Towards becoming critical reflection writers: a case of English language teacher candidates

ABSTRACT

This study aimed at investigating English language teacher candidates’ reflections based on observations of real language teaching. Participants were 49 third-year undergraduate students studying at the English Language Teaching Department of a state university in Turkey. The rationale for selecting third-year students as participants was to describe the characteristics of written critical reflections of teacher candidates before they started practicum experience in their fourth-year of study at university. Participants’ critical reflection writings were utilized as data collection tools. The data obtained from reflective writings were analysed based on the Reflection Scale by Bain, Packer and Mills (1999). The analysis of data related to participants’ views on the observation and reflection writing process was conducted via inductive content analysis. The qualitative data indicated that English language teacher candidates did not reach a high degree in terms of criticality in their reflections. In addition, they did not tend to become more critical in their reflections over time even though they believed that reflection was beneficial for their professional development.

KEYWORDS:

• Reflective practice
• reflective learning
• reflection
• teacher candidates
• pre-service teacher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Burcu Turhan

Burcu Turhan is a research assistant at Mustafa Kemal University and holds an MA from the English Language Teaching Department of Çukurova University. She is also a PhD candidate in the same department. Her research interests include language teacher education, pragmatics, English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI), metacognition and reflective practice.

Yasemin Kirkgoz

Yasemin Kirkgoz is a professor in the English Language Teacher Education Department of Çukurova University. She completed her Master and PhD at Aston University, England. Her main research interests focus on English medium instruction in higher education, pre-service and in-service teacher education, school-university partnership, language policy and teaching English to young learners. She has published on these topics in various international journals. In 2013, she received the IATEFL award for her work on Initiating and Managing the Process of Curriculum Innovation from the IATEFL’s Leadership and Management Special Interest Group. She is the co-editor of the book Key Issues in English for Specific Purposes in Higher Education published by Springer in 2018.