Teacher was turned off by regular bits of email (5)
I believe the answer is:
swami
'teacher' is the definition.
(Hindu religious teacher)
'turned off by regular bits of email' is the wordplay.
'turned' is a reversal indicator.
'off by' becomes 'aws' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'regular bits of' indicates alternate letters.
The alternating letters of 'email' are 'mi'.
'aws' in reverse letter order is 'swa'.
'swa'+'mi'='SWAMI'
'was' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for swami that I've seen before include "Hindu male religious teacher" , "Guru" , "Hindu mystic" , "Hindu religious instructor" , "Teacher abroad" .)