Reflective practice in second language teacher education: a scoping review

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present scoping review aimed to systematically review the corpus of data sources including 92 published papers, which were identified and retrieved based on the study criteria. The papers were coded using categories which were operational definitions of reflection and reflective practice, unit of analysis, theoretical frameworks, levels of reflection, research methods, data collection instruments, and the complexity of second/foreign language (L2) teacher reflection. The results indicate that (a) current definitions of teacher reflection are general and descriptive, (b) the focus is heavily on in-service teaching contexts, (c) there is a growing interest in qualitative methodological approaches and a need for principled mixed methods research is greatly felt, (d), there is an overriding emphasis on reflection-on-action approaches, (e) and most of the studies portray reflection at descriptive and comparative levels, failing to encourage teachers at the critical level. The findings also suggest a need for applying and extending the benefits of reflection to different real-life contexts where teachers work, and a call for new research orientations to address the complex dynamics of teacher reflection. The implications of the study are discussed in detail.