Understanding Reflective Writing in EFL Teacher Education: an investigation characterizing successful instances of teacher-generated reflective commentary

Project Description

Teachers’ performance of written reflection has become a mainstay of TESOL professional training worldwide. Trainees’ accounts of their teaching are a central component of entry-level EFL training programmes such as the Trinity CERT TESOL. As experienced TESOL trainers and educators, our team engages continuously with reflective writing produced by new teachers engaged in both our Trinity CERT TESOL and MA TESOL programmes. A key issue, exposed through experience but reflected increasingly in contemporary ELT literature, is the extent to which formalized, assessed reflection can be perceived by trainees merely as a means of fulfilling assessors’ expectations. Under the circumstances of assessed training, teachers may feel encouraged to “fake” insight (Hobbs, 2007), rather than engage in the potentially risky and messy process of genuine reflection itself.

Our key purpose in carrying out the research is to identify and characterize writing that fulfills a genuinely reflective purpose; successfully distilling insight from practice or capturing new understanding. Teachers who have completed training, no longer constrained by the conditions of assessment, are well-placed to return to their earlier commentaries and identity instances of writing that they perceive as having persistent, meaningful or transformative potential. Gaining a fuller understanding of the (practical, linguistic and discourse) features of successful written reflection will lead to several useful practical outcomes. Teacher educators in particular can learn how to identify features of potentially meaningful reflection as well as the means useful reflection can be supported thorough appropriately targeted assessment.