immunity, particularly across different teaching contexts. Grounded in Conservation of Resources theory, the present study investigates the mediator role of emotion regulation strategies for the impact of school climate on language teacher immunity and examines whether this structural model was invariant across English as L1 and L2/FL teaching contexts. Data were collected from 369 English language teachers using the Language Teacher Immunity Questionnaire, the School-Level Environment Questionnaire, and the Language Teacher Emotion Regulation Inventory. After removing invalid responses and outliers, data from 336 teachers were analyzed using parallel mediation and multi-group structural equation modeling. Results indicated that school climate had a strong positive direct effect on language teacher immunity. Reappraisal and attentional deployment partially mediated the relationship, whereas, situation modification emerged as a significant negative independent predictor of language teacher immunity. Crucially, multi-group analysis demonstrated full structural invariance across English as L1 and L2/FL contexts, suggesting that the psychological architecture of teacher immunity remains stable across teaching contexts. These findings underscore the pivotal role of supportive school environments and cognitive emotion regulation in fostering teacher immunity.