HOW CAN BLOGGING SUPPORT CRITICAL REFLECTIVITY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION?

Abstract

This study was based on a belief grounded in the literature that more authentic reflective approaches should be implemented in order to encourage teachers to engage in many-way conversations with and within themselves, and that blogs as a transformational technology for teaching and learning can facilitate critical thinking and knowledge construction through interaction and collaboration with others with a shared interest. Thus, this 12-week-long case study seeks to examine whether the use of blogs as support for reflective practice in a Practicum course could enhance the level of critical reflection that the pre-service English language teachers were involved in. Data collection consisted of archival records of pre-service teachers’ reflective blog posts and comments, pre- and post-study interviews with pre-service teachers and field notes taken by the researcher. The results of this study indicate that blogging supports the pre-service teachers’ reflectivity positively. All of the pre-service teachers are found to be reflective to a certain extent in their blog postings. However, there are differences in the degree of reflection they are engaged in. These results reveal specific evidence that contribute to our understanding of how blogging might be incorporated as to support for reflective practice in teacher education programs.