Reflective practice in a pre-service teacher education program for high school English teachers in Taiwan, ROC

Abstract

Although reflective practice has become a dominant paradigm in language teacher education research and programs worldwide, little of the inquiry into EFL teacher education has been documented in Taiwan, ROC. Critical reflection raises teachers' awareness about teaching, enables deeper understanding of variables related to teaching, and triggers positive changes in their practice. The study aims to provide a description of pre-service teachers' reflective practice by examining 20 student teachers' observation reports and 20 practice teaching reports over a six-week period while they were taking a practice teaching course. Topics, types — descriptive or critical, and development of their reflective practice as shown in the 40 reports were analyzed. Results show that student teachers talked about topics mainly related to practical teaching issues and evaluation of other teachers' or their own teaching among seven major topic categories, could do more critical reflection than descriptive reflection, but did not show substantial development of critical reflection within a six-week period. Providing a lower affective state may be helpful for teacher change, and interventions such as reflective training and teacher development group meetings may need to be incorporated into teacher education curriculum in order to trigger the development of reflectivity for teaching. Future directions regarding considerations of the factors in social contexts for teacher education programs and research on reflection-in-action are suggested.