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Reflective practice and pre-service language teacher preparation
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Reflective practice and pre-service language teacher preparation
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REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 1
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND PRE-SERVICE LANGUAGE TEACHER PREPARATION
by
Chin Hua Pang
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2017
Copyright 2017 Chin Hua Pang
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a great honor and exponential privilege to be a doctoral student at the Rossier School
of Education of the University of Southern California. I would like to express my deepest
appreciation to my committee members Dr. Jenifer Crawford, Dr. Paula Carbone, and Dr.
Artineh Samkian. Dr. Artineh Samkian taught me for two semesters in Inquiry I and II. The
important knowledge, practical pilot study, and vital feedback critically built up the foundation
of methodology and findings. Dr. Paula Carbone provided me with the support in logically
creating the introduction and systematically exploring the literature review. I received much
help from my chair, Dr. Jenifer Crawford, who spent valuable time helping me correct mistakes
due to my limited English proficiency as an international student. The professors of Rossier
School of Education consistently motivated me as a reflective learner. The Ed. D. Cohort of
2017 frequently offered me assistance and immediate feedback in class and after class. I
sincerely appreciate the financial support provided by the Ministry of Education, the knowledge I
learned from my teachers, and the encouragement of my family, brothers, and sister in Taiwan.
Finally, the MAT TESOL students played an essential role in contributing to the findings. It
would have been impossible to complete this dissertation without the support, enlightenment,
and encouragement from all of you!
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments 2
List of Tables 5
List of Figures 6
Abstract 7
Chapter One: Introduction 8
Background of the Problem 10
Statement of the Problem 12
Purpose of the Study 14
Significance of the Study 16
Limitations and Strengths 16
Definitions of Terms 17
Organization of the Study 18
Chapter Two: Literature Review 19
History of Reflection in U.S. Education Department 20
History of Reflection in Pre-Service Teaching and Teachers’ Preparedness 21
History of Reflection in Teaching Language Learners 23
Current State of Reflection in Pre-service Teaching in
Language Learning Settings 26
The Impact of Reflection on Learning to Teach 28
Current State of Critical Reflection Towards Equity and Access
in Pre-Service Teaching in Language Learning Settings 36
Impact of Reflection on Practice 41
Reflective Practice Framework 43
Summary 46
Chapter Three: Methods 48
Study Purpose 48
Study Research Questions 49
Study Research Method 49
Research Design 49
Site and Sample 50
Fang 52
Huei 53
Jay 54
Yie 55
Yun 55
Zi 56
Data Collection 57
Interview 59
Notes from Class 60
Course Final Assignment 61
Data Analysis Process 62
Credibility and Trustworthiness 63
Ethics 63
Summary 64
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 4
Chapter Four: Findings 66
Findings 67
Research Question 1: Description of Reflective Practice 67
Fang 68
Jay 70
Yie 71
Yun 72
Zi 74
Huei 76
Research Question #1 Summary 77
Research Question 2: Impact of Reflection on Instruction 78
Challenges in Taking up Reflective Practice 78
Fang 79
Jay 79
Yie 82
Yun 83
Zi 85
Huei 86
Reflection as a Meaning Making Process 88
Fang 89
Jay 93
Yie 98
Yun 99
Zi 101
Huei 103
Research Question #2 Summary 104
Chapter Five: Discussion 105
Summary of Findings 106
A Cyclical Meaning-Making Practice 107
Supporting Professional Learning in Practice 109
Implication for Practice and Research 111
Recommendations for Future Studies 112
Conclusion 113
References 115
Appendices
Appendix A: Consent for Accessing Final Paper and Using Class Notes 131
Appendix B: Consent for Interview 133
Appendix C: Interview Protocol 135
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 5
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Demographics of Interview Participants 52
Table 3.2: RQ, Pre-Existing Course Data, Interview, & Literature 58
Table 3.3: Pre-Existing Course Data & Interview 59
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 6
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Four Phase Reflective Cycle 44
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 7
Abstract
This dissertation discussed the application of using reflective practice in pre-service
language teacher preparation. Reflective practice effectively helps pre-service language teachers
improve instruction and preparation in a culturally, socially, and linguistically diverse classroom
setting. Its application allows new teachers to be more aware of the challenge, differentiate and
analyze the challenge, and ultimately, use strategies to improve the challenge.
This study addresses the impact of reflective practice on the improvement of pre-service
language teachers’ curriculum and instruction. The purpose of this study was to discuss the
relationship between reflective practice and the problem of pre-service language teacher training
initiatives, and to find the potential of improvement in preparation. This study focused on two
research questions: What is the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers’
description of reflective practice in an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a
Second or Other Language program? How do the predominately Chinese international pre-
service teachers perceive the impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum
and instruction an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language
program? This qualitative study used convenience sampling for both side selection and
participants. The triangulation of data, including class notes, final assignment, and interviews,
provided a deeper understanding of participants’ perspectives on reflection and its impact on
teacher preparation. Theoretical and empirical studies provided the framework for the
advantages of using reflective practice. The findings of this study supported the important
impact of reflection on pre-service language teacher preparation. Participants described
reflective practice as being part of improving their practice in preparing diverse teachers for
diverse students given new educational tools, contexts, policies, and practices.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 8
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
This study addressed the significance of reflective practices for pre-service language
teachers’ preparation. With increased globalization, some languages, such as English and
Mandarin, have gained increasing importance, and have been increasingly used in university
education abroad (Bolton & Botha, 2015). The number of international students enrolled in
teacher education masters programs, especially MAT-TESOL (Master of Arts in Teaching-
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) programs is growing (U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, 2016). However, there are persistent problems in teacher education in
bridging foundational coursework and theories to practicum teaching and practice. Also, the
lack of training of pre-service ELL teachers is a serious problem because of the necessity and
importance of pre-service teacher preparation (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015).
Research shows new teachers need a significant amount experience, usually taking 2-3 years to
start to implement practices that they were taught in their teacher education program. Despite
their education, teachers usually default to teaching the way that they were taught (Feiman-
Nemser, 2001). This is important as there is a growing number of international teachers
completing teacher education programs and teaching in U.S. public schools. One example of
this is where a growing number of Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking teachers teach in U.S.
public Dual Language Immersion elementary and secondary classrooms (U.S. Department of
Education, 2015).
This dissertation explored the pre-service MAT-TESOL students’ description of reflective
practice in terms of pre-service language teacher preparation and studied pre-service MAT-
TESOL students’ description of the impact of reflective practice on their negotiation of cultural
and pedagogical differences in an effort to improve their teaching practices with language
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 9
learners. The pre-service language teacher education was studied in detail and the conclusions
were drawn based upon these studies. Initial findings indicated that pre-service teacher
education programs must be made more effective through reflective practices and the teachers
must be introduced to practical aspects of teaching along with the theories of education.
Pre-service teacher training programs are extremely important as they prepare teachers to
professionally impart knowledge to students (Sim, 2006). These training programs become more
important for education in a culturally, socially, and linguistically diverse setting because new
teachers usually need to spend two to three years to effectively carry out their practice with ease
(Peacock, 2001). Research conducted on training of pre-service language teachers has shown the
teachers unpreparedness in terms of imparting the knowledge to students in a language that
students do not fully understand. These teachers face diverse and complex problems in the
contexts of their performance in teaching students (Almarza, 1996).
With increased globalization, English has gained increasing importance. For example, in
China, learning English is popular at all levels, including at the university level. English is
increasingly used in Chinese college students’ classrooms and in their daily lives. Many of these
students come to the United Stated to be trained on how to teach English in their home country
as a foreign language (Garcia, 1993; Bolton & Botha, 2015).
According to research, deliberative reflection can help educators integrate new teaching
practices that differ from the practices that they were inducted into as students (Larrivee, 2008;
Farrell, 2015). It can also help negotiate cultural difference and different methodological
approaches (Clark, James & Kelly, 1996). In addition, reflection can be used to promote
responsive instructional practice, which forms the basis of the teacher preparation practices
(Etscheidt, Curran & Sawyer, 2012). Using reflective practice in education not only benefits
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 10
teachers teaching in the classroom, but also helps teachers in online teaching (LaPrade,
Gilpatrick, & Perkins 2014). When bringing it into practice, reflective practice supports
teachers’ preparation when they engage in reflection. For example, they may reflect on how
should they act, what ought they do, and could they have done anything differently to better
prepare themselves (Zalipour, 2015, pp. 10).
Background of the Problem
To responsively adapt to the language learning needs, it is important to train teachers to
have a complete understanding of the occurrences in the classroom in order to be attentive and
possess the autonomy needed to learn how to continually reflect on developing knowledge and
skills necessary for learning and teaching (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Studies disclose that there is
a gap in pre-service teacher training programs because pre-service language teachers feel that
they do not possess the skills required to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students
(Premier & Miller, 2010). Premier and Miller indicated in their study that 97% of the pre-service
teachers revealed that their pre-service training programs could be improved to enhance their
preparation in order to teach culturally and linguistically diverse student (2010). The necessary
improvement includes pre-service teacher attitudes, cross-cultural understanding, multi-cultural
awareness, and conceptual of coherence between course and fieldwork elements (Giambo &
Szecsi, 2005; Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, Grossman, Rust, & Shulman, 2005).
There is a parallel tension for teachers prepared in the United States to teach abroad.
Internationally, they face students who have very different expectations about the role of teachers
in the classroom, different conceptions of what a “good” classroom looks like, or have a different
level of openness to socio-cultural and student-centered teaching approaches (Vatalaro, Szente,
& Levin, 2015). Kameenui and Carnine (1998) found that teachers, particularly new ones, feel
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 11
frustrated while teaching in ELL settings because they could not communicate their ideas
effectively to the students. This difficulty in communication between the students and teachers
greatly compromises the quality of the education imparted to the student (Kameenui & Carnine,
1998). Previously, in order to reduce this challenge of responsive and relevant instruction to
support English language acquisition for language learners, many theories have been devised and
educators are of the view that creating a balance between the native language of the students and
English can help them achieve this goal (DeVillar, Faltis & Cummins, 1994). According to this
theory, it is easy for the students to understand the concepts of the lessons of their subject if they
understand whatever is being conveyed to them by the teacher. However, this requires effective
reflective practices in pre-service training for the teachers so that they can effectively
communicate their ideas to the students. Farrell (2012) noted that reflective thinking includes
suggesting, intellectualizing, formulating guiding ideas, reasoning, and testing hypotheses.
Farrell also asserted that there is a significant difference between teachers who use reflective
practices during teaching and training and those who do not in regards to their teaching methods
and consequences of educational practices (Farrell, 2012). In addition, reflective practice is
useful as it is an awareness-raising tool that enables TESOL teachers to become more
systematically aware of themselves and explore their beliefs and practice in English language
education (Farrell, 2015).
Reflective practices have previously been used to train teachers and play an effective role
in preparing teachers professionally (Al-Haq & Alimoush, 2016). Hatton and Smith (1995)
provided information regarding the different reflection-in-action methods that novices and
experienced teachers use in dealing with practice problems. Studies show that reflection
supports pre-service teachers’ praxis and bridges theories of effective teacher practice with
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 12
effective teaching (Ferry & Ross-Gordon, 1998). Ferry and Ross-Gordon assert that when
reflecting, teachers employ reflection-in-action decision-making processes flexibly. Non-
reflective teachers utilize a scientific procedural problem solving strategy to solve the problem.
Therefore, reflecting teachers may explore their beliefs, link their beliefs, and ultimately apply
them to their teaching techniques (Ferry & Ross-Gordon, 1998).
Statement of the Problem
There is an increasing demand for devising techniques that would help pre-service teachers
and their preparation to better assist them in the challenge of responsive and relevant instruction
to support language acquisition (Duc Chinh, 2013). Because of the improvement of technology,
online teaching has been a challenge for pre-service language teachers, especially in a culturally,
socially, and linguistically diverse classroom setting because they did not receive certain training
when they were students (Kennedy & Archambault, 2012). Empirical evidence shows that
because of insufficiently relevant experiences and relatively low confidence levels, pre-service
teachers are more likely to experience anxiety before their actual teaching sessions (LaPrade,
Gilpatrick, & Perkins, 2014). The reason is because these pre-service teachers do not know what
challenges they will face and whether their instruction will be realized by their learners
(Koutsoupidou, 2010). In China, English as a foreign language (EFL) has been popular since the
1990s and English language proficiency has a significant relationship to socio-economic and
educational opportunities. These programs play an important role in enabling the teachers to
impart their professional and specialized knowledge to the students effectively (Hancock, 2003).
The background of such students is diverse and their native languages may vary (Heikinheimo &
Shute, 1986). In these situations, reflective practice and effective teaching methods, play a
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 13
critical role in enhancing teachers’ cognition and ideas, when they teach culturally diverse
leaners (Artiles & McClafferty, 1998).
Some pre-service programs might not be sufficient for new teachers who are not only
learning the content of foundational coursework and how to apply that knowledge in their
teaching practice, but they are also being socialized into the cultural practices of a foreign
schooling system. Batt (2008) noted that as some existing pre-service programs are insufficient
for new teachers in dealing with ELLs’ challenges, there is a need to include training programs
for the pre-service teachers to communicate with the ELLs, regardless of their subject of study.
In addition, as the students coming from or located in different parts of the world and coming
from different schooling cultures, there is a need for programs to train English language
educators to respond to a variety of learning needs and expectations (Bolton & Botha, 2015).
Batt (2008) stated that due to linguistic and cultural challenges the responsibility of teaching
English to such students should not be left on the shoulders of English teachers alone. Not only
are students lagging behind in learning English, but it also becomes difficult for these students to
learn the concepts of other subjects being taught using English as the medium of instruction
(Batt, 2008).
This dissertation aims at identifying the measures taken by teacher educators to introduce
new reforms, based upon reflective practices, in the pre-service teachers training programs to
counter this increasing problem. Integrating reflection throughout this research paper helps to
identify the reflective means that can be included in pre-service teacher training programs and
can enable teachers to communicate more easily with students who are learning English as a
second language. According to research, there are techniques and methodologies that can help
the new teachers overcome their inability to communicate with their students who are unfamiliar
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 14
with English, such as strong relationships with field placements and the inclusion of practical
perspective in the theoretical concepts of teaching (Serna & Meier, 2010). Findings indicated
that most pre-service language teachers disclose that their training program does not emphasize
cultural and linguistic difference in school education (Premier & Miller, 2010). While it is
important for pre-service teachers to be prepared in the discipline of teaching, the situation
mentioned above actually resulted in pre-service teachers having less practical confidence in
teaching language learners in a diverse classroom setting (Lucas, Villegas, & Freedson-
Gonzalez, 2008). The research questions guiding this study include:
1. What is the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers’ description of
reflective practice in an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or
Other Language program?
2. How do predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers perceive the
impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and instruction in an
American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language program?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to explore the pre-service MAT-TESOL students’ description
of reflective practice. Furthermore, this study aims to explore the pre-service MAT-TESOL
students’ description of the impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and
instruction. This dissertation analyzes the perspective of the pre-service TESOL educators on
the impact of reflective practices.
Walker-Dalhouse and Dalhouse (2006) concluded that teachers do not feel confident
while teaching in a class of culturally diverse students with languages other than English. They
reported that even extremely qualified and well-trained teachers find it confusing to deliver
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 15
concepts to the students who do not understand what they are communicating. The teachers are
of the view that the barrier of language greatly affects the quality of education and they feel
bound by it, as the language barrier prevents even the most intelligent and brilliant students from
securing good grades (Walker-Dalhouse & Dalhouse, 2006).
Training pre-service teacher educators to teach students with limited knowledge of the
English language can be made possible by adding the practices of reflective learning in the pre-
teacher services and programs (Johnson, 1994). However, teaching students with no or little
understanding of the language becomes difficult at times even for the teachers who have been
trained (Abedi, & Dietel, 2004). The students who do not understand English must also be aided
with additional courses that support the learning of English. The entire burden should not be left
on the shoulders of the subject teachers (Durgunoglu & Hughes, 2010). Gilroy (1993) concludes
that reflective teaching benefits educators by providing a variety of idealized models for their
training. According to a study conducted by LaPrade, Gilpatrick, and Perkins (2014), reflection
may positively improve instructional techniques. Fifty online instructors participated in this
study. Twenty-five of them were designated as the reflective group, whereas the other 25 were
designated as the control group. The reflective group received an email that explained the
purpose of this study. The participants were asked to reflect on a personal self-evaluation about
their own instruction, and do a self-evaluation and reflection on their online instructional
capabilities. The control group did not receive any emails or contact during the study. The
research focused on the participants’ instructional effectiveness, including the quality of
interaction and instruction in the online classroom. In the study, the instructors who adopted
reflection as a strategy improved their mean score of instructional effectiveness from 2.20 to
2.72, which is 23.64% higher. It meant that the participants’ instructional techniques had been
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 16
significantly improved providing persuasive evidence that reflective practice is useful in
improving educators’ performance.
Significance of the Study
This research will help shed light on how one group of pre-service teachers adopt
reflective techniques that aid in effectively teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students.
The research will illuminate how international teacher candidates negotiate, adapt, and offer
effective English instruction to students from multiple cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Additionally, it will help teacher training programs to better understand how international
teacher candidates in the U.S. can take up reflective practices to more effectively negotiate
cultural differences. Furthermore, this research will help pre-service teacher trainers from all
over the world to understand how reflective practices can be utilized by teacher candidates to
bridge foundational coursework to practicum teaching.
Limitations and Strengths
This research studies a small sample of the target population of the Master of Arts (MAT)
in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) students in one urban college.
The population includes only one third of a cohort that enrolled in one section among 3 sections
offered of the same course. The course section had 16 students, including two Taiwanese, and
14 Chinese. While the program is comprised of all international students, the study focuses on
just one segment of the international student population from East Asia and is not representative
of all international students. This convenience sample was purposefully selected to represent one
growing group of international students in American MAT-TESOL programs, however the
sample does not represent the opinions of all the teachers and students in an ELL setting. This
research is conducted in the geographical and demographic boundaries of the United States of
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 17
America and addresses pre-service training programs of language teachers, keeping in view the
culturally diversifying overview of the United States. However, the teachers and administrative
staff of institutes from other countries may also use it as a guiding instrument and may apply it to
the international students learning the native language of that particular country as their second
or other language.
Definition of Terms
ELL: English language learners: “ELLs are a heterogeneous group with differences in ethnic
background, first language, socioeconomic status, quality of prior schooling, and levels of
English language proficiency (Roseberry-McKibbin, 2015).”
Learning English as a foreign language: Those who do not understand or speak English as
their native language and have to take study courses to learn English as a foreign language
(Wright, 2010).
Learning English as a second language: Those who do not understand or speak English as their
first or native language have to study courses to learn English as a second language (Williams,
1981)
Practicum: A practicum in education is a teaching practice. It is a course of college-supervised
instructional experience for undergraduate or graduate students who major in teacher education
(Thompson, Kootsikas, & Shellenberger, 2014).
Pre-service teacher education: The educational training programs arranged for student teachers
before they start teaching is called pre-service teacher education (Laine & Tanveer, 1986).
During their course of study, pre-service education is imparted to the teachers in addition to their
specific course of study, in order to make them effective teachers.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 18
Reflective practices: Reflection is a tool employed helping to bring about the transformation of
new experience into meaning-filled theory, essential in experience (Rodgers, 2002). By utilizing
reflection, the pre-service teacher is engaging in reflective practices.
Organization of the Study
There are five chapters in this study organized accordingly. Chapter One introduces the
background of the problem and the purpose as well as the significance of the study. Chapter
Two reviews the literature on pre-service teacher education and reflective practices. It also
presents the research articles used for this dissertation collected from the library of the University
of Southern California, as well as from online digital depositories of authentic and reviewed
articles. Chapter Three explains the research methods, site, and population, which is the pre-
service MAT TESOL students at an urban college. Chapter Four presents the data collected and
the findings related to the research questions. Finally, Chapter Five presents the conclusion,
implications, and suggestions of this study.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 19
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the history of reflective practices and the current use of reflection in
the education system of the United States and specifically, in teacher preparation programs.
Rodgers’s (2002) framework of reflective practices is examined, as is the proposition of
implementing this framework into pre-service teacher training in order to support international
pre-service teachers bridge the gap between foundational coursework and teaching practice.
Reflection is a complex, rigorous, intellectual, and emotional enterprise that takes time to
do well (Dewey, 1938; Rodgers, 2002; Forlin, 2010). It involves a meaning-making process,
which enables reflective practitioners to deeply and consciously think about the connection
between their experience and other possible experiences or outcomes (Schön, 1992; Rodgers,
2002; Sim, 2006; Yoon, 2007). In addition, reflection, a systematic disciplined process of
thinking, based on its roots in scientific inquiry, can be a practice that individuals improvise
upon, revise, and use to create new ways of deriving meaning from experience (Farrell, 2015).
Through this reflective practice and the application individuals are able to think about how to
improve their learning (Gilroy, 1993; Zeichner, 1994; Larrivee, 2008; Farrell, 2015). Moreover,
reflection requires individuals’ positive attitudes which leads to everyone’s intellectual
improvement (Dewey, 1938; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Rodgers, 2002; Li & Zheng, 2004).
Training new teachers about linguistically diverse students is imperative in order for them
to be responsive to the dynamic learning needs of their students, and reflective practice is useful
in their training (Rodriguez-Valls, 2014). The objective of this dissertation is to better
understand how pre-service language teachers engage and think about reflective practices.
Reflective practice helps in the formation of future teachers whose first language is Mandarin so
that they can effectively teach students who mostly speak English as their first language. It is
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 20
also difficult for the students whose native language is one other than English to understand the
content of subjects and courses taught in English (Alford, 2013). Reflection demands paying
acute consideration to the experimental and practical aspects of theories and values, by exploring
the practices reflexively and reflectively (Rodgers, 2002). These reflective practices, if used in
pre-service teacher training programs, can greatly help new English learner teachers to enhance
their ability to communication and negotiate the cultural and social differences in the classroom,
and position themselves as agentive, life-long-learners (Serna & Meier, 2010). The goal of this
research is to explore MAT-TESOL students’ description of reflective practice, and describe
how MAT-TESOL students perceive the impact of reflective practice on their negotiation in an
effort to improve their teaching practices. The following sections examine the history of
reflection in the U.S. along with the history of reflection in pre-service teaching.
History of Reflection in U.S. Education Department
This section provides an insight into the history of reflective practices in the United
States that have been carried forward through many generations. Reflective practices have been
used in education in the United States for many years because it is a helpful practice for new
teachers to map out problems and assess the solutions (Zeichner, 1994). There has always been a
debate among the educationists about how to devise ways to improve teacher training programs
so that they may contribute to effective teacher preparation (Hancock, 2003). According to
Hancock (2003), using reflective practices in teaching allows the teachers to think about their
educational preparedness and provides them with an opportunity to analyze and improve their
teaching practices for continual professional growth and improvement. This improvement in
teaching practices helps in the process of devising new ways to teach students in an effective
manner.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 21
In the United States, reflective practice has a long history. In the 1980s, many educators
led a movement supporting the application of reflection in teaching practices (Goodlad, 2002).
In 1983, Donald Schön introduced the ideas of reflective practices, including ‘reflection-on-
action’ and ‘reflection-in-action,’ which allows the teachers to constantly improve their teaching
practices. This movement focused on the involvement of the teacher’s self-study in analyzing
the purpose and the net result of their teaching methodologies. The educators, who were the
leaders of this movement, asserted that teachers need to assume control over the policies of
school reforms (Imel, 1992). These leaders claimed that in addition to the schools of education,
teachers must also have the authority to develop theories about teaching and lecture preparation
based upon their own personal experiences (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). In general,
researchers recommend that reflection be incorporated in pre-service teacher training programs
(Beauchamp, 2014). When reflective practices are applied and recorded, individuals are able to
easily compare the resulting impact of the different reflective practices (Zeichner, 1994).
Reflective practice can be a useful method for educators to better help students learn, improve,
and provide for the student’s needs in a variety of settings and educational levels (Beauchamp,
2014). As a result, teacher training programs may more widely include reflective practice.
History of Reflection in Pre-service Teaching and Teachers’ Preparedness
This section examines the role of reflective practices in the preparation of teachers and in
pre-service teaching. The use of reflective practices has become common in pre-service teachers
training programs in order to prepare the new teachers to effectively take on the challenges of
their profession (Ferraro, 2000). New teachers, are more likely than experienced teachers, to
need some type of motivation to teach using reflective practices (Batt, 2008). Teacher training
programs help in bringing about such motivation for teachers (Beauchamp, 2014). Reflective
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 22
education has greatly revolutionized teachers’ training programs and has introduced significantly
more meaningfulness to the teacher in their intent and purpose (Sim, 2006). According to Sim
(2006), the introduction of the concept of reflection in pre-service teaching helps new teachers to
reflect upon their own teaching techniques with the intent of improving them based upon their
own analysis. This improvement in teaching techniques has been found to be effective in raising
the test scores of the students (Gallego, 2014). Schön (1983) acknowledges that the basis for
improvement of teaching practice and technique is based upon the practices of teachers and their
teaching experiences.
From the teacher’s point of view, reflection enables them to understand, analyze, and
improve their own methods and teaching technique (Pedro, 2005). Pedro (2005) argues that by
reflecting upon their own experiences, teachers can create new practices for themselves to
follow. These new practices help in the teacher’s formation of knowledge, which in turn has an
impact on the student’s knowledge.
Teachers must gain both theoretical and practical knowledge during their preparation. In
order to prove this, Jayne (2013) conducted a research study about reflective teaching practice in
a college-based program. Fifty-four college students participated in this study to identify the
relationship between reflective practice and the expansion of knowledge. The findings showed
that 73% of the participants expressed that they met the learning outcomes and 79% of them
expressed that their performance met learning objectives using reflective practices. Therefore, in
addition to gaining formal and practical knowledge during their training, teachers are also being
trained to develop positive values, supportive ideals, high moral principles, and strong ethical
knowledge by accepting responsibility for the education of all children regardless of the diversity
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 23
of their needs (Forlin, 2010). Overall, through instructional techniques in terms of the expansion
of knowledge, reflective practice has a positive impact on improving teaching practice.
History of Reflection in Teaching Language Learners
Reflective practices also play a great role in teaching language learners. It is important
for teachers to engage in reflective thinking while teaching language learners. Reflective
thinking can help the teachers in the instruction of students who do not understand English as
first language (Liu & Milman, 2010). With the increased focus of research on linguistics,
researchers found that the teachers' beliefs influence both the perception and their judgment
about the context in which they operate (Richards & Lockhart, 1994). Thus, the teachers who
teach language learners are supposed to engage in a different thought process, called reflective
thinking, to better help students improve their professional growth and provide for the
individual’s needs in different educational settings and levels.
Richard and Lockhart (1994) reflect on reflective practice that focuses on critical self-
examination, and language teachers’ reflection can be a basis for decision making, planning, and
action in second language classrooms. Richard and Lockhart state that reflection is a useful way
to deal with a class of mixed abilities, to motivate and to encourage less able students (1994).
According to Richard and Lockhart (1994), language teachers’ beliefs regarding reflective
practice play a crucial role in how they learn to teach. The understanding of beliefs is essential
to improve the practice of teachers and teacher preparation programs (Richard & Lockhart,
1994). Scholars believe that the process of reflection which the teachers engage in, can make
them more aware of their beliefs and inconsistencies in their teaching practices (Brookfield,
1995; Imel, 1992). However, these teachers can experience conflict when trying to change their
beliefs as they do not usually have "educational alternatives" to serve as a model for their
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 24
instructional practice (De Jong & Harper, 2005). De Jong and Harper (2005), assert that the
process of reflection it is particularly important in the teaching of students who do not
understand the language of their teacher, because teachers’ reflection of searching for
alternatives can lead the teachers to find useful techniques for teaching English learners.
Many different teaching techniques have been suggested to help improve the process of
teaching students who are studying English as a second language, or as a foreign language
(Schön, 1983; Gay & Kirkland, 2003). For example, culturally responsive teaching (CRT), a
teaching approach considering cultural diversity when designing instruction, can be a useful
technique for enhancing teacher preparation and classroom practice in an ethnically diverse
setting (Gay& Kirkland, 2003). When teaching students academic knowledge and skills in a
racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity context, CRT plays the role of a filter, through carefully
exploring students’ beliefs in the value of a cultural diversity (Schön, 1983; Gay& Kirkland,
2003). Additionally, group activities and teamwork provide an opportunity for such students to
communicate and interact with each other and the teacher; therefore, they facilitate and
encourage learning and communicating in a foreign language (Richard-Amato, 2010). Richard-
Amato states (2010) that language learners are able to develop their academic performance
through the participation of dialogue and activities with the teacher and their peers. Problem-
posing is another way that develops critical thinking competence in language learners through
dynamical teamwork.
Williams (2001) shows that a classroom environment based upon the principles of
acceptance and reverence supports the learning of a language. According to him, teachers must
structure the curriculum in a way that allows for appropriate communication among students and
provides adequate space for choice. These goals can only be achieved if the teachers make use
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 25
of their reflective practices (Williams, 2001). As ELL classrooms are usually culturally diverse,
with students from different races and ethnicities, it becomes the responsibility of the teacher to
embrace all the students with cultural diversity and, through reflection, encourage student
communication (Yoon, 2007).
Reflective practices may not always be beneficial in teaching. When adopted by some
teachers it may be contradictory for their methodologies (Cornford, 2002). Cornford asserts that
the reflection of teachers on their educational practices may not always be constructive and
fruitful. The application of reflection into the practice of teaching can be made mechanical if not
followed appropriately (Cornford, 2002). This may lead teachers to adopt the already defined set
of guidelines to teach their students, as a last option instead of a first option (Moore & Ash,
2002). This may cause them to compromise the quality of the education that they impart to their
students and the way that they orchestrate the classroom environment (Hobbs, 2007). The
students and teachers sometimes consider reflective thinking to be a set of checklists that they
have to go through without accounting for its implications ritualizing the process of reflection
without any fruitful consequences on their teaching practice (Boud & Walker, 1998). Boud and
Walker note that reflection is important in facilitating learning, but not all planned reflective
processes lead to learning, and in some cases, students may not be able to reflect in a meaningful
way (1998). To improve this situation, Boud and Walker emphasize that it is important for
teachers to provide students clear direction of conceptual framework of reflective activities
(1998).
Reflective practice is a desirable tool for teaching future teachers who are starting their
professional teaching career (Kagan, 1992). Moreover, in addition to teachers, reflection can
help to facilitate professionals belonging to all types of fields, perform a critical evaluation of
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 26
their job performance, and improve it (Loughran, 2000). However, the improper and inefficient
use of reflection may cause more harm than good (Geyer, 2008). Geyer said that the wrong
practices of reflection might produce prejudice and bias. Professionals may use reflection as a
mechanical formula without looking into the critical and technical aspects of the problem (Gore,
1987). Reflective practices must not be used as an opportunity to struggle with subjectivity, nor
should they be used as a tool to engage in the legitimization of personal emotions (Finlay, 2003).
However, if carried out effectively, reflective practices can greatly enhance the examination and
transformation process of the teaching practices. According to this research, reflective practices
are required for pre-service teachers to teach in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms
(Schön, 1987; Quinn, 1998; Farrell, 2015). With the continuous improvement of the application
of reflective practices, they have gradually become accepted within the teaching field, as an
important component and essential strategy for pre-service teacher education programs and
teacher preparedness.
Current State of Reflection in Pre-service Teaching in Language Learning Settings
Currently, reflective practice is considered one of the more useful practices in realizing
the more effective teaching methods for a given group of students in a particular context
(Richards & Renandya, 2002). These reflective practices give way to interactive tasks and form
the basis of customized, student oriented, and improved teaching techniques. Reflection helps
teachers to realize the learning challenges faced by their students and helps them to determine
techniques that can improve student learning (Li & Zhang, 2004). This can be achieved only
when teachers are conscious of what and how students are learning, and the problems that
students face during lessons (Williams, 2001). William’s paper concluded that reflective
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 27
practices emphasize the interactive techniques that make use of the research-based teaching
practices.
In addition to the necessary, professional, and specialized education of the subject,
teachers must also be taught the skills and knowledge required to deal with the problems and
snags that might possibly rise up in a classroom (Wallace, 1991). In order to enhance and
improve their professional growth as teachers, they must constantly find means to further enrich
their knowledge through reflective means (Darling-Hammond, 2006). Research by Hrevnack
(2011) proves that reflective services do not only help in developing problem-solving skills but
also help teachers in preparing their lessons. Such reflective practices should be made a part of
teachers’ preparation during pre-service training programs. In order to help pre-service teachers
be reflective practitioners, the pre-service teachers training needs to focus on critical reflection
that emphasizes the cultural and social implications and outcomes. Therefore, through reflective
practice, pre-service teachers may become entirely conscious of their acts and outcomes (Boud &
Walker, 1998, Larrivee, 2008).
Reflective practices play a vital role in the preparation of teachers who teach students in
an ELL setting (Wallace, 1991). Following these practices is significant, not only for the
beginning teachers, but also for the in-service teachers, as it allows all teachers to continue
enhancing their professionalization during their service as teachers (Darling-Hammond &
McLaughlin, 1995). According to Watzke (2007), teacher performance evolves enhancing
teacher professional growth and development over prolonged periods of time. In addition to the
training programs for novice and inexperienced teachers, in-service teachers must also be
provided with the opportunity to adopt and attend the training programs that focus on developing
their reflective skills required for preparing for their classrooms (Watzke, 2007). In this context,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 28
Farrell suggests that experienced teachers must share their experiences and stories of using
reflective practices with a wide community of in-service and pre-service teachers. Such
interactive sessions can greatly enable teachers in developing their teaching techniques in light of
the personal experiences of other teachers (Wallace, 1991; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin,
1995; Farrell, 1999; Watzke, 2007). Evidently, reflective practices need to be viewed as a
helpful strategy to facilitate pre-service teachers’ preparedness when they teach in a setting with
cultural and linguistic diversity.
The Impact of Reflection on Learning to Teach
The theory of Schön (1992) asserted that the concept of the preparation of teachers
through reflective practice, is based on the development of a professional whose thought is
reflective and active. The reflective teacher is one who interprets information critically; he does
not passively absorb information. Studies by Schön (1983, 1992) show that it is necessary for
teachers to possess the ability to reflect on their daily practices. Daily reflection helps in
directing them to the reality in which they operate, and especially directs them to the interests,
expectations, and needs of the learners. Rodgers (2002) states reflection-in-action as framing
and working out challenges on an immediate situation, confronting unexpected reactions, when
teachers are teaching and adjusting their instruction to take these into account. This allows
teachers to spontaneously understand in the midst of current action and is central to the work of
criticism, coaching, learning, and teaching (Schön, 1992). It provides individuals an opportunity
to think about their immediate actions. For teachers, reflection-in-action enables them to deeply
consider what they are teaching while they are teaching. This can be particularly vital because it
allows teachers to think and answer students’ impromptu questions simultaneously, and
therefore, effectively solve the uncertainties (Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 29
Reflection-on-action, on the other hand, comes before or after a given situation (Rodgers,
2002). It provides educators with paths for conquering the challenges of professional practice
(Munby, 1989). Reflection-on-action emphasizes explanation and strategy development. Thus,
it can be practically useful in routine monitoring and response to feedback (Clandinin &
Connelly, 1988). In addition, reflection-on-action is strongly related to the generation of new
thinking in order to deal with the given evidence. It is helpful to manage propositional
knowledge, such as syllogistic practical arguments in professional thinking (Schön, 1983;
Munby, 1989). As a result, reflection-on-action can have an important influence on research and
studies when researchers and educators apply this technical and rational strategy (Schön, 1983;
Clandinin & Connelly, 1988; Munby, 1989; Rodgers, 2002).
Rodgers (2002) defines the framework for reflection with four phases, including presence
in experience, description of experience, analysis of experience, and experimentation. This
framework, called the reflective cycle, is based on Dewey’s theory of reflection, and outlines a
process to help understand student performance, analyze student learning, and intelligently react
to students’ interaction and results. In this reflective cycle, being present in the experience
enables teachers to be aware of their students’ outcomes and react to students’ learning with the
best instruction and at the same time be prepared for their next step (Rodgers, 2002, p. 234).
Description of experience allows practitioners to learn how to describe and differentiate
between experiences. It benefits practitioners to be able to differentiate between and identify an
experience, in terms of its diverse and complicated components. This phase helps practitioners
observe, identify, and describe certain experiences from multiple aspects of the challenges they
encountered (Himley & Carini, 2000). The analysis of experience provides practitioners with an
opportunity to learn to think critically and create theory (Rodgers, 2002, p. 244). This process
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 30
enables practitioners to test a variety of explanations to find out what happened. Often during
the analysis phase, it can be helpful to return to the descriptive phase, in order to search for more
evidence in order to generate a theory (Ball & Lampert, 1999).
Finally, experimentation helps practitioners learn to take intelligent action (Rodgers,
2002, p. 247). To complete this process, practitioners have to spend a significant amount of time
to successfully describe, analyze, and experiment within the particular experience. This process
should be purposeful (Dewey, 1938) and the process can support practitioners as they participate
in their next try at the reflective process (Rodgers, 2002). The entire process of reflective cycle
allows teachers to slow down their thinking processes and require them to observe, and then
carefully describe the evidence with detail (Dewey, 1938; Ball & Lampert, 1999; Himley &
Carini, 2000; Rodgers, 2002).
Larrivee (2008) defines four levels of reflection, including pre-reflection, surface
reflection, pedagogical reflection, and critical reflection. Teachers at the pre-reflective level
respond to challenges in teaching and communication instinctively. Most of the time, they do
not adopt other possible alternative techniques. Teachers at the surface reflective level focus on
strategies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Instead of focusing on the value of goals,
they mainly focus their attention on what works. Teachers at the pedagogical level apply the
field’s knowledge base and current beliefs about what represents quality practices. They reflect
on educational goals, the theory’s underlying approaches, and the connections between
theoretical principles and practices (Larrivee, 2008, p. 343). Finally, teachers at the critical level
focus on personal practice and social conditions. They may reflect students’ outcomes in terms
of moral and ethical implications. Further, these teachers understand that classroom practices
need to match social realities (Larrivee, 2008). The act of teaching is dynamic; it does not
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 31
follow ready-made models. Teachers must draw on their technical knowledge to introduce the
dialectic of their practice, report theories, and reflect on any ineffective practices (Larrivee,
2008). Larrivee describes that reflection helps to establish theoretical references with practical
experiences to understand the process in action, which is the basis of the intellectual critical-
reflection.
Farrell (2015) proposes that the framework for reflective practice for TESOL teachers has
five levels of reflection, including philosophy of practice, principles of practice, theory of
practice, practice, and beyond practice. Rather than being isolated from each other, they are
linked and should be reflected and applied entirely in order to make an experience that fully
performs reflective practice (p, 23). Philosophy provides teachers with a direction and rubric to
reasonably explain students’ behavior through observation. It is the foundation of the teachers’
theory to conduct and impart professional practice in terms of classroom activities (p. 24).
Principles, the second level of the framework, involves reflections on teachers’ beliefs, and their
perspectives of teaching and learning (p. 26). When teachers are not able to correctly reflect on
their practice consciously or systematically, their instruction, strategies, and classroom
interaction mainly rely on these principles because they are helpful in bringing awareness
(Farrell, 2015). Theory, the third level of the framework, probes the selections that teachers
decide regarding certain techniques that are used and applied to the classroom (p. 27). It is
critical for teachers to consciously consider the multiple perspectives surrounding their ideas and
intentions about teaching content, classroom activities, and skills they want to use in order to
effectively improve students’ outcomes (Farrell, 2015). Practice, the fourth level of the
framework, starts with observable classroom activities and interaction (p. 29). During classroom
practice, teachers are able to reflect before they teach (reflection-for-action), during teaching
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 32
(reflection-in-action), or after teaching (reflection-on-action, Schön, 1983; Farrell, 2015).
Beyond practice, the final level of the framework, focuses on social and cultural diversity in
terms of teaching and learning in order to respond to students and their social needs (Critical
reflection, Larrivee, 2008; Johnson, 2009; Farrell, 2015). Beyond practice, greatly impacts
teachers’ practice because teachers have to consider the political and moral factors (Farrell,
2015). Beyond practice allows teachers to realize philosophy, principles, and theory, and the
practice that is related to social issues (p. 31). Overall, Farrell’s framework for reflection enables
TESOL teachers to become more systematically and logically aware of their immediate actions,
and other possible outcomes. Therefore, through reflective practice, TESOL teachers may
provide English language learners with an opportunity to achieve their academic goals in an ESL
setting (Schön, 1983; Johnson, 2009; Farrell, 2015).
Kumaravadivelu (2003) states that in order to improve development in culturally and
socially diverse classrooms, TESOL teachers need to observe and reflect upon the educational,
cultural, and social contexts within these classrooms in which second language teaching and
learning occur. Through the reflection of observing TESOL teachers’ actions, evaluating
teaching outcomes, mapping teaching problems, and assessing teaching solutions, TESOL
teacher preparation to ultimately enhance English language learners’ academic performance,
may be achieved (Kumaravadivelu, 2003).
In the contemporary context of teacher training for teaching students who understand
English as a foreign language, the desirable reflective training is characterized as the one that
covers the thorough and systematic thinking about teaching students who speak foreign
languages. The goal of this training is to enhance the pedagogical practice, through the
reflection, analysis, and evaluation of the processes of teaching and learning (Ladson-Billings,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 33
1995). Ladson-Billing’s research deduces that such training is considered a process that starts in
certification courses, such as pre-service training programs.
Researchers have found that in the context of initial training, the most important factor is
the transmission of theoretical knowledge as a guiding principle for the preparation of
professionals within the context of teaching ELL (Jones & Jones, 2013). In order to be effective,
the pre-service training must be designed under research-based practices to enhance the
centrality of the knowledge of the subject content, while making it easy for students to
understand through theory and practice (Labrie, Brdarevic, & Russell, 2000).
In pedagogical reflective practice, the main role of the theories of teaching and learning is
to provide tools for analyzing problems faced during teaching in various social, cultural-
historical contexts and the organizational work of teaching (Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy,
2002). In the founding principles of reflexive training, the teacher is cognitively involved in the
process of reflection during teaching and learning—in search of their senses and their
foundations, which can improve the quality and the potential of their work. This cognitive
process is essential for professional development (Darling-Hammond, Wei & Johnson, 2009,
Farrell, 2015).
Reflection allows for the incorporation of the knowledge of a subject with the techniques
necessary to help students easily understand the language of the subject matter (Webster-Wright,
2013). According to scholars, it is believed that in the course of pre-service teacher training, it is
not enough to introduce participants to recent developments of theory. Rather, efforts must be
made to enable teachers to help students understand the content of the lectures so that they can
link the ideas presented to the work they perform in the classroom (Forlin, 2010). Reflection
may lead to the achievement of this goal because it enables teachers to facilitate their preparation
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 34
by understanding the challenges faced by students and provides students with sufficient learning
material (Schön, 1991; Forlin, 2010). This means that the initial training of teachers not only
must expose the student-teachers to theories, but it must also provide the necessary instruments
so that they can utilize these theories in real life situations. Thus, the theoretical dimension
becomes less abstract without disregarding the importance of these theories. Without reflective
practice, we would have a model essentially guided only by the observation of good practices,
diminishing the capacity for learning in the teacher and the student (Larrivee, 2008). Here it is
extremely important to know that true professional experience has an essential role in teacher
training and teaching, but it cannot be the single source of knowledge construction because it is
an insufficient base for professional development, leading to the overvaluation of the practice
and the trivialization of reflection (Trier, 2003). It can be concluded that experience should be
considered as an important part in teacher training, but not enough for a complete career
development process (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985).
Reflection can be carried out not only through the personal experiences of the teachers,
but the experiences of others also play a significant role in training teachers to enhance their
reflective practices (Acheson & Gall, 1987). The journals containing the experiences of in-
service or former teachers can aide in the linguistic development of the student-teachers
(Grossman, 2005). The research conducted by Grossman suggests that since these experiences
are written in terms of the target language and act as an instrument for collecting data; allowing
for the analysis of the learning process. These journals can be used on a regular basis as a space
for reflecting on the aspects involved in teaching; including learning and writings, in which there
is an exchange between teachers and students. Journals are useful for generating a
communication channel offering opportunities for student-teachers to express their own
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 35
experiences, values, and beliefs, and engage in the self-assessment and reflective practice
(Korthagen, Kessels, Koster, Lagerwerf, & Wubbels, 2001). The findings of this particular
research determined that these reflective journals are written based on the personal experiences
of the professional teachers. They detail their experiences and describe what they knew, what
they did in certain situations, and why. These writings describe teacher actions, import meaning
to the action, and confront the development of problem solution, including how they might
approach the problem differently in the future (Valli, 1997).
Reflective diaries are comprised of different phases: 1) mapping the problems, 2)
reporting the problem, 3) taking on the challenge, 4) assessing the solutions and the risks
involved, and 4) acting upon them (Zeichner, 1987). Mapping is comprised of the observation
and evidence collected during practice. The teachers are trained to then review and explain why
the teaching took place the way it did, which provides the foundation for reflection (Fendler,
2003). Teachers are also trained to question the ideas and structures that support the observed
practice, and to seek inconsistencies and contradictions (Lee, 2005). Lee is of the view that the
reflective practices also enable the teachers to search for alternative action paths and then put
these new ideas into practice. He further explains that reflective practices encourage the asking
of questions and that these questions should aim to critically evaluate the teaching method,
helping the teacher to decide if aspects of their practice should be changed. The teacher can then
develop strategies for these changes, monitoring their effects, and implement them. Lee suggests
that the teachers should be required to question themselves as well as their students.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 36
Current State of Critical Reflection Towards Equity and Access in Pre-service Teaching in
Language Learning Settings
Van Lier (1994) concluded that the practice of reflection in preparing teachers of ELL
students deals not only with the events that occur inside the classroom but also with what
happens outside the classroom. The social interactions of the students are one of many factors
that affect the performance of a teacher while teaching ELL students (Van Lier, 1994).
Many researchers have highlighted the issues and events involved in preparing teachers
to deal with students who learn English as a foreign language. York-Barr, Ghere, and
Sommerness (2007) consider culturally diverse classrooms to be more problematic than others.
Bartlett (1990) has advocated for reflective practices as a means of social equity in the field of
education. His study focused on the students participating in learning, inside as well as outside
the classroom. The reflection of a teacher not only focuses on teaching every day lessons, but it
also enables them to play a significant role as a mentor to students and influence the student’s
role in society at large (Zeichner, 1994). Liou (2001) conducted a study to explore the
description of pre-service teachers’ reflective practice. Twenty Taiwanese pre-service teachers
participated in the research. The findings showed that reflective training needs to be
incorporated into teacher education curriculum for enhancing pre-service teacher preparation
because the training has a positive impact on improving reflectivity for pre-service teachers who
teach in different social settings (Liou, 2001). Mellita and Josephine (2014) conducted a study
on engaging pre-service teachers in reflective practice in the online sphere. Eight Australian pre-
service teachers participated in this research, including seven Australian citizens and one
international pre-service teacher. The findings showed that a teacher engaging in reflective
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 37
practice has a direct correlation to students understanding of online lecture content, allowing the
students to link the instruction to their work (Mellita & Josephine, 2014).
California Department of Education provides a two-way language, academically-based
immersion program called dual immersion (California Department of Education, 2015). In this
program, English language learners’ first language, for example, Spanish or Mandarin, is used as
the tool for imparting the instruction, rather than being the role of primary language (Center for
Applied Linguistics, 2005). Schools integrate the instruction and curriculum, offer meaningful
communication through language leaners’ first language, and give language learners sufficient
opportunities to immerse in, use, and extend their vocabulary and their English language
proficiency (California Department of Education, 2015). Instructors apply a reciprocal method
in order to help students engage in their English language development (Alanis & Rodriguez,
2008). This program starts at 90% language leaners’ first language, and 10% English. It is a
90:10 model. The amount of the language leaner’s first language decreases every year, whereas
English increases. Throughout the dual immersion program, the ultimate goal is a 50:50 balance
of the languages (California Department of Education, 2015). This two-way dual immersion
program helps English language learners acquire a second language by using English at home, in
the community, and in the media (Alanis & Rodriguez, 2008). Eventually, students in this
program may acquire a second language and maintain their first language ability simultaneously.
According to Proposition 227, which mandated English only in K-12 public school classrooms,
the English language should be used for the Children Act in public schools (California
Department of Education, 2016). However, there was a vote on November 8, 2016 in terms of
the California Multilingual Education Act (Senate Bill 1174). The result can be a legislative
reference for directing California multilingual education policy. Because of the possible rapid
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 38
expansion of language learning contexts in California, it is the important moment for teachers
and pre-service teachers to use reflective practice to meet the changing program and curricular
demands. California voters approved this bill and allowed California public schools to establish
language acquisition programs for both native and non-native English speakers beginning July 1,
2017 (California Department of Education, 2017).
In Taiwan, English is a compulsory subject beginning in the third year of elementary
school and continuing through the first year of college. With its increased popularity, English
language learners are more likely to devote their time to enhancing their English proficiency
(Chen, 2006). School districts, organizations, and private institutions have improved their
facilities to accommodate the learners’ needs (Lu, 2011). Statistical evidence showed that about
25% of elementary children in Taiwan have participated in after school English tutoring. In
addition, there is more than 90% of high school students’ English learning experience in urban
area is very much alike (Hsieh, 2010). In Taiwan, the majority of students learn English in order
to pass their examinations; the examinations significantly influence English education policy.
As a result, functional English communication should be emphasized (Chen, 2006; Tsao, 2008;
Lu, 2011). English education that helps learners to achieve success include: globalization,
improved communication, and enhanced multiculturalism. Rather than focusing on examination,
the communicative functions of English across nationalities should be emphasized in Taiwan
(Yalden, 1983). The integration of communicative forms into college entrance examinations can
be one of the useful ways to pull policy makers and stakeholders’ attention (Chen, 2006; Lu,
2011).
Similarly, in Mainland China, since 2001 English has been a required course for
elementary students, and thus has a large percentage of the population involved in English
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 39
language learning and teaching (Jin, Jiang, Zhang, Yuan, Liang, & Xie, 2014). Jin and her co-
workers (2014) conducted an empirical study. The 128 participants, whose ages were between
seven and nine, came in from four urban elementary schools in the Hubei province. Findings
showed that 59% of the participants had used English to communicate with native English
speakers, 96% were apt to listen to English songs, 54% of them read English cartoon books, and
31% were used to watching English animations. This research indicated that in Mainland China,
professional training might improve pre-service and novice teachers’ knowledge and practice. In
addition, the evidence showed that young English language learners are willing to participate in
English learning, especially in a learner-centered environment, along with different interactive
learning contexts. Further, teachers’ positive encouragement and enjoyable environment may
contribute to improved performance (Jin, et al., 2014). However, these researchers also
emphasized that the studies related to narrowing the gap between English teachers and pre-
service English teachers in terms of English language teaching at a fundamental level in
Mainland China were insufficient (Jin, Jiang, Zhang, Yuan, Liang, & Xie, 2014).
Practicum teaching in pre-service education can be a significant portion of preparation for
future teachers who are interested in developing professional knowledge and achieving effective
communication (Ralph, Walker, & Wimmer, 2007). In addition, the practicum may contribute to
a successful transition from a being a pre-service teacher to a becoming a professional teacher
(Ratsoy, Friesen, & Holdaway, 1987). Neville, Sherman, and Cohen (2005) stated that the
practicum contributes to a positive interaction between pre-service teachers and their learners in
diverse practicum setting. In addition, the practicum positively influences learners’ perspectives
of pre-service teachers’ successful teaching experiences and performance. Finally, the practicum
enables pre-service teachers to enhance their self-efficacy in positively influencing learners when
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 40
pre-service teachers put effort into teaching and communication (Neville, Sherman, & Cohen,
2005). Ralph et al. (2007) conducted an empirical study, to understand pre-service teachers’
beliefs about the practicum. There were 440 pre-service teachers and teacher candidates who
participated in the study over a 16-week extended practicum in K-12 schools. Findings showed
that the practicum has a positive impact in supportive relationships between teacher and learners,
successful teaching tasks, and the interaction between teacher and leaners (Ralph, Walker, &
Wimmer, 2007).
Bartlett (1990) suggested that making use of reflective practices enables the teachers to
think beyond the lessons they deliver in the classroom. It helps them to understand all of the
aspects, causes, and effects of the issues faced by the students during learning. In this regard, the
advantage of such critical reflective thinking is the ability to analyze activities, instruction, and
student response within the classroom. Teachers are encouraged and thus able to realize their
purpose and find meaning in their own instructions, enhancing their teaching faculties by
incorporating the results they receive from self-analysis (Henderson, 1989). This can greatly
help in enhancing the interactions and communications between teachers and students (Clark,
James & Kelly, 1996). This research also shows that the process of reflection needs to be
iterative throughout the professional career of a teacher.
Teaching students in language learning settings can also be considered an
interdisciplinary act as it requires the teaching of the particular subject, as well as the target
language (Schön, 1983). According to Schön reflective practices, taught to teachers during their
pre-service training, prepare teachers for uncertain and conflicting situations. For example,
when pre-service teachers face uncertain and conflicting situations, they may adopt reflective
practice by stopping their immediate actions and systematically thinking back on what they have
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 41
done. The practice of planning for future strategies based on prior experience supports the
preparation of teachers in teaching subjects to students who understand English as a foreign
language (Murphy, 2013).
As the classrooms in dual immersion, foreign language, and English language learning
settings are usually culturally and socially diverse, the application of reflective practices in pre-
service training prepares teachers to making efforts in imparting knowledge to all students in a
way that considers of their ethnicity, culture, or religion (Kagan, 1992). Reflection makes it
possible to implement public and social policies or compensatory programs that can collaborate
effectively on tackling all the socio-economic and cultural problems that delve into education in
language learning settings (Noordhoff & Kleinfeld, 1993). Kumaravadivelu (2003) notes that in
an EFL setting, reflective practice can be viewed as an aid when teachers reflect on their
teaching acts, consequences, challenges, and solutions. As a result, TESOL teachers may
facilitate their English language learners’ achievement in a culturally, socially, and linguistically
diverse setting. In the reflective perspective, the improvement of the quality of the process of
teaching and learning should involve different sectors from a wide conception of education
involving culture, sport and leisure, science and technology (Landsman & Lewis, 2006). In other
words, reflective practices can help the school proceed to that of a nurturing society, where the
school fulfills its educational task in close connection with other facets of growth including:
socialization and the training of the individual in economic, social, and cultural conditions
(Zeichner, 1994).
Impact of Reflection on Practice
The incorporation of reflective practice in teaching is a phenomenon that enables teachers
to think about teaching techniques and methodologies (Rodgers, 2002). Teaching guidelines are
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 42
helpful, but they are often developed for different circumstances than those faced by ELL
teachers and may not be generally applicable to all classrooms or specific student learning needs.
The current reflective practices taught during the pre-service training focus on effective teaching
methods, particular to the type and caliber of the students in a particular classroom (Rodgers,
2002).
Reflective practices enable teachers to evaluate and judge themselves professionally as
teachers (Dewey, 1938). They reflect upon the different aspects of the daily tasks in their
classrooms and analyze their expertise as teachers (Farrell, 2012). This analysis consists of
reflecting upon their own actions and reactions as a teacher and finding better ways to react to a
problem if it occurs again in the future. This most basic and simple kind of reflection as is called
informal reflection (Wallace, 1996).
Reflective practices can help in solving many dilemmas associated with teaching students
who do not understand English as a native language. Mezirow (1981) emphasized in his
research that the transformation of perspective includes ten elements. The first five elements are
a disorienting dilemma, self –examination, a critical assessment of personally internalized role
assumptions, a sense of alienation from traditional social expectations, and relating one’s own
discontent to similar experiences of others and exploring options for new behavior development.
The other five elements are building competence and self-confidence in new roles, planning a
course of action, acquiring knowledge and skills for the implementation of one’s plans,
provisional efforts to try new roles and assess feedback, and a reintegration into society on the
basis of conditions dictated by the new perspective (Mezirow, 1981). Critical reflection is
essential for pre-service teachers because it enables teachers to integrate critical inquiry, which is
the careful deliberation of the ethical implications, as well as the results of the teaching
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 43
application, the consideration of individual beliefs, and the thoughts about human potential and
learning (Larrivee, 2008, p. 293). Developing professionals must reflect on ineffective practices,
understand the action of process, and think about teaching techniques and methodologies; all of
which are important components in the framework of reflective practice. Pre-service teachers
need to focus on this framework in order to improve their teaching practices (Schön, 1991;
Ladson-Billings, 1995; Larrivee, 2008; Rodgers, 2002).
Reflective Practice Framework
Rodgers (2002) adopted the theoretical framework of a four-phase reflective cycle to
facilitate teaching skill and teacher preparation, and ultimately to improve student performance.
Rodgers (2002) noted that in the process of a four-phase reflective cycle, teachers may move
forward and backward although, there is a specific linearity to the four phases (2002). The first
phase focuses on teacher reflection, requiring teachers to pay attention to the present, taking into
account the students’ learning, and then effectively replying to their students with possibly their
best instruction (Rodgers, 2002). Phase two aims at the teacher’s ability in the present to
perceive students’ learning in each situation. Through perception, teachers may increase the
potential for an intelligent and effective response (Rodgers, 2002, p. 234). The phase asks the
teacher to describe and differentiate an experience from a different perspective. When a teacher
comprehends the experience, their description of the situation will be more clear (Rodgers,
2002). The third phase includes the analysis of the experience based on a theory or hypothesis.
To successfully make an analysis of the experience, it sometimes requires teachers to return to
the descriptive phase and explore more information (Rodgers, 2002). The final phase is to take
intelligent action, which is as similar to the initial phase of the reflective cycle because it has a
strong relationship with the next experience (Rodgers, 2002). This action requires teachers to
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 44
work hard on describing and analyzing the experience intelligently, carefully, consciously, and
systematically (Rodgers, 2002).
Figure 1. A four-phase reflective cycle theoretical framework used in professional teacher development
and preparation from Rodgers (2002, p. 235).
Rodgers (2002) suggested that teachers should slow down their thinking to pay attention
to what is and what is not happening, and then linking that to student learning. This philosophy
echoes Schön’s (1983) idea of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Rodgers (2002)
explained that the four-phase reflective cycle can take place in the midst of the teacher’s teaching
experience or after their teaching experience (2002, p. 234). Rodgers (2002) further indicated
that using reflection-in-action as a framework allows teachers to improve and solve the teaching
challenge immediately which enables teachers to present and see the challenge, deal with it
immediately through careful, conscious, and systematic reflection. The entire process of a four-
phase reflective cycle is completed right after the challenge is presented. On the other hand,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 45
reflection-on-action occurs before or after the challenge presents. This situation provides
teachers with more time to reflect on the challenge and then elaborately and scientifically think
about the useful ways to conquer the challenge. Compared with reflection-in-action, teachers
may have more time to purposefully slow down to go through the whole four-phase reflective
cycle in a reflection-on-action situation (Rodgers, 2002).
Larrivee (2008) stated that teachers can enact critical reflection through four levels of
reflection, including level 1, reflection of core beliefs, level 2, reflection of framework, level 3,
reflection of interpretive daily practice, and level 4, reflection of decision making. Larrivee
(2000) noted that a core belief, level 1, is an essential belief regarding human learning.
Individuals’ beliefs are adopted according to consequences derived from their observation and
interpretations. Reflection of framework, level 2, is for attaching meaning to what is happening.
It can be the underlying principle serving as the basis for how individuals classify basic beliefs,
behavior, and theories of motivation and learning they have acquired and experienced (Larrivee,
2000). Reflection of interpretive daily practice, level 3, is how individuals interpret these
underlying principles into their common approach to daily practice. It is where individuals
connect their thoughts and theories to a way of performance (Larrivee, 2000). Finally, reflection
of decision making, level 4, stands for the translation into moment-by-moment decision-making.
It is individuals’ action that makes their thoughts into behavior (Larrivee, 2000). Larrivee’s
theory of reflection on level 3 is similar to Rodgers’ second phase of the reflective cycle. Both
require teachers to describe, differentiate, and interpret classroom interaction and challenges.
The clearer the teacher’s description of the challenge, the more familiar the teacher is with the
practice (Rodgers, 2002; Larrivee, 2008). Additionally, Larrivee’s theory of reflection on level
4, regarding making decisions on selecting strategies to solve challenge consists with Rodgers’
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 46
(2002) final phase of reflective cycle. Both require teachers to reflect on superior ways to use
intelligent action, strategies, and interventions to improve upon the challenges of teaching
(Rodgers, 2002; Larrivee, 2008).
The framework will serve as the critical foundation in terms of creating research
questions, and understanding participants’ beliefs. Further, the framework will be used as a
guideline for generating interview protocols, collecting data, and interpreting results.
Summary
Reflective training through journals and meetings can assist both in-service professionals
who are already pursuing their teaching career, as well as novice teachers who do not have much
experience in the field. Pre-service training can help teachers become reflective practitioners.
Pre-service teacher training is essential because the reflexive action should be linked to the
teaching practice throughout the career of a teacher, particularly those in language learning
settings. It is through this reflective practice that they can improve their teaching methodologies
and techniques, creating situations or learning tasks for enhanced student learning.
For a novice teacher to observe and reflect on practice as an active pedagogical
professional, pre-service training enables the teacher to become a reflective professional and
structure their practice in order to think about what they would and would not do as an educator,
in each particular learning or teaching situation.
In the pre-service training process of teachers who teach students who do not easily
understand English, reflective practices are very helpful in showing the student-teachers the
importance of becoming a reflective professional and in helping them to think about what
instruments they could use to help their students understand the subject matter regardless of a
difference in language. More importantly, through reflective practice, effective practices, action
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 47
of process, and teaching techniques, new teachers are able to teach language learners effectively
in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.
During pre-service teacher education, the use of reflective practices may enable the
teachers to use different tools and instruments to support students in learning subject concepts in
a language they do not understand. The most common instruments used by teachers are usually
songs, storytelling, drawings, music and movies, games and interactive lessons. These activities
ensure that the students are able to perceive the message even if they are unable to understand
the language. Eventually, reflective practice can help students to bridge theory to practice, and
adapt to changing learning needs and teaching contexts, and become agentive life-long learners.
The teachers, who make use of reflective thinking, decide to precede differently when
they face a similar situation the next time, based upon the reflections and analysis of their prior
experiences. These reflective practices while teaching in an ELL setting help the teacher to
establish clearer goals, set their expectations, and develop effective procedures based upon the
problems they have encountered in the past. Reflection is an ongoing cyclical process and must
not stop at any point in the professional career of a teacher.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 48
CHAPTER THREE: METHODS
This chapter describes the research methods and plan applied in this study. In this
section, I stated the study’s purpose and the specific research question that guided the data
collection and analysis process. I paid special attention to my responsibility as a researcher
before I undertook the research plan.
This study draws on qualitative research. It allows readers to understand how the MAT
TESOL students describe reflective practice, and realize how they perceive the impact of
reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and instruction. In the course of
gathering data, the selection and design of methodology was in constant modification on the
basis of continued analysis. This permits for investigation of crucial new concerns and questions
as they are brought to light. Furthermore, it will allow for the investigation and elimination of
areas within the research that are unproductive from the default research plan.
Study Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore the pre-service MAT-TESOL students’
description of reflective practice in terms of pre-service language teacher preparation, and it
studied pre-service MAT-TESOL students’ description of the impact of reflective practice on
their negotiation of cultural and pedagogical differences in an effort to improve their teaching
practices with language learners. This topic is important and timely given the growing
enrollment and placement of international teachers in American public schools. With the passing
of California Proposition 58 in November of 2016, teachers and school districts now have the
autonomy to decide how to engage in multilingual education. Gándara (2016) argued that the
passing of CA Proposition 58 would lead to an expansion of dual language programs and
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 49
bilingual schooling and that currently there is a shortage of certified bilingual teachers to meet
the growing demand.
Study Research Questions
1. What is the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers’ description of
reflective practice in an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or
Other Language program?
2. How do the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers perceive the
impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and instruction in an
American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language program?
Study Research Method
Research Design
The research was a qualitative study. The case study was pre-service TESOL teachers
and the phenomenon been studied was reflective practice as perceived by the participants within
the case. Furthermore, this research method aimed to explore pre-service MAT-TESOL
students’ description of the impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and
instruction. This research design facilitated an in-depth examination of all factors present in
extracting rich data, as well as an increased comprehension level of understanding the matters
and challenges in the application of the actual life situation.
In order to deeply explore the participants’ perspectives of reflective practice, and its
impact on pre-service language teacher’s preparation, this study employed methods in a
qualitative approach with open-ended, semi-structured interview questions, and used the strategy
of triangulation, including interviews, pre-existing data: class notes and a TESOL course’s final
assignment, to decipher the correspondence between this study and reality (Merriam, 2009,
Maxwell, 2013).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 50
Site and Sample
The site selected, the online MAT TESOL (Masters in the Art of Teaching for Teaching
English as a Second or Other Language) program, was located in a university in the southwestern
US at the time of the study. The program was designed to prepare graduate students to work
with learners’ of English as a second or other language. The course was selected because it was
an advanced practicum course where students applied reflective practice to original unit design
and teaching in a novel context of technology-mediated instruction and dual language education.
The course was in the third term of a four term program. The students discussed reflective
practice as a form of inquiry into their own teaching practice in every course in the program.
Reflection was assessed in all four terms of the program. In the studied course, reflection was
included as part of the final, summative assessment. In term 1, students previously studied
Rodgers (2002), Dewey (1938), Larrivee (2008), and Farrell (2012).
I worked as a teaching assistant (TA) in a course students took in the second semester of
their program. The course was focused on pedagogy of teaching English as a second language.
As part of my work as a TA, I took class notes both during and after class time describing
students’ participation. When the study began, I used these notes with the participants’
permission as pre-existing data. The study tool place the following semester after the
participants agreed and gave informed consent. I used purposeful and convenience sampling to
select the participants after I served as a Teaching Assistant for their practicum teaching course
during the spring semester in 2016. More importantly, these participants were international pre-
service language teachers.
Six participants from the 16 students who were enrolled in the studied TESOL course
agree to take part in this study after the course had ended. There were 16 students officially
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 51
enrolled in the practicum course and all gave their consent for me to use my class notes and their
final course assignment as data to be used in this study; six agreed to be interviewed for this
study. Data from the following students’ final assignment is shared in Chapter 4.
The participation was based on the following criteria: (a) they described their reflective
practice during the practicum teaching activities in the course on their final assignment, (b) on
their course final they identified specific examples where reflective practice impacted the
development of their curricular and pedagogical practices during practicum activities, and (c)
they were willing and available to conduct an interview with the researcher during the 2016 Fall
Semester. Upon analysis of the students’ final assignment (after the course had concluded) in the
course in which I was a TA, I emailed all students who described their reflective practice during
the practicum teaching activities in the course on their final assignment and who identified on
their course final specific examples where reflective practice impacted the development of their
curricular and pedagogical practices during practicum activities. In this email, I further
explained the research study to the students and asked for volunteers to conduct an interview
with the researcher during the 2016 Fall Semester. Six students agreed to participate who met
the selection criteria (See the consent form in Appendix B). All the participants were
international students whose first language was Mandarin. All of the participants were from
Mainland China except two students who were from Taiwan. There were four females and two
males, and all of the participants reported using reflective practices in their practicum teaching
during class discussion and on their final assignment. Table 3.1 below shows details of the six
participants.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 52
Table 3.1.
Demographics of Interview Participants
Partici
pants
Gender Age Primary
Language
Nation
ality
Experience
of teaching
Date of
Interview
Length of
Interview
Fang F 23 Mandarin China 1.5 years November
15, 2016
16 minutes
Huei F 23 Mandarin China 2.5 years November
16, 2016
15 minutes
Jay M 24 Mandarin China Less than 1
year
November
15, 2016
30 minutes
Yie F 23 Mandarin China Less than 1
year
November
16, 2016
14 minutes
Yun F 24 Mandarin China 1.5 year November
14, 2016
38 minutes
Zi M 24 Mandarin China Less than 1
year
November
15, 2016
22 minutes
Note. These are pseudonyms.
The six interviewees in table two were MAT TESOL students who enhanced their
professional knowledge and sought goals as language educators in an educationally, culturally,
and socially diverse environment in an urban university. All of them are Chinese, including four
females and two males. Their ages are between 23 and 24, and they have teaching experience
from less than one year to 2.5 years. The following is a brief description of the teacher
candidates whom I interviewed.
Fang. Fang, a 23-year-old female, is a MAT TESOL student whose primary language is
Mandarin. She is from Mainland China and has one and a half years of teaching experience.
Fang taught fifth graders English at an English training center in Mainland China for half a year,
and she was a TA at an elementary school in Los Angeles for one year. The reason that she
decided to study in the program is because she wanted to become an English teacher in the
future. She believed that the best way to learn English and to teach English is to study in an
English speaking country. Thus, she decided that the MAT TESOL program was the perfect
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 53
program for her. Fang believed that teacher preparation supports teaching candidates in
familiarizing themselves with the teaching environment including all kinds of difficulties and
situations that teaching candidates may face in their future teaching career. She explained that
effective communication between the teacher and students can lead to effective learning
outcomes.
Fang noted that through communication, students are able to ask questions and give their
opinions on the subject, and the teacher is able to see how the students respond and adjust to his
or her plans. She indicated that she would like to take all of the useful teaching techniques she
learned and apply them to practice in her future teaching. In addition, Fang said that she would
be more prepared for different types of learners and will be able to learn what she can do to
maximize learners’ opportunities in acquiring English. She concluded that she hoped to utilize
what she learned from her MAT TESOL program with confidence. Fang shared:
“With what I learn from my program, I will be more mentally prepared and confident to
stand on the teaching platform.”
Huei. Huei, a 24-year-old female, is a MAT TESOL student whose primary language is
Mandarin. She is from Mainland China and has two and a half years of teaching experience.
Huei was an English teacher at a high school in Mainland China, and a TA at an elementary
school in Los Angeles. There are three reasons that Huei made her decision to study in the
program. First, her undergraduate major was English, which is closely related to TESOL.
Second, she thought that the university which she is studying at is a culturally diverse school
with brilliant teaching resources. Finally, she wanted to compare the difference of education
between America and Mainland China.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 54
Huei emphasized that, for teacher preparation, it can be a necessary step for a teacher to
learn more about the students, the class, and the course so that teachers can integrate different
resources in preparation for the class. She perceived the role of reflective practice as a useful
method for enhancing effective communication between the teacher and students in classroom
interaction and instruction. She believes that it is helpful for students to become engaged in the
classroom activity. Huei explained that she would like to gain support from various teaching
methods learned in her program in order to help her feel more prepared during instruction.
Jay. Jay, a 24-year-old male, is a MAT TESOL student whose primary language is
Mandarin. He is from Mainland China and has less than one year of teaching experience. Jay
was a TA in an English teaching institution in Mainland China which focuses on helping and
teaching students reading and writing sections in terms of TOFEL (Test of English as a Foreign
Language). Jay decided to enroll in the MAT TESOL program because he is interested in the
English language as well as the cultural background behind the language. Jay was also intrigued
by how to teach the English language and therefore chose the MAT TESOL program. Jay
believes that the focus of teacher preparation should be principally on practice rather than theory.
Jay perceived the role of reflective practice as a method that improves classroom
participation and engagement because this practice allows teachers to analyze their unsuccessful
teaching experiences, and adopt different strategies for improving participation and engagement.
He stated that the teacher should teach target learning knowledge to students. The teacher should
also pay attention to students’ learning needs, strengths, and weaknesses. In the long term,
communication between the teacher and his or her students helps the teacher to improve. More
specifically, the teacher learns from his or her students too, not only for professional and career
development, but also for personal and life development.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 55
Yie. Yie, a 23-year-old female, is a MAT TESOL student whose primary language is
Mandarin. She is from Mainland China and has less than one year of teaching experience. Yie
was a TA in teaching TOFEL, and a Chinese teacher in Confucius Institution in Mainland China.
The reason that she decided to study in the MAT TESOL program is because she would like to
go back to Mainland China to be an English teacher after she graduates. Yie thought that the
goal of teacher preparation is to learn things like curricular design, classroom management, and
different schools of theories. Yie hoped that the MAT TESOL program would provide the
support of general theories, specific techniques, and teaching experience at placements.
Yie believed that reflective practice occurs when teachers reflect after teaching the class
in order to achieve higher teaching effectiveness. She said the training of using reflective
practice in teacher preparation is very important since it is a necessary metacognitive process
which helps the MAT TESOL students refine their work and improve in real practice. Yie
shared that reflective practice may improve teacher preparation as it works as a self-assessment
tool for teachers. She expressed that reflective practice guides her to refine her lesson plan and
helps her to make proper changes in her teaching instructions.
Yun. Yun, a 24-year-old female, is a MAT TESOL student whose primary language is
Mandarin. She is from Mainland China and has a year and a half of teaching experience. She
used to be a Teaching Assistant for a Language Institute in Mainland China which helps students
prepare for the TOEFL and the SAT test. Yun was a volunteer teacher at a non-profit
organization in Los Angeles. She helped immigrants prepare for their U.S. citizenship interview.
This organization has some English conversation classes, so most of the students are beginning
level students. Yun also taught two boys, ages five and seven, Mandarin once a week in their
home.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 56
There are a couple of reasons that made Yun come to study at the MAT TESOL program.
She said that the first reason is because her undergraduate major was English. When she decided
to choose a master’s degree program in the U.S., she selected teaching English as her future
career. Therefore, she chose TESOL as her major. The second reason is because she likes
education. Yun stated that she likes being a teacher and working with children. She wants to
explore more about how to teach English as a second or other language. Yun searched online
and found that the program that her current school provides is very practical and offers teaching
experience for students. Also, Los Angeles is a big city full of working opportunities. And she
said that she likes Los Angeles. She had been to L.A. before, and she also liked the weather.
Zi. Zi, a 24-year-old male, is a MAT TESOL student whose primary language is
Mandarin. He is from Mainland China and has less than one year of teaching experience. Zi
taught English pronunciation and vocabulary of English for students in Mainland China who are
in the beginning level. Zi has been learning English for over 12 years, and it has always been his
favorite subject. The first time Zi came to learn about TESOL was through the Internet in his
second year of college. He thought it would be perfect for him to teach English to people who
wanted to learn this language, especially in Mainland China. He will be able to teach and at the
same time keep improving himself and practicing his English language knowledge.
Zi believes that effective communication is very important both in teaching and in
learning. On the one hand, through the interaction with students, the teacher gathers information
about each student’s learning process. This information provides the teacher with knowledge
about how much feedback should be provided to each student. On the other hand, the students
are very clear about the teacher’s requirements which can benefit their performance and increase
their confidence. Zi thought that the MAT TESOL program would help him feel more prepared
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 57
to teach if the students engaged in a weekly discussion with their professors and shared ideas
about the preparation before teaching. By doing this, both the teacher and students could share
new ideas and improve their own teaching and/or learning process.
Data Collection
Data collected to answer the questions included semi-structured interviews, pre-existing
data of the studied course’s course notes and the course final assignment. Data collected allowed
me to triangulate the data to ensure accuracy in analysis and reporting. In order to explore the
interviewees’ beliefs, the researcher employed a qualitative approach with open-ended, semi-
structured interview questions to obtain a reliable source of data (Maxwell, 2013). The
description within this paper is entirely based on the methods of qualitative research. This
allows the researcher and reader to understand the participants’ broad range of ideas (Creswell,
2014). In the course of gathering of data, the researcher was not responsible for grading or
providing feedback for any of the course assignments. In addition, the selection and design of
methodology was in constant modification based on continued analysis. This permitted the
investigation of new crucial concerns and questions as they were brought to light (Merriam.
2009).
Furthermore, it allows for the investigation and elimination of areas within the research
that are unproductive in the default research plan (Creswell, 2014). It is observed that a
qualitative approach to research enables the researcher to gain a deeper understanding of the
research subjects through observation or narrative analysis (Maxwell, 2013). The specific of the
documents I reviewed in November included class notes, final assignment, interview transcripts,
the consent for interview form, and the interview protocols. They are displayed on the
following.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 58
Table 3.2, explains the data collection process, and identifies data that was pre-existing
and data collected after participant-selection and informed consent.
Table 3.2.
RQ, Pre-Existing Course Data, Interview, & Literature
Research Question Course Final &
Course Discussion
Notes
Interview Literature
1. What is the
predominately
Chinese international
pre-service teachers’
description of
reflective practice in
an American Masters
of Arts in Teaching
English as a Second
or Other Language
program?
(a) Class
conversations (small
and whole group).
(b) Final reflection
papers and
presentations.
(a) Six participants
selected from
students in the MA
TESOL program.
(a) Larrivee (2008)
and Farrell (2015)
levels of reflection.
(b) Schön (1983)
reflection in and on
practice.
2. How do the pre-
service MAT-TESOL
students perceive the
impact of reflective
practice on their
improvement of
curriculum and
instruction?
(a) Class
conversations (small
and whole group).
(b) Final reflection
papers and
presentations.
(a) Six participants
selected from
students in the MA
TESOL program.
Dewey (1938),
Kumaravadivelu
(2003), Haq &
Alimoush (2016),
Hatton & Smith
(1995).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 59
Table 3.3.
Pre-Existing Course Data & Interview
Documents Content Date(s)
Collected
Collection Procedure
Class Notes Students’ descriptions of
reflection and their
perception of the impact
of reflection on their
practicum teaching during
whole-class and small
group discussions.
March-
May 2016
Pre-existing data collected
as part of normal teaching
activities for the Spring
Quarter in the MAT-
TESOL program in the
university on the west
coast of the U. S.
Course Final
Assignment
Students’ descriptions of
reflection and their
perception of the impact
of reflection on their
practicum teaching.
Students report this on the
written reflection paper
and narrated PowerPoint
presentation.
November
2016
Upon written consent from
the students, the instructor
of record agreed to release
the final assignment to the
researcher.
Interview Students’ descriptions of
reflection and their
perception of the impact
of reflection on their
practicum teaching.
November
2016
Convenience sampling of 6
of the 16 students based on
content in their reply of
email.
Interview. The six participants were interviewed in mid-November, 2016 in order to
gain a thorough depiction of the study participants in relation to their MAT TESOL experiences.
Fang was interviewed for 16 minutes on November 15
th
, 2016; Huei was interviewed for 15
minutes on November 16
th
, 2016; Jay was interviewed for 30 minutes on November 15
th
, 2016;
Yie was interviewed for 14 minutes on November 14
th
, 2016; Yun was interviewed for 38
minutes on November 16
th
, 2016; and Zi was interviewed for 22 minutes on November 15
th
. The
total amount of time for the interviews was two hours and 55 minutes for all participants.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 60
Before the interviews, I reviewed the class notes, the participants’ final assignments, the
interview protocol, and the interview skills that Creswell (2014) and Maxwell (2013) suggested
in order to complete the interviews effectively. Finally, I spent about three hours total on three
different days during mid-November to complete the interviews on campus where the
participants were studying. The interview was semi-structured and supplemented with audio
recordings. The particular questions examined were included in the interview guidelines. The
individual interview questions were structured in a general to specific format following a
progressive approach to the student’s experiences in MAT TESOL programs. I also utilized the
interview protocol in the course of interviewing the students. The interviews gave me insight in
understanding what was on the participants’ minds, such as their perspectives of reflective
practice and their stated beliefs regarding the impact of reflective practice on their curriculum
learning and practicum teaching. I used a selective transcription and audio log summary
transcribed to facilitate analysis. Upon data collection using individual interviews, the audio
recordings were transcribed to facilitate analysis. Following the interview and transcription
process qualitative data analysis process proceeded.
The specifics of the documents I reviewed in November included class notes, final
assignment, interview transcripts, the consent for interview form, and the interview protocols.
They are displayed in Tables 3.2 and 3.3, above.
Notes from class. The notes taken from class conversations, including the whole class
and small group discussion provided insights into the overall classes’ description of reflective
practice and the range of perspectives on the impact that reflective practice has on the students’
curricular and pedagogical practices. In order to make the eligibility determination without
accessing the school records, I had the relevant school office email all 16 students who were
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enrolled in the Spring Quarter of 2016 at a west coast university of the United States to obtain
consent for the release of their course final assignments. See the consent form in Appendix A.
Additionally, I used class announcements for recruiting participants from the 16 students. See
the consent form in Appendix B.
The notes from class were part of pre-existing course data in document collection. The
existing education data and pre-existing course data included class conversation including small,
as well as whole group discussion, final reflection papers, and presentations. I reviewed and
explored the notes I utilized as part of my regular teaching practice as the course Teaching
Assistant and did not include direct quotes from participants. Thus, the insights into the overall
classes’ description of reflective practice could be detected from these notes. Likewise, the
range of perspectives on the impact that reflective practice had on the students’ curricular and
pedagogical practices could be explored through these notes as well. After receiving informed
consent from the six participants, I noted salient data from the course notes and reviewed the
class recording of those sections. This allowed me to capture the participants’ words verbatim
for data analysis and reporting.
Course final assignment. The final assignment in the course was entitled “Final Inquiry
Report.” Prior to the final, the students were asked to complete five activities to prepare to write
the final. These activities included: a) peer observation of teaching and feedback, b) co-teach a
unit, c) record and edit a 5-minute video segment from their lesson, d) complete an inquiry not-
taking matrix responding to the video, e) complete weekly surveys about their teaching and self-
efficacy. The prompt for the final assessment asked the students to write a reflective
commentary on the teaching illustrated in the lesson video segment. TESOL students’
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 62
interpretation of the classroom students’ learning, the relationship between their teaching and
student learning, and suggested strategies to improve student learning.
Data Analysis Procedures
By using a priori codes, including “a meaning making process,” “ a rigorous process,
impact of improvement,” “definition,” “ the role of reflective practice, ” “successful experience
of using reflective practices,” and “challenges in taking up reflective practices,” “across the class
notes,” “ existing course data,” and “interviews,” I summarized portions of data, categorized the
summaries into a smaller number of analog themes or similar themes, analyzed the pattern codes,
and, finally, created sub-categories to reflect different components of the research questions.
Based on Harding (2013), I used a priori codes across the triangulation of data, including
class notes, final assignment, and interviews. After that, I coded each source in order to deeply
analyze participants’ beliefs about the impact of reflective practice on their pre-service language
teacher preparation and their own performance. According to Harding’s (2013) suggestion, the
first cycle coding was to summarize portions of data collected through the pre-existing course
data and interview transcripts. The second cycle coding was to pattern code by categorizing the
summaries into a smaller number of analog groups or themes. Patterned codes allowed me to
gather information from the first cycle coding and create a more meaningful analysis (Harding,
2013). Before proceeding to the next cycle, I analyzed the pattern codes, and deleted the
unsupported codes. The third cycle coding, recommended by Harding (2013), was to create sub-
categories, for example collaboration and challenges, to reflect different elements of the research
question. Subsequently, the sub-categories were re-arranged. As Harding (2013) recommended,
I used tables to find patterns in the data related to the research questions.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 63
Credibility and Trustworthiness
Validity and reliability are two important components in credibility and trustworthiness
(Merriam, 2009). To support the internal validity of the findings, this study used the method of
triangulation, including class notes, the final course assignment, and interviews, as the data
gathered answered the research questions. I used convenience sampling to interview 6
participants from the 16 students who studied at the university located on the west coast of the
United States during the spring semester of 2016. These interview participants matched the
following criteria: (a) they described their reflective practice during the practicum teaching
activities in the course on their final assignment, (b), they identified on their course final specific
examples where reflective practice impacted the development of their curricular and pedagogical
practices during practicum activities, and (c) they were willing and available to conduct an
interview with me during the fall 2016 semester.
Ethics
To complete the study ethically, I obtained the permission from the MAT TESOL
Faculty, the instructor of MAT TESOL students, and the participants. To better interpret their
beliefs, all the participants agreed and signed the consent forms allowing me to record them
during the interviews. I explained that their personal confidential information would be
protected. Further, following Maxwell’s (2013) advocacy, I focused on intellectual rigor,
professional integrity, and methodological competence. As Merriam (2009) suggested, I paid
attention to protect respondents from harm, respected the right of privacy, and took the notion of
informed consent into account in advance. In addition, I frequently paid attention to Patton’s
(2002) recommendation that a researcher is neither a judge nor a therapist. Instead, a researcher
is a guest in the observations and interviews. I kept reminding myself that my manners should
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 64
be good and the participants’ code of ethics should be strict. According to Merriam’s (2009)
hypothesis, in most situations, when people agree to be interviewed, they enjoy sharing their
knowledge, opinions, or experiences. Thus, maintaining a good rapport was critical to
completing this study successfully. In order to successfully collect and analyze the data, as
Maxwell (2013) emphasized, I took care to eliminate my personal biases, opinions, and beliefs.
Summary
It is extremely important to discover the means of training pre-service teachers while
inducting them into practices to effectively teach a broad range of language learners from a
myriad of cultural and social contexts. This is because language learners comprise a large
population in America as well as in those countries where English is not the official language
(Bolton & Botha, 2015). This phenomenon makes it extremely important for the educators to
devise ways to instruct the language learners effectively (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2015). Reflective practices have previously been used to train teachers and play an
effective role in preparing teachers professionally (Al-Haq & Alimoush, 2016). Hatton and
Smith (1995) provided information regarding the different reflection-in-action methods that
novices and experienced teachers use in dealing with practice problems. It helps American
teacher trainers to better understand the nature and impact of international Chinese pre-service
language teacher reflections.
This study was founded on the growing concern for the rising demand for developing
measures that can assist in pre-service teacher preparation, improving their teaching skills so that
pre-service language teachers may perform their duties well. Ultimately, the gap of achievement
differences for English language learners in the United States and in the countries where English
is not the official language can be narrowed down effectively. Pre-service initiatives are
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 65
undertaken for the professional training of teachers for effective education of students. Such
initiatives influence the role in allowing teachers to impart knowledge in a professional and
specialized approach to the students.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 66
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
The purpose of this chapter is to report the findings from the current study and provide an
analysis of the data. The goal of the data collection focuses on exploring the research questions:
1. What is the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers’ description
of reflective practice in an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a
Second or Other Language program?
2. How do the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers perceive
the impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and instruction
within in an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other
Language program?
Reflection is a complex, rigorous, and intellectual process that practitioners need to
devote time to in order to do well (Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002; Sim, 2006; Yoon, 2007).
Reflective training can facilitate both in-service professionals and novice teachers because the
reflexive action can continue to improve the teaching practice throughout the career of a teacher,
particularly those in language learning settings (Dewey, 1938; Rodgers, 2002; Forlin, 2010).
The purpose of this study is to explore the pre-service MAT-TESOL students’ description of
reflective practice and their perceived impact of reflective practice upon their improvement of
curriculum and instruction. The implications of this study are the resultant improvement of pre-
service teacher education, supporting the teachers by helping them to perform their duties well
and meet different pedagogical and curricular expectations. The next section details the findings
of this study.
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Findings
The findings of this study were derived through an analysis of the data through the lens of
Rodgers’ (2002) framework for the reflective cycle. Data included the class notes, the course
final assignment, and interviews conducted with the purpose of answering the research questions,
which were subsequently organized into categories. For the first research question, the findings
indicated that the participants described reflective practice as a rigorous, cyclical, meaning-
making process that supported the teaching candidate’s professional learning and development
(Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002). For the second research question the participants believed that
though reflective practice has its challenges, in most situations, it supported their professional
learning and development during their practicum instruction (Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002).
Research Question 1: Description of Reflective Practice
The first research question explored was “What is the predominately Chinese
international pre-service teachers’ description of reflective practice in an American Masters of
Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language program?” Different data sources of
information, including class notes, final assignment, and interviews, were categorized to reflect
different elements of the first research question. The following themes emerged: participants’
description of reflection aligned to the reflective cycle described by Rodgers (2002) and they
described reflection as being an important factor in improving their practice. As preservice
teachers, they could be described as novices, and the way they perceived reflection was seen to
be directly applied to how they developed as novice educators.
Rodgers (2002) adopted the theoretical framework of a four-phase reflective cycle,
including learning to see or being present to a situation in which expected outcomes are not
realized (Schön, 1992) describe, analyze, and to take an intelligent action in order to improve
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 68
teaching instruction and teacher preparation. Throughout online teaching, participants were able
to learn to observe, acknowledge, and reflect on their teaching experience, such as being aware
of what happened during a particular experience. Participants described their use of reflection as
aligning to Rodgers’ cycle.
Fang
Fang described that reflective practice was one of the helpful skills that required teachers
to continuously think about the mistakes that they make in their experience, and therefore
effectively correct these mistakes so that they can help their students acquire the knowledge
being taught. Fang shared:
For me, reflective practice is that the teacher constantly makes reflection while teaching.
He/she not just teaches according to the lesson plans. He/she will constantly exam how
well the students respond to the designed activities and ask for students’ feedback. The
teacher will make further reflection and adjustment based on his/her teaching outcome
(Fang, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Fang described her teaching experience in her final assignment regarding how she paid
attention to the present and effectively replied to her student with her best instruction, describing
a reflection-in-action (Schön, 1992). Fang shared:
My original lesson objective was that the student will be able to say
giraffe, zebra, koala, elephant, and tiger in Chinese. However, when I saw the
student wearing an ironman outfit. I immediately added one more lesson
objective, that was: the student will be able to say ironman and superman in
Chinese. After I discussed with the student about his favorite superhero, I asked
him “Do you know how to say superman in Chinese” (Fang, final assignment,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 69
November 9, 2016).
Fang described how she understood Rodgers’ (2002) theory of presence in experience, the first
phase of reflective cycle, when she said that the teacher must continually attend to how “students
respond.” She also said the teacher would need to make “further reflection,” in which she
seemed to indicate the need for analysis of teaching, the third phase of Rodgers’ reflective cycle.
As Fang noted that the teacher must also make “adjustments” she indirectly acknowledged
planning for intelligent action, the final part of cycle.
Fang engaged in the analysis of her teaching based on her presence and description. She
also noted how she perceived reflection as important in improving her practice. Fang explained,
My MOOBRIC [a self-reflective survey of online teaching and online course design:
http://moobric.net/moobric/full_moobric_latest.pdf] survey result proves that I definitely
overrated my online pedagogical knowledge at the beginning of the course. I had several
different students for my seven weeks online teaching. I realized that one of the reasons
that I had a hard time adjusting to each online lesson is that each student has different
learning styles. Some students respond well to songs, while others like pictures (Fang,
final assignment, November 9, 2016).
This is an example of how Fang described her engagement in what Rodgers (2002) calls
analysis. Fang described acting on her presence, and provided a description and analysis of her
practicum teaching. In her final assignment, Fang also explained that, “I brought realia [concrete
objects] into the classroom and used various teaching methods (singing, reading stories),” which
highlighted her description of using reflection to improve her practice. Through describing and
analyzing here practice using reflection-on-action (Schön, 1992), Fang perceived that her
reflection helped to improve her practice.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 70
Jay
Likewise, Jay considered reflective practice as a necessary role in improving pre-service
language teacher preparation. Jay said:
Reflective practice plays a huge part in improving teacher preparation. By that I mean, in
the process of teacher preparation, learning how to do reflective practice and use the
reflection results to help oneself improve is one of the main goals of teacher preparation.
It should take big part of the training (Jay, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Jay also expressed his description regarding the role of reflective practice in his small group
discussion during class (transcript from recording using class notes). He described reflective
practice as being an important part of how reflective practice supported improved teaching. He
shared:
I think using reflective practice in teacher preparation is very necessary. It helps teacher
candidates know the existence, methods as well as the importance of reflective practice.
In my opinion, there are huge differences between a teacher who does reflective practice
and who does not. In a professional development perspective, the former one could do
much better than the latter one. Only a teacher who reflects on his or her own teaching
could be a good teacher (Jay, class notes, May 10, 2016).
When Jay noted that a teacher who engaged in reflection would “do much better” he
described his perceived relationship between reflection and improved teaching.
Jay explained that it was important for teacher candidates to prepare themselves to
improve their instruction techniques, realize their role in educational practice, and practice
teaching in the field. He recognized that the role of reflective practice can be a bridge that helps
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 71
teacher candidates narrow the gap of their performance and preparation, and gradually improve
upon their skill and achieve their goals. Jay described in what Rodgers (2002) calls action.
Yie
In the personal interview, Yie described the necessary process of reflective practice and
its importance in helping pre-service language teachers refine their work and improve in real
classroom settings. Yie said: “It works as self-assessment for teachers, and it is the reflection on
the teaching experience after you taught the class in order to improve teaching skill and enhance
students’ results” (Yie, personal interview, November 16, 2016). Yie described the process of
reflection-on-action (Schön, 1992), when she noted reflecting on teaching after teaching a class.
She also described what Rodgers (2002) calls analysis, when she indicated that reflection would
take place after teaching, presumably indicating analyzing what the teacher did in the lesson.
She described the role of reflective practice as a tool for developing teaching strategy.
In her self-assessment, Yie reflected that she did not adequately present the subject
content to her students. Her future teaching objectives included reorganizing the lesson to make
it more precise and compact. She wrote, “Reflective practice guides me to refine my lesson
plans and helps me make proper changes to my teaching instructions (Yie, personal interview,
November 16, 2016). Also, she described shortening each section of her lesson to keep her
students on task (Yie, final assignment, November 11, 2016). Yie’s comments about revising
her lesson indicated she used Rodger’s (2002) analysis of her lesson, and then she described,
albeit in a general way, how she would take action to improve her practice.
Yie stated that using reflective practice may support her development. She described the
role of reflective practice in her assignment: “Reflective practice guides me to refine my lesson
plan and helps me make proper changes to my teaching instructions” (Yie, Final assignment,
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 72
November 11, 2016). Yie engaged in what Rodgers (2002) calls analysis and action. Yie’s
perspectives on the role of reflective practice was an example of critical reflection on the broader
sociopolitical contexts of teaching and learning. Identifying this as a counter-example is
important. Most of the students engaged in reflective practice in-action and on-action, however,
only Yie seemed to make the connection to broader social and cultural patterns in teaching and
learning.
Yun
In the interview with Yun, she shared her description of the role of reflective practice as
taking place individually. She noted that reflective practice played an important role in helping
the teacher once she was not in training. Yun said:
Reflective practice actually is very important for a teacher because most of the time, the
teacher will teach in a class by herself. So maybe during the training period, there will be
some colleagues or some principals [supervisors] that will observe the class and give the
teacher feedback. But after the training period, the teacher will teach by his or her own in
the classroom (Yun, personal interview, November, 14, 2016).
Rodgers (2002) notes the importance of collaboration in reflective practice, which Yun
described when she noted that eventually she would be teaching on “her own,” seeming to
indicate that collaboration was a part of the training in how to use reflection to improve teaching.
Yun described reflection aligned to the Rodgers’ (2002) cycle of reflection, specifically
describing calls presence and description. In the whole class discussion and small group
discussion, Yun explained reflection as a useful practice to develop teaching skills. She shared:
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 73
It’s very important for teacher to know how to improve their teaching skill because if
they’re not going to do that, then they’re going to teach exactly the same thing, use the
same lesson plan, and perform the same work sheet for every term and for every student.
So it’s very important to use reflective practice. If they do the reflection, they can use
different methods to teach the same knowledge, and give students different activities. So,
yeah, that is very important or they will do the same thing every year (Yun, class notes,
March 29, 2016).
Yun referred to the necessity of changing practice to improve it, aligning with Rodgers’
intelligent action, in which the teacher plans how to change based on their presence, description,
and analysis of a teaching event that did not meet intended outcomes. Her comments about not
teaching “exactly the same thing” and using the same materials for all students were framed as
being an undesirable practice, and she implied reflection might be used to assist teachers,
presumably also herself, in being able to recognize how their practice might be improved.
In addition to the class notes, Yun shared her description of the role of reflective practice
in her final assignment. She believed that reflective practice played the role of a useful tool in
revealing the need for improvement. Yun explained:
Before teaching the class, I had paid effort to the preparation and imagined how the
students would respond to her questions. However, through the reflection after the class,
I found that there were many situations and challenges that were beyond my
imagination and control. I need to improve a lot in the future (Yun, final assignment,
November 12, 2016).
Yun described her engagement in what Rodgers (2002) calls analysis and action. Yun
acknowledged that pre-service language teachers are supposed to gain knowledge in order to
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 74
teach and interact with different students, and added her perception that she needed to improve
her practice, following her comments on what took place during class. She noted the “situations
and challenges…were beyond my imagination and control,” indicating her review of what took
place in class and her reported her need for improvement. She shared her perception that there
are many situations that pre-service teachers, like herself, cannot control. It is possible that as a
novice practitioner, she was not yet prepared to take the final step of planning intelligent action
to make the improvements.
Zi
Zi described reflective practice as a process of teacher self-assessment, which is an
important aspect of improving practice. Zi stated:
In my own opinion, reflective practice is a process of self-evaluation. It means that
during the process of teaching, a teacher has to observe the classroom, to reflect his or her
teaching methods, and evaluate the results of teaching. Most importantly, a reflective
teacher can always improve him/herself after the reflection (Zi, personal interview,
November, 14, 2016).
Zi noted all factors of the reflective cycle as described by Rodgers (2002). He
highlighted presence when he stated that “a teacher has to observe the classroom,” and focused
on analysis when he noted that evaluation of “the results of teaching” were necessary as part of
self-evaluation. He inferred the description and intelligent action phases of the cycle when he
said a teacher had to “reflect his or her teaching methods,” presuming a description of the
methods would be necessary in order to reflect. Furthermore, he reported that a “teacher can
always improve,” which is aligned to planning and implementing intelligent action, the final
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 75
phase of the reflective cycle. Zi’s description focused on using self-assessment, which he
explained as the reflective cycle, in order to improve teaching.
In addition to his interview, Zi disclosed his perception of the role of reflective practice in
his small group discussion. He described reflective practice as having a role in improving
teacher preparation. He shared:
During the process of reflective practice, the teacher will always have new thoughts and
ideas about the teaching in next time. For example, if I did not meet the objective in
today’s teaching since the activity I designed was too difficult for my students. Then, in
today’s reflection, I would consider change the difficulty in my next class. Therefore, for
the preparation of my next class, I would redesign the activities (Zi, class notes, May 3,
2016).
In this comment, Zi more explicitly described the phases of Rodgers’ (2002) reflective
cycle, aligning presence with his hypothetical example of recognizing a lesson was “too
difficult,” and noting analysis when he stated he would “consider change the difficulty,” which
he then shared would result in a “redesign” of the “activities,” aligned to intelligent action. He
described aspects of the reflective cycle needed in order to improve his teaching, through
identification of a lesson that did not reach the intended outcome (Schön, 1992), analysis of what
might have been the problem when he suggested the lesson might be too difficult, and planning
for change in practice through redesign of the lesson. While he did not explain what that change
might be, that may be due to his example being framed as hypothetical.
Finally, Zi described reflective practice as a smart option in teacher training programs
because this practice might greatly improve teacher preparation. He continued to describe
aspects of the reflective practice being connected to self-assessment, and its role in teacher
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 76
improvement. Zi expressed his perception of the role of reflective practice in his final
assignment. He said:
I think using reflective practice is a very smart way in training teachers to be prepared.
As we all know, the preparation of a teacher before class teaching is very important, the
more you have prepared, the easier your teaching will be. Therefore, by training teacher
how to reflect their own teaching in each class is very helpful for their self-evaluation and
self-improvement (Zi, Final assignment, November 11, 2016).
As reflective practice is important and helpful in improving skill and preparation, Zi
frequently described situations of reflecting on lesson plans during times of instruction. He
described reflection as being aligned with Rodgers’ (2002) reflective cycle. Zi situated
reflection, using aspects of the reflective cycle, as being a part of learning. He described the use
of reflection to account for the whole process of teaching and to make the necessary
improvements for the next class.
Huei
Huei offered description that was more concrete and focused on specific instructional
choices and less on the more theoretical descriptions her peers shared. She shared that reflection
was “the ability to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning” (Huei,
personal interview, November 16, 2016). Continuous learning was noted as the definition of
reflection, highlighting its role in improving teaching. So while Huei also described reflection as
improving teaching, she focused on what Larrivee described as Level 4, reflection of decision
making.
Huei did not describe reflection using hypothetical or theoretical situations, but rather
used concrete instructional practices. She included such practices as “brainstorming” and
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 77
“differentiation,” for example, when she described reflective practice. Huei referred to one
aspect of Rodgers’ (2002) reflective cycle 2, analysis of experience, when she explained that she
could “combine different students’ needs and ability so as to design different activities and
motivate students’ learning.” She also added in the personal interview: “I reflect on different
students’ learning styles. For visual learners, I use more pictures. For audio learners, I use some
music or songs. For kinetic learners, I let students do role play.” These comments indicated
Huei’s perception that she reflected using Rodgers’ (2002) reflective cycle by indicating that
students’ needs and ability were known and used to inform planning, showing her presence in
identifying students’ needs, and analysis and intelligent action in using students’ analyzed needs
to plan instruction.
Like Jay and Zi, Huei also commented in the personal interview on the importance of
using reflection to avoid using “one teaching method in class.” She went on to describe varied
teaching methods, such as “cooperative learning, content-based instruction or task-based
instruction.” Huei did just describe reflection aligned to the theory, but seemed to use the theory
implicitly to describe how reflective practice might lead to concrete changes. She provided the
information on the intelligent action stage of Rodgers’ (2002) reflective cycle by naming
methods she might use, indicating the specifics of how she might improve her practice.
Research Question #1 Summary
The study found that participants described the role of reflective practice as the reflection
engaged in by practitioners after teaching a class with the goal of achieving a higher level of
teaching effectiveness. Reflection requires teachers to examine how well the students respond to
the designed activities and after recognizing when students’ response might not meet intended
outcomes, planning for change to improve practice. Reflective practice is a systematic process
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 78
of thinking, and it is based on scientific inquiry (Gilroy, 1993; Zeichner, 1994; Farrell, 2015).
This thinking process requires its practitioners to value everyone’s intellectual improvement and
to carefully consider how to improve each student’s learning (Dewey, 1938; Rodgers, 2002; Li &
Zheng, 2004; Larrivee, 2008). Participants described reflection as being instrumental in
changing practice as it aligned to Rodgers’ Reflective Cycle (2002). While most of the
participants did include alignment to the theory of reflection through descriptions that mapped on
to aspects of Rodgers’ (2002) four stage reflective cycle, they demonstrated little connection to
practice, with the exception of Huei. In Research Question 2, Larrivee’s (2008) levels of
reflective practice, along with other literature on reflection, provide a framework for the impact
of reflective practice on their perceived improvement of curriculum and instruction.
Research Question 2: Impact of Reflection on Instruction
The application of reflective practice has its limitation and may not be always useful on
educational practices (Cornford, 2002). This may cause its practitioners to concede the quality
of the education that they impart to their students (Hobbs, 2007). The participants disclosed that
some challenges, such as the Internet problems and insufficient professional support, kept them
from reflecting. The findings showed that through reflection, a meaning making process of
identifying weaknesses and challenges, these participants successfully changed their practice to
benefit student learning. These changes allowed these participants to plan intelligent action to
build relationships.
Challenges in Taking up Reflective Practice
The participants expressed that there could be some challenges in using reflective
practice. Reflective practice is a useful method. However, it has challenges in some situations.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 79
Fang
Fang disclosed her perspectives of why there were some challenges in taking up
reflective practice. She shared: “There were some challenges that should be overcome. Firstly,
technical issues were the most important problem. There were audio, visual, and the Internet
problems during online practicum” (Fang, class notes, May 17, 2016). Technical issues might
have been something that reflection could not fix, but Fang described them as a challenge in her
reflective practice, without explicitly how these challenges might or might not be connected to
her practice. Here, she limited her description to identifying the technology as the challenge,
without discussing how she might plan to improve practice to meet that challenge.
Fang also noted that having insufficient time to reflect on certain challenges might lead to
an unsuccessful experience in using reflective practice. She stated:
I think for situations in the classroom that needs immediate solution, reflective practice
might not be useful. Because you don't have enough time to reflect, you should just rely
on your instinct and professional knowledge to make the best decision under the
circumstances (Fang, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Fang’s reflection revealed that an ideal learning setting, such as providing effective technical
support and sufficient time for giving feedback, may usefully conquer some of the challenges in
terms of online teaching. She did not explicitly disclose how to take an action to improve these
challenges. However, Fang’s reflecting aligned with most of Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the
process of four-phase of reflective cycle because she was able to see, describe, and analyze the
challenges.
Jay
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Jay disclosed the challenges happened in his teaching experience. He explained these
challenges in his final assignment. Jay shared:
There were three major challenges throughout the online practicum. The first was
technical issue. For example, unstable network, glitches of the software etc. Different
kinds of technical issue could interrupt the online teaching session unexpectedly. As a
result, when it came to these kindergarten students, the interruption of a lesson could
affect their learning outcomes tremendously. Sometimes if they got distracted, it could
be hard to pull their attention back again. Second, it was hard to keep these kindergarten
students focused. In this case, the teaching efficiency is tightly connected to the teaching
content and teaching style. If the teacher only gave lecture verbally, the students could
get bored and lost their focus easily. So it is necessary to put the target knowledge in the
context that the students are interested in. Also, different activities such as singing songs
and playing games can attract the students’ attention better. Moreover, building rapport
with the students becomes more difficult than on-ground teaching. During online
practicum, the teacher and the students only interacted with each other through a
computer screen. Comparing with on-ground teaching, the spatial distance between
teachers and students becomes much further when it comes to online teaching. In this
case, many ways interactions that prompt relationship between teachers and students are
limited by the online interaction context. As a result, it takes longer time and more effort
for teachers and students to get bond and build rapport (Jay, final assignment, November
11, 2016).
Like Fang, Jay described technology as a challenge in reflective practice. He connected
technology failures to his practice, when he said the students were not attentive after a
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technology failure. He focused on his practice as it related to the technology, not isolating the
technology as the challenge, but shifting to his practice. He continued to identify his need to
keep students attention, focusing mainly on that aspect of his practice, and provided suggestions
to use.
Jay expressed some possible ways to improve upon these challenges in his final
assignment. He shared:
As for modifications could be made to the online practicum, the design of assessment
could be different. More specifically, as each online teaching session is not long or
frequent, the assessment could be implemented as performance-based assessment. By
that I mean, in the context of online teaching, the real-time performance-based is a
practical option. It can be done with the teaching simultaneously, which does not require
extra time. Also, integrating performance-based assessment into instructions requires
teachers pay closer attention to the students’ performance and learning progress. In this
manner, teachers need to put more effort to the online teaching process if they prefer
positive learning outcomes. As a result, teachers could be more motivated as instructors
and assessment designers/administrators. Since teaching and learning are tightly bonded,
in return, students’ learning outcomes have the potential to be more positive as the
teaching practice becoming more dedicated (Jay, final assignment, November 11, 2016).
Jay explored intelligent actions (Rodgers, 2002) for meeting the challenge of online teaching.
Jay also shared his ideas in his personal interview regarding the challenges of using
reflective practice in his teaching. He encountered an unstable network and distracted young
kindergarten students in his practicum teaching. Jay stated:
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One possible situation could be there was not enough time for reflection. More
specifically, the teacher might have a big working load, which makes him or her already
very exhausted to finish the working load. Also, if a teacher always works alone and
cannot get advices/feedback from colleges/others, reflective practice might not work that
well too (Jay, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Jay kept the focus of his description of a challenge on practice, and identified time as a challenge
in engaging in reflective practice.
Jay continued to state that to do reflective practice effectively, he will pay effort to
develop his professional knowledge. He further shared:
For example, if I found that Behaviorism does not work well on students, maybe that’s
where Socio-culturalism comes in. For some students, pure repetition and imitation could
be boring. Then interactive teaching and activities such as role-play could arouse their
interests. As a possible result, the learning efficiency and outcomes could be better (Jay,
personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Based on Jay’s statement, professional knowledge plays an important role in facilitating
the application of reflective practice in certain situations. It is one of the foundations of
reflective practice (Schön, 1992). Jay’s statement of his reflection upon the challenges of using
reflective practice aligned with Rodgers’ (2002) philosophy of the process of four-phase of
reflective cycle because he was able to see, describe, analyze, and learn to use effective methods
to solve these challenges.
Yie
Yie described reflection on her teaching experience regarding the challenges she
encountered. In her final assignment, Yie shared:
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Since I was not be able to capture the students’ competence through single
performance, other observations are also significant. In future teaching, instead of
checking students’ understanding by just asking students questions, I should for example
ask them to make conversations with their peers or let them write down sentences and do
peer review (Yie, final assignment, November 11, 2016).
Yie addressed a specific challenge in her practice as a challenge, and explained how reflection
might help to meet that challenge with a few strategies to allow her to “capture the students’
competence”.
Yie also disclosed the challenges that took place in her online teaching experience and
expressed some possible methods to improve these challenges. In her personal interview, she
shared:
When professors give less comments and guidance, reflective practice might not be
useful in facilitating teacher instruction. In this situation, I will go back to textbooks and
papers to search for theoretical bases for my teaching practice and find out solutions and
specific techniques (Yie, personal interview, November, 16, 2016).
Yie was able to see and to describe her experience. Further, she was able to analyze the
experience. For example, she said “I was not able to capture….” Finally, Yie said “I should
….” Based on her final assignment and personal interview, her reflection aligned with Rodgers’
(2002) theory of the process of the four-phase reflective cycle and Schön’s (1992) concept of
reflection-on-action.
Yun
Yun disclosed the challenges which happened during her online teaching experience.
She explained the challenges in her final assignment. Yun shared:
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During the first online session, students were not familiar with new foreigner teacher and
the digital learning devices. The students were not willing to talk and didn't follow my
instruction. Moreover, computer hardware and internet connection also caused some
problems. During some sessions, I could not hear students’ voice or they could not see
me on the screen (Yun, final assignment, November 12, 2016).
Like Fang, Yun isolated the technology issues as a challenge and did not connect them to her
practice; she did, however, describe a challenge in the students not talking or following her
instruction.
Yun also expressed her personal opinion regarding the possible situations where
reflective practice might not be useful in facilitating teacher instruction. In her personal
interview, Yun shared:
Reflective practice will always be useful for teachers because they can learn and improve
a lot though reflective practice. We also need to consider more because students are
different every year. So when we design instruction, we just assume that students are the
same or we assume that students will respond in the same way. However, sometimes or
in some situation, we might meet some students who do not respond in a way that we
imagined. So I think the reflective practice we just did or the method we come out might
not work for that type of students (Yun, personal interview, November, 14, 2016).
To improve this situation, Yun continued to state:
As a teacher, I need to go beyond the facts and read some professional knowledge books
to find some reference and dig more about the theory that happens beyond the facts.
Professional knowledge can help me in a different way to support me to improve
reflective practice. So I think it’s very important to analyze the facts and also at the same
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time, to learn more about professional knowledge (Yun, personal interview, November,
14, 2016).
Yun’s description of her reflection upon the challenges of using reflective practice aligned with
Larrivee’s (2000) theory of four levels of reflection, including the reflection of her core beliefs,
reflection on developing professional knowledge as the framework, reflection on the description
of her experience, and the reflection upon her decision making for future teaching instruction.
Zi
Zi disclosed his challenges which happened during his teaching experience. In his final
assignment, Zi shared:
Most of us taught different students in different weeks, which made it very hard to build
the rapport between teacher and student. In addition, as a result of different students and
teaching content, we could not make connections with the previous online teaching
classes (Zi, final assignment, November 11, 2016).
Zi noted a challenge in teaching online, as well as implicitly describing the challenge to practice
to begin teaching with a new group in each week.
Zi also expressed his perspectives regarding the possible situations where reflective
practice might not prove to be useful. In his personal interview, Zi shared:
I think reflective practice is useful for most of the situations except for the situation that a
teacher has very limited time in his or her teaching reflection, which means that he or she
can do it only for one time (Zi, personal interview, November, 14, 2016).
To solve the challenges, Zi continued: “I have learned the importance of cooperative learning.
Therefore, I could ask for my classmates’ or professors’ help in supporting my reflective
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practice. For example, we could have a panel discussion or group seminar about each student’s
reflective practice” (Zi, personal interview, November, 14, 2016).
Zi’s reflection on the challenges of using reflective practice included the importance of
time in using reflection. He also described using collaboration, which Rodgers (2002) shared as
an important component of reflective practice. He shared challenges and provided his approach
to addressing them.
Huei
Huei disclosed that there were three challenges she encountered in her teaching
experience, including technology, assessment, and multiple students’ behavior management. In
her final assignment, Huei shared:
Firstly, the technology issue was the challenge that I could not predict. During the online
practicum, I faced such problems like the student could not hear me or the Internet did
not work suddenly. When facing such difficulties, I had to focus on solving the problem,
but at the same time, the student just waited but could do nothing. Therefore, technology
challenge sometimes impeded my online teaching. Secondly, when giving written
assessment or evaluation to my students, because of the limited time, I just had a review
about what we have learned in the lesson but did not let students write or practice the
Chinese characters. Moreover, students were not motivated to write or draw. Thirdly,
the management of two or more students was also a challenge for me. Once I met two
students simultaneously, however, the boy was too active to listen to me and the girl was
silent and said nothing. And the boy kept talking to me. Therefore, the class was
difficult to be managed, especially when doing online teaching with two or more students
at the same time (Huei, final assignment, November 9, 2016).
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Here, Huei described how technology failures impacted her teaching. She also described the
limited time in class and how that impacted her teaching, and ultimately, student learning.
Finally, she identified behavior issues. She began by commenting that it was a challenge for her,
and that seemed to focus on her practice, as opposed to blaming the students.
Through reflection in the final assignment, Huei continuously expressed her ideas about
how to improve these challenges. She said:
Three goals can be involved in my future online teaching. Firstly, I will check the
technical tools thoroughly before the online teaching. Secondly, I will design more
specific and teachable activities that are accorded with the standards. Thirdly, I will keep
notes and do a survey about students’ interests and needs so that the course design will be
more comprehensive (Huei, final assignment, November 9, 2016).
For the challenges of reflective practice, Huei also shared her perspectives in the personal
interview. Huei said: “If there is no teacher-student interaction or there is only one teaching
method in the class. Because in this way, teachers’ thought is restricted and cannot get more
information from students” (Huei, personal interview, November, 16, 2016).
In order to improve upon the challenges, in the personal interview, Huei mentioned some
possible methods. She shared: “I will integrate different teaching methods and theories, such as
cooperative learning, content-based instruction, or task-based instruction in my future teaching”
(Huei, personal interview, November, 16, 2016). Here, she focused on her practice and planned
for intelligent action (Rodgers, 2002).
During her interview, Huei said that “Teachers’ reflections on their teaching practices
might not always be useful, and each teacher’s reflection may vary in similar situations learn”
(Huei, class notes, March 29, 2016). Huei also disclosed her weakness in her final assignment
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and stated that her students could not see the slides clearly because of the technical issue. This
situation might lead the teachers to adopt the already defined set of guidelines in teaching their
students, and therefore, could result in negatively impacting the quality of education (Moore &
Ash, 2002; Hobbs, 2007). However, reflection is still one of the useful practices that may
effectively enhance teacher performance and student outcome (Gilroy, 1993; Zeichner, 1994;
Larrivee. 2008; Farrell, 2015). Through reflective practice and the application of interaction,
teachers are able to think about how to improve their intellectual instruction (Dewey, 1938;
Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Rodgers, 2002; Li & Zheng, 2004).
Many participants noted issues with technology and its challenge to practice, both in
addressing technology failures and adjusting to online platform. Reflection was described by a
few as a way to examine their practice for approaches to these technological failures. A few
participants also described time as a challenge, both in reacting using reflection-in-action and
having the time to reflect-on-action (Schön, 1992) after teaching. They mostly examined their
practice to use Rodgers’ reflective cycle (2002) and did not put blame on students or on
technology failures.
The next section discusses the participants’ perspectives of reflection as a meaning
making process.
Reflection as a Meaning Making Process
Reflective practice as a process of inquiry into practice (Eliason & Holmes, 2010) was a
finding in how participants’ discussed the perceived impact of reflection on their teaching. Their
use of reflection to make meaning of their practice, and identify weaknesses, led to changes in
practice using Rodgers’ (2002) reflective cycle to plan for action to improve student outcomes.
The participants’ observed and reported teaching examples (class notes, final assessment)
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demonstrated how they aligned with Schön (1992) definition of reflection-on-action. Reflection-
on-action comes before or after a given situation, and provided the participants possible methods
towards conquering challenges of teaching practice (Rodgers, 2002). It is strongly related to
creating new thinking to deal with given evidence (Schön, 1983). Also, reflective practice
involves a meaning-making process; this process enables reflective practitioners to think about
the connection between their experience and other possible experiences or outcomes (Schön,
1992), what Rodgers called planning for intelligent action. Participants identified changes in
instructional approaches to respond to practice they perceived needed change and built
relationships with their students for improved learning. Their inquiry into their teaching through
reflection assisted them in focusing on student outcomes, and not blaming students for perceived
problems by focusing on the identified areas for changes needed in their instruction.
Fang
Fang reflected on her teaching examples in the class discussion and small group
discussion about how she identified a weakness in her first experience teaching, and how she
carefully and consciously changed her teaching skill to improve her instruction in her next
teaching experience. Fang shared:
At the first week, the kindergarten students were extremely hard to capture their
attention. I was not able to capture my students’ attention. I need to create as
much meaningful interactions as possible (Fang, class notes, April, 12, 2016).
On her later class, Fang shared how she carefully changed her teaching method and how her
students interacted and learned in that class. Fang said:
I spent a lot of time talking with students about their day, their personal interests, and
trying to find out what I could make use of in my teaching. The students constantly
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interacted with me and learning occur during this process (Fang, class notes, May, 17,
2016).
In the later class she taught, Fang shared how she carefully changed her teaching method after
identifying this weakness in her reflection-on-action and how her students interacted and learned
in that class. Fang devoted her effort to students that focused on talking about their daily lives,
their personal concerns, and searched for the possible methods to effectively enhance student
learning. Rather than blaming students for their lack of attention, reflection helped Fang focus
on her instruction. The adjustment of the teaching method based on her reflection contributed to
a high frequency of interaction and built relationships with her students for improved academic
performance.
Fang also shared her teaching experience using reflective practice in her personal
interview. She expressed what she had learned by reflecting on her experience. Fang shared:
I learned to follow up with my students. I used to just move on to the next lesson if I
already finish it, but now, I would take some extra time to review and adjust my lesson
plan if necessary. For example, I asked students to hand in their personal writing after I
taught them how to write narrative writing. I analyzed their writing and found out
different students still have different writing difficulties. So for the next class, instead of
moving to the next lesson, I grouped the students with similar writing difficulties in the
same group and gave each group a mini lesson about their writing difficulties, like
organization, punctuation etc. The students then hand in a second draft of their writing
after the mini lesson, and I graded that writing. Because of the amount of students and
my limited time in the classroom, I can’t give all the students feedback immediately.
However, on-site feedback is extremely important and effective to solve students’
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 91
questions. So I need to figure out how to improve on that using reflective practice
(Fang, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Fang was not aware of her weaknesses in her teaching experience. She did not make an analysis
of her teaching consequence to find a better way for changing teaching skill. Through reflection,
Fang was able to review and change her plan to satisfy students’ need. She made meaning of her
experience and planned for improved student engagement that aligned with Schön’s (1992)
theory, reflection-on-action.
Fang disclosed a perceived weakness in her final assignment. She said that sometimes
the students did not respond to her questions. Fang illustrated that in a video, for example, she
asked a student, “Do you want to say Ironman in Chinese with me?” The student answered,
“No.” To improve upon a possible similar situation in the future, Fang noted that she would take
more consideration of students’ learning styles in order to understand students better, and
therefore, provided a scaffold type of learning based on learning styles (Fang, final assignment,
November 9, 2017). She was able to use reflection-on-action (Schön, 1992) to change her
practice by adding a scaffold to address her perception of her students’ needs.
Fang also reflected on her perception of teaching improvement in her personal interview.
She thought it was important to give students immediate feedback. Fang shared:
I think I can still improve on giving student immediate feedback. Because of the amount
of students and my limited time in the classroom, I can’t give all the students feedback
immediately. However, on-site feedback is extremely important and effective to solve
students’ questions. So I need to figure out how to improve on that using reflective
practice (Fang, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
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Fang’s reflection to provide students immediate feedback aligned with Rodgers’s (2002)
philosophy of first phase, presence in experience, second phase, description of experience, third
phase, analysis of experience, and fourth phase, experimentation. It also fell into line with
Schön’s (1992) proposition of reflection-on-action, and Larrivee’s (2008) theory of reflection on
level 4, reflection of decision making. Fang described how she identified a perceived weakness
in her practice, and the decision she would need to make to address that weakness.
Also, in her final assignment, Fang expressed how she created a meaningful process to
improve her teaching and enhance students’ learning. Fang shared:
In order to improve student learning outcome in such a situation, I incorporated various
instructional conversation moves, for example, using linguistic traps. Since my student is
a huge fan of ironman, I told him “Do you know there is also an ironman in China?
Chinese ironman always say ‘I’m ironman’ in Chinese whenever he goes to an important
mission.” Then I orally created different dangerous situations that need ironman’s
help to engage the student. For example, I asked the student “What will the Chinese
ironman say before he goes to save the little boy from falling the stairs?” There will be
much more possibilities for the student to respond than the teacher simply asks him to
repeat (Fang, final assignment, November 9, 2017).
Fang built a relationship by increasing the opportunity of interaction. She tried to create a lot of
chances for her student to engage in classroom participation. What Fang did aligned with
Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the fourth phase of reflective cycle, taking intelligent action.
Fang expressed her perspective about the impact of reflective practice on supporting her
teaching instruction. She said:
I think reflective practice helps my teaching instruction tremendously. Before I learned
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about reflective practice, I was a teacher just sticking to the lesson plan, and cared less
about reflection and communication with students and their feedback, that to some extent
hinder myself growing as a teacher. Being a reflective practitioner supports my teaching
instruction by constant reminding me that I’m not only an educator, but I’m also a
learner. As an educator, you should also be a lifelong learner about how to improve
yourself as a teacher and educate people, always humble about what you have and desire
to learn more about teaching (Fang, personal interview, November, 15, 2016).
Fang used the reflective cycle—seeing, describing, analyzing, and acting—to improve her
teaching by using more multimodal instructional materials in order to make the lessons more
engaging for her students.
Reflective practice is useful for pre-service teachers when they face uncertain and
conflicting situations (Schön, 1983). The incorporation of reflective practices in teaching
enables the teachers to think about their teaching techniques and methodologies (Rodgers, 2002).
Fang’s continuous effort was devoted to a careful and meaningful thinking process after a given
situation. She generated new reflective thought and devoted significant amounts of time to
increasing interaction by using various instructional and conversational techniques in order to
improve her teaching skill and enhance students’ learning as she addressed problems she
identified in teaching and learning in her classroom. What she performed in her later teaching
experience aligned with Schön’s (1992) definition of reflection-on-action.
Jay
Jay described his teaching experience with his students. He found that those students
were too young to comprehend the content he taught. In the whole class discussion and small
group discussion, Jay said:
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They are kindergarten learner, my students, and they are only five years old and so
sometimes, it's hard to keep them focused. Sometimes, I used language too difficult.
After reflection, I found I wasn’t aware of that. So use simpler language is
also necessary and check for understanding is essential too (Jay, class notes, March, 22,
2016).
Jay described how he found what he is going to do after reflecting that will be meaningful for the
students. He discovered that the language he used was too difficult for his students to learn.
Jay’s reflection of his teaching experience made meaning on his action that aligned with Schön’s
(1992) theory, reflection-on-action.
During his personal interview, Jay also described another teaching situation he
experienced. He said that some of his students were less likely to interact with him. Thus, he
tried to find a better way to improve upon his teaching skill and motivate student engagement.
Jay shared on what he did to achieve this in his later teaching experience. Jay shared:
Once I was teaching a reading lesson to some fifth graders in elementary school. In that
lesson I found most of the students were not very active in answering my questions.
After the lesson, I reflected on my instructions and realized that I did not give enough
time for the students to prepare their answers. I just brought out a question and
immediately called a student to answer it. From this experience I learned that more
preparing time for students to answer questions is necessary. Also, using peer discussion
is a good way to prompt students’ speaking/answering questions (Jay, personal interview,
November, 15, 2016).
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Jay identified his weaknesses of teaching experience and planned for improved student
performance. What Jay did aligned with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the third cycle, analysis of
experience.
Jay continuously expressed his thoughts during his personal interview and confirmed that
reflective practice plays a huge part in improving teacher preparation. He explained how he
changed his practice to provide more wait time, due to his reflection-on-action:
I had a chance teaching another fifth-grade class this October. This time I paid attention
to give enough preparing time for the students to answer my questions. Also, I used pair
work to help them discuss and organize their answers. The result turned out to be much
better. The students engaged in the class more actively (Jay, personal interview,
November, 15, 2016).
Jay’s reflection enabled him to remind himself that he needed to provide his students enough
time to respond to his questions. His adjustment of teaching method usefully helped his students
engage in classroom activities. Jay’s reflection led to change for improved outcome and aligned
with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the four phase of reflective cycle, learning to take intelligent
action.
Jay described reflection on his weakness about his online teaching in the whole class and
small group discussion. He found that he did not prepare different kinds of online activities to
make the learning more interesting. Jay shared:
I did not use multiple kinds of activities but I could have like say, some songs or play
games system so the online teaching station could be more interesting and they could be
more motivated and involved in the teaching process (Jay, class notes, April 12, 2016).
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Through reflection, Jay was able to describe his teaching experience and consequences. His
reflection aligned with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the second phase of reflective cycle,
description of experience, which seemed to lead to analysis, when he said his teaching “could be
more interesting”. He focused on the teaching process to motivate the students, rather than
blaming them for what he described as their lack of motivation.
Jay similarly disclosed this reflection on his final assignment. He explained that using
online technology to create different online activities, such as online games for education
purposes, might be helpful for improving teaching instruction. Jay shared: “Different activities
such as singing songs and playing games can attract the students’ attention better” (Jay, final
assignment, November 11, 2016).
Jay was able to think about the connection between his teaching experience and other
possible outcomes. Jay’s description of his reflection in the application and improvement of
online technology aligned with Schön’s (1992) theory of reflection-on-action, as he made
meaning of his practice for improvement.
Jay disclosed that he was not able to teach his students the right pronunciation because of
their language proficiency. He shared his reflections in his final assignment. Jay said:
Different students have different proficiency levels and learning styles. It takes different
amounts of time to learn the right pronunciation of a second language for different
students. As a result, the teaching pronunciation part was not successful throughout the
whole online practicum (Jay, final assignment, November 11, 2016).
On the one hand, Jay was able to identify that his teaching was not successful. On the other
hand, it seemed that Jay was not able to find a solution to plan for intelligent action. It was like
that he blamed the students a bit, perhaps because he did not know how to solve the problem.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 97
However, he ended his comments by shifting to identifying his practice as “not successful,”
perhaps indicating he saw the need for change in his practice to address this situation. Jay’s
reflection aligned with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the third phase of reflective cycle, analysis of
experience, whereas it seemed that he did not align with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the fourth
phase of reflective cycle, learning to take intelligent action.
During the online teaching, Jay expressed that as he could only give a lecture verbally,
his students quickly became bored and he lost their attention easily. Jay also noted:
Building rapport with the students becomes more difficult than on-ground teaching.
During online practicum, the teacher and the students only interacted with each other
through a computer screen. Comparing with on-ground teaching, the spatial distance
between the teacher and students becomes much further when it comes to online teaching.
In this case, many ways interactions that prompt relationship between the teacher and
students are limited by the online interaction context. As a result, it takes longer time and
more effort for teachers and students to get bond and build rapport (Jay, Final assignment
November 11, 2016).
Jay was able to describe his observation teaching and beliefs about his teaching experience. He
recognized the importance of his relationship with the students, and identified the difficulty of
“building rapport” online. In this regard, Jay’s reflection aligned with Larrivee’s (2000) theory
of level 1, a core belief– namely the value of relationships with students. However, it seemed
that Jay did not find a solution to take intelligent action (Rodgers, 2002) to build rapport with
students online.
Reflection-on-action has an important influence when teachers apply it to their
instruction and preparation (Schön, 1983; Rodgers, 2002). Jay’s teaching examples illustrated
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that when he described how he meaningfully and systematically reflected on his experience, it
was likely that he would find the potential to improve his skill and increase preparation, as he did
in these examples by changing his language and providing longer wait time. However, he
seemed to struggle with language pronunciation and online teaching, which he identified as
problems but did not present planned intelligent action.
Yie
Yie reflected on her weaknesses in her teaching experience during the whole class and
small group discussion (class notes). She stated that she could not effectively keep her students
on task for the entire class. Yie shared:
The reason for that, on the one hand, was that kindergarten students were easily distracted
and lacked of motivation and learner persistence. On the other hand, the materials I
provided were restricted to visual type. Therefore, in future teaching, I should incorporate
multimedia instructional materials such as audio, video, animation (Yie, class notes, April
19, 2016).
Yie explained her perception of a problem in her practice, due to students’ lack of attention.
Through reflection-on-action, she did not blame the students, but looked to her own teaching to
find ways to help them pay attention. Reflective practice allowed her to make meaning of the
situation in a positive way through the phases of the reflective cycle of analysis and intelligent
action (Rodgers, 2002).
Yie also expressed a similar reflection in her final assignment. She described that she did
not successfully help her students focus on the learning task. Yie said:
I failed to keep the student on task for the whole online teaching time. For the future
teaching, I will ask my students to interact and talk to their peers or ask them to write
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down sentences and then to do peer review rather than asking students questions directly
(Yie, Final assignment, November 11, 2016).
Yie explained her experience of not being unable to put students together in groups. Through
reflection-on-action, she was aware of the importance of building relationships and was able to
describe how to promote more of a community in the classroom in the future. What Yie did
aligned with Larrivee’s (2000) theory of level 4, reflection of decision making, through which
she changed her practice to directly impact students’ opportunity to learn.
Yun
Yun described her reflection on the weakness in her final assignment. Yun stated that she
encountered some challenges during her practicum. She noted that her students were not
familiar with meeting a new foreign teacher on the first day of class along with the problems
often associated with digital learning. She perceived that these factors made her students feel
nervous and, therefore, hindered their performance and outcomes. Yun shared:
The students were not willing to talk and didn't follow teacher’s instruction. Moreover,
computer hardware and Internet connection also caused some problems. During some
sessions, we could not hear students’ voice or they could not see us on the screen (Yun,
Final assignment, November 12, 2016).
Yun made a short conclusion in her reflection. She noted that online teaching is a trend of
current education, and she gained pedagogical knowledge from her practicum (Yun, Final
assignment, October 25, 2016). Yun’s reflection helped her identify the problem of her teaching
consequences and adopt her teaching beliefs. What Yun did aligned with Larrivee’s (2002)
theory of level 1, reflection of core beliefs. However, it was through reflection that she
identified the problem and led to her planned action (Rodgers, 2002).
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Yun described the impact of reflective practice on the improvement of curriculum in her
teaching experience. In her perception, reflective practice helped her as a pre-service teacher
significantly in teacher preparation. She shared:
I think reflective practice can help a lot on the improvement of the curriculum. For
example, in my latest teaching video, one of the activities I asked students to do a family
story book and then they were supposed to draw the picture of their family members then
give the whole class a speech to introduce their families. So by that time, I was teaching
in the classroom, I didn’t ask the students to come to the front and share their opinion
with the classmates. I just asked them to sit on their seat. After watching my own
teaching video and doing the reflective practice, I felt that it was not a very good way for
students because if I was not asking the students to come to the front then not all of the
students could see the speaker so they would be destructive because they could not see or
they could not hear. At that time, the class is a mess because they could not hear the
lecture and they were talking to their neighbor. So after doing the reflection, I felt like,
yeah, next time definitely I will ask students to come to the front desk and face all of the
class to do the lecture. So that is a kind of improvement of the curriculum in my next
teaching opportunity (Yun, personal interview, November, 14, 2016).
Through reflection, Yun learned to think from her teaching experience. Yun’s reflection helped
her perceive her weaknesses of her teaching consequences. What Yun did aligned with
Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the third phase of reflective cycle, analysis of experience.
Yun also shared her teaching experience in whole class and small group discussion. She
described her teaching experiences with examples. Yun said:
First, I tried to create learning community by using small talks. For example, I started
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 101
my teaching from small talks like, “Did you have a big meal? What did you have for
lunch?” or some questions like that. And also, when I was working with two or more
students, I let one student ask questions for the other to that kind of help to promote
interaction and motivation between students. Also, I paid attention to use various
scaffolding which includes the modeling and bridging. So for example, when I was
teaching the hand sign, I modeled to students the hand sign in front of the screen and then
asked them to mimic and also for the bridging. I started my teaching from what they've
already learned or what they've already known (Yun, class notes, May 10, 2016).
Yun described her perception that reflective practice had an important impact on her improved
teaching curriculum. She provided examples of her improved teaching experiences. While
teaching Yun was cognitively present during the experience and thus was able to create a
learning community, through asking about students’ everyday experiences. She was able to
describe a particular experience where she let one student question the other student for the
purpose of promoting interaction. It could be said that Yun’s description of how she changed
curriculum was intended to build relationships through assignments that had students share their
families and customs.
Next, Yun described how she conducted the experiment to help her students learn.
Finally, she explained how she analyzed the teaching procedures and why she decided to teach
them the way she did.
There was a reflection-on-action in her perspective of the impact on her improvement of
her designed curriculum and instruction. Finally, Yun’s reflections aligned with Larrivee’s
(2008) theory of reflection on level 3, reflection of interpretive daily practice.
Zi
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 102
In his personal interview, Zi described the impact of reflective practice on his
improvement of curriculum in his teaching experience. He perceived that reflective practice
positively impacted his development of instruction. Zi shared:
There is no doubt that reflective practice has a positive impact on my learning
experiences in MAT TESOL program. It helped me identify my shortcomings and
recognize the areas that I have to improve in next time teaching or learning (Zi, personal
interview, November 15, 2016).
Zi’s reflection led him to his awareness of his weaknesses and to understand the important
impact of reflective practice on his teaching preparation. What Zi did aligned with Schön’s
(1983) idea of reflection-on-action.
Zi described his teaching experience in his final assignment about the strategies he used
to help his students learn. He said:
During the whole teaching process, I used many ways and materials to build the rapport
with my student. For example, I taught the story of the Seven Calabash Brothers, which
is a very famous story in China. I played the theme song for my students at first. Then, I
showed some pictures of the seven calabash brothers to them. Finally, I asked them
which one is their favorite. Another advantage that should be mentioned is the way we
deal with some unexpected situations, such as technical fault, classroom exchange or
even some disobedient students. Fortunately, we successfully handled all these
difficulties through the cooperation and contribution from teachers and students (Zi, final
assignment, November 11, 2016).
Through reflection, Zi purposefully changed his teaching method, such as building the rapport
and using different teaching materials to plan for intelligent action for strong relationships. What
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 103
Zi did aligned with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the fourth phase of reflective cycle, learning to
take intelligent action.
Huei
Huei described her reflection on the weakness in her final assignment. Huei said that the
reason of her unsuccessful teaching consequence was because she did not analyze her students’
needs. Huei shared:
During my online teaching, every time I faced different students and I did not make a
needs analysis so that sometimes the vocabulary I taught were difficult for them to learn.
(Huei, Final assignment, November 9, 2016).
Huei explained her perspectives of her teaching experience due to her lack of analysis. Through
reflection-on-action, she was aware that there was a need to analyze students’ need. What Huei
did aligned with Rodgers’s (2002) theory of the second phase of reflective cycle, description of
experience.
Through reflection, Huei described how she would change her teaching method to satisfy
her students’ need. She shared:
I’ll prepare two to three lesson plans so that the community of practice can be created to
motivate students’ learning (Huei, Final assignment, November 9, 2016).
Huei looked to her own teaching to find ways to help them acquire learning content. Reflective
practice allowed her to be aware of her weaknesses and make meaning of the situation in a
positive way. What Huei did aligned with Larrivee’s (2000) theory of level 4, reflection of
decision making.
Huei also described the impact of reflective practice on her improvement of curriculum in
her teaching experience. In the interview, she said:
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 104
It helped me design curriculum which is closely related with students’ needs and ability.
And it also improved my realization of differentiation (Huei, personal interview,
November 16, 2016).
Huei’s reflection helped her focus on her teaching consequence and pay attention in taking her
students’ needs into account, focusing on how her practice impacted the potential for their
learning. What Huei did aligned with Rodgers’s (2002) theory, the first phase of reflective cycle,
learning to see.
Research Question #2 Summary
The study found that participants described the impact of reflection on instruction,
explained the challenges in taking up reflective practice, and identified reflection as a meaning
making process as the reflection engaged in by practitioners after teaching a class with the goal
of achieving a higher level of teaching effectiveness. Reflection enables teachers to incorporate
their own subject knowledge with teaching techniques to effectively help students comprehend
the content of the subject matter (Webster-Wright, 2013). In addition, it allows teachers to
facilitate their preparation by realizing students’ challenges and providing them with sufficient
learning material (Schön, 1991; Forlin, 2010). Therefore, during the initial training of teachers,
by exposing the pre-service-teachers to theories and providing them with the necessary teaching
instruments, they can understand different senses of these theories in real life situations
(Larrivee, 2008).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 105
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the predominately Chinese
international pre-service teachers’ description of reflective practice in an American Masters of
Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language program and their perspectives of the
impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and instruction in language
teacher preparation.
There were 16 participants in this study and they all gave their consent for me to use my
class notes and their final course assignment as part of the data for this study. In addition, I used
purposeful and convenience sampling of six interviewees from the 16 participants according to
the following criteria: (a) they described their reflective practice in their final assignment, (b),
they clearly identified specific examples where reflective practice impacted the improvement of
their curricular and pedagogical practices during practicum activities, and (c) they were willing
and available to conduct an interview during the 2016 fall semester.
The theoretical framework of this study was mainly based on Schön’s (1983, 1992)
propositions of reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action; Rodgers’ (2002) theory of the process
of a four-phase reflective cycle, including to see, to describe, to analyze, and to act; and
Larrivee’s (2000) philosophy of four levels of reflection, including level 1, reflection of core
beliefs, level 2, reflection of framework, level 3, reflection of interpretive daily practice, and
level 4, reflection of decision making. These theories indicate that reflective practice may
benefit instruction and preparation when teachers engage in a careful, continuous, and systematic
thinking process regarding their past and current experience. The implication of the findings in
this study might have the potential for teacher preparation improvement and decision making
enhancement.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 106
Summary of Findings
In the discussion below is the summary of findings that addresses the research questions
of how the international pre-service teachers described reflective practice based on their teaching
experience and how they perceived the impact of reflective practice on their improvement of
curriculum and instruction.
The triangulation of data sources information, including class notes, final assignment, and
interviews, were categorized to reflect different elements of the research questions (Merriam,
2009, Maxwell, 2013). For the first research question, participants’ description of reflective
practice, the study found that participants described the role of reflective practice as the
reflection engaged in by practitioners after teaching a class with the goal of achieving a higher
level of teaching effectiveness. It is imperative for teachers to reflect on the exploration and
analysis of how well the students respond to the designed activities and after recognizing when
students’ response might not meet intended outcomes, planning for change to improve practice.
Reflective practice is a systematic process of thinking, and it is based on scientific inquiry
(Zeichner, 1994; Farrell, 2015). Participants described reflection as being instrumental in
changing practice as it aligned to Rodgers’ Reflective Cycle (2002).
For the second research question, participants’ perspectives of the impact on their
instruction and preparation, the findings revealed the challenges in taking up reflective practice
in their teaching experience, the impact of using reflective practice on participants’ teaching
experience, and reflection on their weaknesses in teaching experience. The findings that
addressed the two research questions were reduced to two main conclusions; reflective practice
can be a cyclical meaning-making practice; and reflective practice supports professional learning
in practice. (Dewey, 1938; Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002). These main conclusions aligned with
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 107
Schön’s (1992) philosophy of reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action; Rodgers’s (2002) theory
of reflection on learning to see, learning to describe, learning to analyze, and learning to act; and
Larrivee’ (2008) proposition of reflection on core beliefs, framework, interpretive practice, and
decision making. The following section addresses the first major conclusion of the findings;
reflective practice can be a cyclical meaning-making process.
A Cyclical Meaning-Making Practice
The findings presented in Chapter four revealed that participants perceived reflective
practice as a cyclical and meaning-making practice (Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002). Dewey
(1938), Rodgers (2002), and Farrell (2015) stated that reflection is a cyclical, rigorous, and
intellectual practice that requires teachers to make strong efforts to do well. It asks teachers to
consciously engage in a meaning-making process so that they can think about their experience in
order to make a careful decision, find a better method to improve instruction, solve challenges,
and ultimately enhance students’ academic performance (Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002; Sim,
2006; Yoon, 2007). Participants, perhaps due to their novice status as pre-service teachers, did
not necessarily show rigor in their use of reflection, but did indicate their use of reflection and
how it led to what they described as changes in practice to directly address student learning.
The different data sources of information, including class notes, final assignment, and
interviews, disclosed that participants encountered a variety of challenges in their teaching
experiences. For example, some participants revealed that their learners were too young to focus
on learning, so they were not able to capture their students’ attention. Likewise, some
participants disclosed since their students’ language proficiency was not high enough to acquire
the content they were being taught, or because the internet connection was not stable, they were
not able to help their learners achieve learning goals. In order to solve these challenges, these
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 108
participants, such as Zhou and Zi, carefully and consciously reflected on their teaching
experience, through reflection-on-action, learning to see, learning to describe, learning to
analyze, and learning to act, they finally found a better method in order to solve these
difficulties. Participants reflected on their teaching experience through the reflection of core
beliefs, reflection of framework, reflection of interpretive practice, and reflection of decision
making, eventually finding a way to improve upon their challenges and enhance preparation.
Some of them, such as Fang and Hua, spent a lot of time talking with their students to
find out what they could make use of in their teaching. Some of them, such as, Syuan and Yen,
continuously thought about how to incorporate various instructional strategies, such as using
modeling, to get more possibilities for increasing interaction and engagement. The effort and
reflection made by the participants aligned with what Dewey (1938) and Schön (1992) proposed
in that reflection is a rigorous meaning-making practice.
In addition to the effort that participants devoted to this rigorous meaning-making
process, the findings also presented that reflective practice is a cyclical practice. These
participants, such as Huei, experienced a rigorous thinking process with different phases and
levels that helped them slow down their thinking to pay attention to what was happening, and
then linked to students’ learning. Some participants, such as Yie, experienced the process of
four-phase reflective cycle, including presence in experience, description of experience, analysis
of experience, and experimentation in their teaching experience. They incorporated Schön’s
(1992) idea of reflection-on-action and Larrivee’s (2008) proposition of reflection on level 1,
reflection of core beliefs, level 3, reflection of interpretive practice, and level 4, reflection of
decision making to improve their teaching skill. Rodgers (2002) indicated that there is a specific
linearity in the process of four-phase reflective cycle. However, teachers are able to move
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 109
forward and backward within this reflective cycle (2002). One of the participants, Yun,
experienced what Rodgers’ (2002) calls moving forward or backward in the cycle. In Yun’s
experience, she firstly reflected on Rodgers’ (2002) first, second, and fourth phase of the
reflective cycle, and finally reflected on the third phase. Yun’s teaching experience aligned with
what Rodgers (2002) calls moving forward and backward in the reflective cycle. The following
section addresses the second main conclusion of the findings.
Supporting Professional Learning in Practice
Participants reported that reflective practice supported their professional learning and
development during their practicum teaching (Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002). Hancock (2003)
stated that the application of reflection enables teachers to think about their teaching
preparedness and helps them to analyze and improve upon their teaching practices for continual
professional growth and improvement. This improvement in teaching practices also helps in
devising new methods to effectively enhance students’ performance (Hancock, 2003). Pedro
(2005) notes that reflection enables teachers to understand, analyze, and improve their own
methods and techniques of teaching, and by reflecting on their own experiences, teachers are
able to generate new methods to improve their instruction and preparation, which eventually has
a positive impact on students’ outcomes (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Pedro, 2005).
Different data sources of information, including class notes, final assignment, and
interviews, revealed that participants believed reflective practice is a useful tool that may support
professional learning in teacher preparation and teaching instruction. Participants, such as Fang
and Ron, disclosed that reflective practice is very useful in improving teaching instruction.
Without the application of reflective practice, teachers might simply focus on lesson plan alone,
ignore the importance of reflection and communication with students and their feedback, and
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 110
eventually hinder themselves from growing as a teacher. Participants believed reflective
practices may support teaching instruction by constantly reminding and reflecting themselves
regarding teaching instruction and teacher preparation.
Further, participants expressed that reflective practice is beneficial in helping teachers
design curriculum and focus on satisfying students’ needs. Reflective practice supports
curriculum enhancement and facilitates the teachers’ recognition and ability to differentiate
between different students’ learning styles. Participants, such as Yun and Zi, engaged in the first
step of the reflective cycle by introducing themselves to their students. After that, they closely
observed and described teaching settings and classroom interactions. Their reflection aligned
with what Rodgers (2002) calls present in experience and description of experience. They then
analyzed the experience, deciphering why their students were less likely to interact with them
during the class. Finally, they carefully reflected on the teaching experience and then took an
action to improve the situation. Participants’ reflection on their teaching experience aligned with
what Rodgers (2002) calls analysis of experience and experimentation. In addition, their
reflection is related to what Larrivee (2008) calls four levels of reflection, including reflection of
core beliefs, reflection of framework, reflection of interpretive practice, and reflection of
decision making.
Through different phases of the reflective cycle and different levels of reflection,
participants were able to find an intelligent method to improve their preparation. Participants’
reflection on their teaching experience aligned with Rodgers’ (2002) philosophy of the process
of four-phase reflective cycle, Schön’s (1992) idea of reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action,
and Larrivee’s (2008) proposition of reflection on level 1, reflection of core beliefs, level 3,
reflection of interpretive practice, and level 4, reflection of decision making, some participants
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 111
even incorporated Larrivee’s (2008) reflection on level 2, reflection of framework. Pre-service
teachers’ training is important because the reflexive action should be linked to the teaching
practice throughout the teacher’s career, especially for those in language learning settings.
Through the application of reflective practice, teachers should be able to improve their teaching
methodologies as well as techniques, and create situations or learning tasks for more effective
student learning.
Implication for Practice and Research
The study found reflective practice can be a cyclical meaning-making practice; and
reflective practice supports professional learning in practice (Schön, 1983; Sim, 2006; Etscheidt,
Curran & Sawyer, 2012; Alford, 2013). Reflective practice can be a useful tool for pre-service
language teachers who are being asked to teach in a way that is significantly different from how
they were taught. Further, reflective practice may enhance teachers’ negotiation and adaption to
providing effective instruction to students from multiple cultural, social, and linguistic
backgrounds (Garcia, 1993; Almarza, 1996, Rodgers, 2002). The participants in this study used
reflective practice to improve their instruction during their practicum teaching in several unique
and emerging contexts in language education. For example, through reflection, Huei used
Chinese songs, and Yie critically considered the sociocultural context of her teaching, which is
different from the way she was taught, and questioned her own biases as an international Chinese
pre-service teacher in the United States. Therefore, the participants in this study clearly
disclosed their perspectives of reflective practice and how they applied this practice into their
teaching practicum to improve instruction, develop preparation, and enhance student
performance.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 112
The findings in this study asserted that although the participants encountered different
challenges in their teaching practicum, they similarly used reflective practice to improve those
situations. Therefore, there was a link between the application of reflective practice and the
theory of reflection. According to the findings, the application of reflective practice requires its
practitioners to use their intellectual knowledge to carefully think about and engage in a
meaning-making process in order to solve the current challenge, and improve their future
preparation (Dewey, 1938; Schön, 1992; Rodgers, 2002; Forlin, 2010).
Recommendations for Future Studies
The findings asserted that these MAT TESOL students perceived reflective practice as
one of the useful methods in teaching, and there was a vital impact of using reflective practice in
the improvement of their curriculum and instruction. According to the findings, there are three
recommendations for future research.
First, as there were still some situations that reflective practice did not improve
effectively, such as a feeling of overwhelming working load or showing a lack of professional
support, or a consideration of the sociopolitical and cultural context of teaching and learning
there is a need to explore how to use reflective practice to further solve these challenges. Future
studies should explore how to use reflective practice to improve these unsolved challenges such
as examining these participants’ improvement of deliberate reflection and reflexivity on
managing work load, and their personal development of pursuing the professional knowledge
needed for receiving support.
Next, reflective practice is helpful for diverse teachers and for all teachers to better teach
diverse students (Schön, 1992; Quinn, 1998; Faez, 2012; Farrell, 2015). Since the site of this
study was selected in the west coast of the United States, for future research, there is a need to
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 113
acquire the data from different sites in order to explore the findings of the application that uses
reflective practice in a culturally, socially, and linguistically diverse classroom.
Further, this study did not examine the correlation between the teacher’s application of
reflective practice and the students’ application of reflective practice in terms of their academic
achievement. Therefore, it is recommended to do a study to look into the correlation between
reflective practice of teacher and reflective practice of students and their academic performance.
Lastly, this study used the strategy of triangulation (Merriam, 2009), including class
notes, final assignment, and interviews, to increase validity as well as reliability. As reflection
might not be always useful to all students or situations (Cornford, 2002), for future research, a
longitudinal study that tracked these pre-service teachers in their classrooms when they become
practicing teachers. Then track the way they continue, if at all, take up reflective practice and its
impact on their teaching. These findings may continuously answer the questions in this study.
Conclusion
This study explored the pre-service MAT TESOL students’ description of reflective
practice and its impact on the improvement of their curriculum and instruction. The findings
demonstrated that although reflective practice has its limitations and challenges, it is still one of
the most useful ways to improve teacher preparation and student performance (Gilroy, 1993;
Zeichner, 1994; Larrivee, 2008; Farrell, 2015). Through the careful consideration of thinking
about how to intellectually improve their current experience and enhance future preparation,
teachers may ultimately benefit their students’ learning (Dewey, 1938; Feiman-Nemser, 2001;
Rodgers, 2002; Li & Zheng, 2004). In addition, reflective practice may help teacher education
programs better support the pre-service teachers in bridging foundational coursework to
practicum experiences and professional practice (Farrell, 2012, 2015).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 114
In conclusion, reflective practice can be useful in preparing diverse teachers for diverse
students given new educational tools, contexts, policies, and practices. The participants in this
study perceived reflective practice as an important method for improving their professional
learning and practice. As pre-service teacher preparation is becoming more important (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2015), based on the findings of this study, the application of
reflective practice in new teacher training and teacher education programs is recommended to
further support international pre-service teacher preparation.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 115
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Appendix A
Consent for Accessing Final Paper and Using Class Notes
Dear MAT TESOL students:
You are invited to participate in a research because you are a pre-service MAT TESOL student at
a university on the west coast of the United States. Your participation is voluntary. If you agree to
participate in this research and allow me to access your final paper as well as use the class notes,
please e- mail me with your consent.
The purpose of the research is to explore your description of reflective practice, and how do you
perceive the impact of reflective practice on your improvement of curriculum and instruction. As
a researcher, I would like to know how reflective practice supports pre-service teacher
preparation.
If you volunteer to participate in this research, your consent to access your final paper as well as
use class notes will be important and requested to accurately capture your perspective. There are
no known risks associated with this research. This research may help us understand how
reflective practice might enhance pre-service teachers’ improvement of curriculum and
instruction. It should be anticipated benefits to society.
I will keep your final paper and class notes confidential as far as permitted by law. Your identity
will not be revealed in any publication resulting from this study.
Your participation is voluntary. Your refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of
benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw your consent at any time and
discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or
remedies because of your participation in this research.
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Chin Hua,
Pang at 310-904-8592, chinhuap@usc.edu, or the Rossier School of Education, University of
Southern California at 213-740-0224.
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu
Sincerely,
Chin Hua Pang
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 132
SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT
I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions. My
questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have
been given a copy of this form.
□ I agree to allow the researcher to access my final paper and use class notes
□ I do not agree to allow the researcher to access my final paper and use class notes
Name of Participant
Signature of Participant Date
SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR
I have explained the research to the participant and answered all of his/her questions. I believe
that he/she understands the information described in this document and freely consents to
participate.
Name of Person Obtaining Consent
Signature of Person Obtaining Consent Date
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 133
Appendix B
Consent for Interview
Dear MAT TESOL students:
You are invited to participate in a research because you are a pre-service MAT TESOL student at
a university on the west coast of the United States. Your participation is voluntary. If you agree to
participate in this research and to be interviewed, please e-mail me with your consent.
The purpose of the interview is to explore your description of reflective practice, and how do you
perceive the impact of reflective practice on your improvement of curriculum and instruction. As
a researcher, I would like to know how reflective practice supports pre-service teacher
preparation.
If you volunteer to participate in this research, your consent for being interviewed is required.
The interview takes less than one hour. To accurately capture your perspective, the conversation
will be recorded. There are no known risks associated with this research. This research may help
us understand how reflective practice might enhance pre-service teachers’ improvement of
curriculum and instruction. It should be anticipated benefits to society.
I will keep your records for this interview confidential as far as permitted by law. Your identity
will not be revealed in any publication resulting from this study.
Your participation is voluntary. Your refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of
benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw your consent at any time and
discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or
remedies because of your participation in this research.
If you have any questions or concerns about the interview, please feel free to contact Chin Hua,
Pang at 310-904-8592, chinhuap@usc.edu, or the Rossier School of Education, University of
Southern California at 213-740-0224.
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu
Sincerely,
Chin Hua Pang
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 134
SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT
I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions. My
questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have
been given a copy of this form.
□ I agree to be audio recorded
□ I do not want to be audio/video-recorded /photographed (remove the media not being
used)
Name of Participant
Signature of Participant Date
SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR
I have explained the research to the participant and answered all of his/her questions. I believe
that he/she understands the information described in this document and freely consents to
participate.
Name of Person Obtaining Consent
Signature of Person Obtaining Consent Date
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 135
Appendix C
Interview Protocol
Interview Protocol
Introduction:
It is so pleased to have this great opportunity to meet you here. I would like to show my
deep appreciation to you for allowing me to interview you regarding the research. This interview
will take about one hour and your replies will be very helpful. Will one hour be fine to you?
Please let me introduce myself and then I will explain the purpose of the interview. I am a
candidate in the Doctor of Education program at USC. The purpose of this research is to explore
learn how reflective practice facilitates pre-service teachers’ preparedness in supporting students’
learning. The research includes observation and interview. During the interview and
observation, I will not engage in any personal opinions or judgment, and your personal
information will be surely confidential. There can be a copy of my research for you if you would
like it.
With your permission, I would like to record the conversation so that I can accurately capture
your perspective. Would that be all right with you? If you agree, we will start the interview.
Setting the Stage:
1. To start, would you please tell me a little bit about yourself, including gender, age, first
language, and nationality?
2. What made you come to that decision to study at the MAT TESOL program of the Rossier
School?
3. In your opinion, what is your description of teacher preparation?
4. How do you perceive the role of effective communication between the teacher and students
in classroom instruction?
5. In an ideal situation, what kind of support would you get from your program to help you
feel more prepared in teaching instruction?
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 136
Appendix C (continued)
Heart of the Interview:
1. What is your definition of reflective practice?
2. What is your belief about the training of using reflective practice in teacher preparation?
3. How do you perceive the role of reflective practice in improving teacher preparation?
4. How reflective practice is related to supporting your teaching instruction?
5. What is your successful experience of using reflective practice in your MAT TESOL
program?
6. What do you think you can still improve on by using reflective practice?
7. How do you describe the impact of reflective practice on your improvement of
curriculum in your practicum?
8. What can be the possible situations that reflective practice might not be useful in your
practicum?
9. How will professional knowledge support your ability of reflective practice when your
current reflective practice does not work effectively?
Closing Question:
Before the end of the interview, is there anything else that you want to say?
Closing:
I greatly appreciate your important contribution to the study. If there is something that
needs to be clarified, please allow me to contact you again. This is a gift card that shows my
appreciation for your valuable time.
Special Considerations and Probing:
Transitions:
Thank you for sharing.
Perhaps we should talk about….
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND TEACHER PREPARATION 137
Appendix C (continued)
Probing Statements/Questions:
That is great. Please tell me something more about it.
I am not quite sure about this. Would you please help me clarify my thoughts?
It would be excellent if you can offer me some more details.
Research and Interview Questions Table
Research Question Interview Question
RQ 1: What is the predominately Chinese
international pre-service teachers’ description
of reflective practice in an American Masters of
Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other
Language program?
1. What is your definition of reflective practice?
2. What is your belief about the training of using
reflective practice in teacher preparation?
3. How do you perceive the role of reflective
practice in improving teacher preparation?
8. What can be the possible situations that
reflective practice might not be useful in your
practicum? Why?
RQ 2: How do the predominately Chinese
international pre-service teachers perceive the
impact of reflective practice on their
improvement of curriculum and instruction
within one in an American Masters of Arts in
Teaching English as a Second or Other
Language program?
4. How reflective practice is related to supporting
your teaching instruction?
5. What is your successful experience of using
reflective practice in your MAT TESOL
program?
6. What do you think you can still improve on by
using reflective practice?
7. How do you describe the impact of reflective
practice on your improvement of curriculum in
your practicum?
9. How will professional knowledge support
your ability of reflective practice when your
current reflective practice does not work
effectively?
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
This dissertation discussed the application of using reflective practice in pre-service language teacher preparation. Reflective practice effectively helps pre-service language teachers improve instruction and preparation in a culturally, socially, and linguistically diverse classroom setting. Its application allows new teachers to be more aware of the challenge, differentiate and analyze the challenge, and ultimately, use strategies to improve the challenge. ❧ This study addresses the impact of reflective practice on the improvement of pre-service language teachers’ curriculum and instruction. The purpose of this study was to discuss the relationship between reflective practice and the problem of pre-service language teacher training initiatives, and to find the potential of improvement in preparation. This study focused on two research questions: What is the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers’ description of reflective practice in an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language program? How do the predominately Chinese international pre-service teachers perceive the impact of reflective practice on their improvement of curriculum and instruction an American Masters of Arts in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language program? This qualitative study used convenience sampling for both side selection and participants. The triangulation of data, including class notes, final assignment, and interviews, provided a deeper understanding of participants’ perspectives on reflection and its impact on teacher preparation. Theoretical and empirical studies provided the framework for the advantages of using reflective practice. The findings of this study supported the important impact of reflection on pre-service language teacher preparation. Participants described reflective practice as being part of improving their practice in preparing diverse teachers for diverse students given new educational tools, contexts, policies, and practices.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Pang, Chin Hua
(author)
Core Title
Reflective practice and pre-service language teacher preparation
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education (Leadership)
Publication Date
06/20/2017
Defense Date
02/28/2017
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
English language learners,learning English as a foreign language,learning English as a second language,OAI-PMH Harvest,practicum,pre-service teacher education,reflective practices
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Crawford, Jenifer (
committee chair
), Carbone, Paula (
committee member
), Samkian, Artineh (
committee member
)
Creator Email
chinhuap@usc.edu,danielpang0609@gmail.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-388292
Unique identifier
UC11259288
Identifier
etd-PangChinHu-5438.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-388292 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-PangChinHu-5438.pdf
Dmrecord
388292
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Pang, Chin Hua
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
English language learners
learning English as a foreign language
learning English as a second language
practicum
pre-service teacher education
reflective practices