Reflective practicum: experience of the Ethiopian context

Abstract

This study was prompted by practical confrontation with prospective teachers’ practicum problems, namely fending off effective reflection and harboring silence, each of which debilitated developing adequate skills of planning appropriate lessons and presenting them meaningfully. Choosing a reflective practitioner inquiry design advanced by Donald Schön, ten pre-service EFL student teachers were selected purposefully to take part in the study. Reflective journaling was employed both as a research method and strategy of reflection. The results indicate both opportunities and challenges in the specific EFL reflective practicum context. This paper presents these and the implications for policy makers.

Keywords:

• reflective practicum
• EFL
• student teachers
• Donald Schön
• Stephen Brookfield

Notes

1. For reasons explained in the methodology, the term ‘inquirer’ is preferred to ‘researcher’ to designate oneself .The participant trainees in this study refer to themselves as ‘I’. The inquirer refers to them interchangeably by ‘trainee(s)’ and ‘student teacher(s)’