Abstract
English as a foreign language (EFL) university students use reflective journals as learning logs to express or capture their ideas within a scientific conceptual framework. The objectives of this research are to (1) describe the power of reflective journal writing in communicating ideas, and (2) identify the aspects of reflective journal writing that aid learning in an EFL context. The reflective journals were written by 21 EFL university students. This research takes a qualitative approach, with the primary data coming from several reflective journals (N=124) while the secondary data coming from EFL students’ interviews (N=15). The research results showed that reflective journals were useful for students to make critical reflections and self-discovery responses to writing topics. The students learned to focus on writing components such as order, unity, coherence, cohesiveness, content, and organization of ideas through reflective journal writing. The students’ perspectives on aspects of reflective journal writing were primarily concerned with macro-and micro-level linguistic issues, as evidenced from the interview results. Writing a reflective journal necessitated their ability to reformulate thoughts, provide details, and solve problems. Furthermore, critical thinking, metacognitive skills, and self-reflections became increasingly important in helping the students to develop their ability to write reflective journals.
Highlights
In pedagogical practice, reflective journal writing has long been used to improve students’ learning attitudes, creativity, and academic awareness
4.1 The Use of Reflective Journal Writing for English as a foreign language (EFL) Students
Reflective journal writing is important in learning writing because it supports EFL students to rethink a wide range of learning activities and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of subsequent learning processes
Summary
Reflective journal writing has long been used to improve students’ learning attitudes, creativity, and academic awareness. This hands-on demand for reflective journal writing is premised on two fundamental principles. Reflective journal writing improves students’ self-awareness, understanding of issues, and reasoning skills (Abednia et al, 2013), all of which support the power of reflection, imagination, and interpretation (Lindsay, 2011). In this sense, reflective journal writing is becoming more popular as a means of addressing both writing competence and its significant impacts on cognitive domains such as powerful reflections, interpretation, and other self-inquiry issues. As a multicultural consideration, writing a reflective journal leads to a fundamental advancement of learning by providing insight into higher education contexts (Power, 2017)
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