Anniversary article: The practices of encouraging TESOL teachers to engage in reflective practice: An appraisal of recent research contributions

Abstract

Within the field of education, reflective practice has become a very popular concept within teacher education and development programs. The general consensus is that teachers who are encouraged to engage in reflective practice can gain new insight of their practice. There have been similar developments in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), where the allure of reflective practice seems to have also been embraced as an important educational paradigm that should be supported in teacher education and development programs. However, we really do not know what research has been conducted on the practices that encourage TESOL teachers to participate in reflective practice. This article presents a review of recent research that has been published in academic journals over the past five years (2009–2014) on the practices that encourage TESOL teachers to reflect.

Identity exploration and development in TESOL teacher education: A three‐dimensional space narrative inquiry perspective

“…It urged them to reflect on and keep track of their own professional development, as well as think about their teaching prospects. These findings demonstrate that identity exploration is both a reflective and experiential process (Farrell, ). More importantly, they confirm that identity work can contribute to teacher development in powerful ways (Yazan, ).…”

La Reflexión De La Práctica Docente

“…Aunque no existen esos espacios, por mi compromiso personal en la docencia creo personalmente esos espacios al pensar sobre el trabajo que voy realizando, si llegué o no llegué a los estudiantes con mi enseñanza o si me fue bien o no (E. Martínez, 11 de julio, 2019) De igual manera, el conjunto de profesores se pronunció sobre la colaboración con otro par académico para realizar procesos de reflexión como deseable, pues esto les permitiría realizar un análisis y verdadera comprensión del hecho educativo. Concordamos, por tanto, con el argumento de Farrell (2015), en que se debe ubicar tiempos y espacios para la reflexión, se requiere que los maestros compartan reflexiones, que impartan sus pensamientos en reuniones abiertas y busquen comentarios de otros para la comprensión emergente en la búsqueda de un aprendizaje significativo y relevante, puesto que los cambios pedagógicos no pueden surgir de tan solo pensar en ellos, sino de la toman de decisiones al respecto. Coincidimos con el estudio de Freidhoff (2008), que asume que los fines de la práctica reflexiva se llevan a cabo cuando se comparten las reflexiones y se discuten esas ideas.…”

Cultivating teacher responsiveness with emergent bilingual students through videotaped lesson analysis

“…This stance on reflexivity is informed by theories of reflection as a tool for teacher learning (Korthagen & Wubbels, ; Schön, ), especially reflective practices that encourage critical stances and focus on instructional refinement (Zeichner & Tabachnick, ). Reflective work in ESL teacher education has been productive in shifting teachers’ identities and beliefs, although less empirical research investigates the effects of this reflection on their actual practices as represented in videos of their instruction (Farrell, ).…”