Promoting Structured Reflectivity in Teacher Education: An Innovative Approach

Abstract

Although reflectivity has gained an important place today, it has not been practiced in teacher education programmes successfully. Structured reflectivity can be an attempt to deal with this situation. Therefore, this study aims to investigate to what extent student teachers are able reflect on contextualised lessons used as a structured form of reflection during teaching practice. The contextualised lessons will not only provide student teachers a framework for planning their teaching but also an opportunity to reflect on their practice. The participants were 26 student teachers studying teaching English at university. During the 10-week School Experience phase, they were observed with an inventory form developed by the researchers. They also kept a diary. The findings revealed that student teachers reflected mostly on their practical performances but they failed to reflect on reflection. The diary analysis indicated that student teachers were not able to do critical reflection on the use of contextualisation strategies. Therefore, it is necessary to emphasise the significance of reflection during the teacher education process and create opportunities where the student teachers can reflect on their practices

Keywords

• English language teaching, pre-service teacher education, reflective teaching, contextualisation

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