Reflective Practice in English Language Teaching

Research-Based Principles and Practices

Steve Mann, Steve Walsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317557838
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: English Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Offering a unique, data-led, evidence-based approach to reflective practice in English language teaching, this book brings together theory, research and practice in an accessible way to demonstrate what reflective practice looks like and how it is undertaken in a range of contexts. Readers learn how to do and to research reflective practice in their own settings. Through the use of data, dialogue and appropriate tools, the authors show how reflective practice can be used as an ongoing teaching tool that supports professional self-development.

1
Reflective Practice Reviewed

1.1 Introduction

This book is about the value and importance of reflective practice. Reflection and reflective practice continue to have a central position in professional education. As Grayling argues ‘the best thing any education can bequeath is the habit of reflection and questioning’ (2003: 179). The importance of reflective practice has been established; it is widespread and a ubiquitous part of the teacher education landscape. However, we believe that our book adds something distinctive and original to discussions and debates around reflective practice. The book highlights the importance of data and evidence with regard to reflective practice. This is important in two ways. First, we want to highlight the role data and evidence play in triggering and fostering reflection. Second, we want to demonstrate what reflection looks like in practice, by using data and evidence to show reflection actually happening. In addition, we want to give a platform to a range of voices, insights and opinions. In order to do this, we integrate data and viewpoints from a range of teachers and trainers about the nature and importance of reflective practice. According to Dewey (1933: 8) ‘reflection is something that is believed in, not on its own account, but through something else which stands as evidence’. This is our starting point. What is helpful as evidence or data to sustain reflection? What tools or procedures are useful for teachers in fostering and supporting reflection through the gathering of evidence and data?

In what follows we briefly review the early work of Dewey (1933) and then Schön (1983), and connect this to more recent work (e.g. Farrell, 2004). In addition to offering a theoretical perspective of the field, we show how these positions have resulted in a range of models, practices and tools for implementing reflective practice. Chapter 1 aims to provide an overview of the origins of reflective practice (RP) and trace its developments over time. In providing a review of the conceptualization and operationalization of reflection, we establish that there is a great variety in its treatment (e.g. El-Dib, 2007; Farrell, 2004). In addition, we consider the value of alternative ways of depicting RP, including a number of frameworks (e.g. Stanley, 1998), levels (El-Dib, 2007), typologies (e.g. Jay and Johnson, 2002) and phases (e.g. Zeichner and Liston, 1996). Our summary and discussion of different critiques of RP in 1.4 provide us with the backdrop to the critical perspective we are taking on RP.

One of the central aims of Chapter 1 is to provide a critical review of reflective practice, drawing attention to particular problems with its representation, as well as proposing a more evidence-based and data-led approach. We reconsider some of the arguments made in Mann and Walsh (2013) that RP in the fields of applied linguistics, TESOL and education has achieved a status of orthodoxy without a corresponding evidence-led description of its value, processes and impact. Our concern is that RP is often described in ways that are elusive, general and vague, which may not be particularly helpful for practitioners. This is largely due to the lack of concrete, data-led and linguistic detail of RP in practice and to its institutional nature, lack of specificity, and reliance on written forms. However, there are a growing number of data-led accounts of reflective practice (see Farrell, 2016) and we hope this book will add to this literature in demonstrating how reflective practice can be and needs to be operationalized in systematic ways (Korthagen and Wubbels, 1995).

This chapter argues that applied linguistics needs to champion a description of RP’s processes and impact by drawing on data-led accounts of reflective practice across a range of contexts. Too many RP accounts rely on general summaries and so are not critical, transparent or usable by other practitioners. Such accounts do not engage with data or evidence from teachers or teacher education practitioners. Our aim in this book is to share examples of ‘reflection-in-action’ through the data and vignettes in order for the nature and value of reflective practice to be better understood. We propose here that RP needs to be rebalanced, away from a reliance on written forms and taking more account of spoken, collaborative forms of reflection; in sum, we argue for a more dialogic, data-led and collaborative approach to reflective practice.

In Mann and Walsh (2013) we argued that while RP has considerable merit in professional education, it is:

• dominated by models and writing ‘about’ reflection and lacks precision about ‘how to’

• not sufficiently data-led

• too often presented as an individual process and fails to foreground collaboration, how it can be scaffolded, or how it might result from participation in a community of practice

• dominated by written forms of reflection at the expense of potentially more beneficial spoken forms

• dogged by inconsistencies and concerns about whether assessment of reflection is desirable

• faced with issues about the nature and variety of reflective tools

• undermined by professional educators who do not always practise what they preach.

In the first part of this chapter, we trace the origins and developments of RP as a means of providing a context for the critical position we are adopting. In subsequent sections, we offer an overview of the theoretical underpinnings and approaches to RP, before returning to the seven problems listed above. In the final section of the chapter, we provide a critical perspective of RP as the backdrop to Chapter 2 that explains how we consider RP should be revitalized.

1.2 Origins and Developments

A number of theorists (in particular Dewey, Schön and Kolb) have been influential in the development of the concept of reflection. Dewey is widely credited for turning attention to the importance of experiential learning and reflective thought as the ‘sole method of escape from the purely impulsive or purely routine action’ (1933: 15). He provided the impetus for establishing the notion that teachers need to be reflective. He argued that teachers should not be passive recipients of knowledge but should play an active role in materials design and curriculum reform and innovation (Dewey, 1933). His concerns focus principally on the relationship between experience, interaction and reflection. It could be argued that the key messages of this chapter (albeit with a linguistic twist) are consistent with Dewey’s original formulations of reflection. In particular, our position has resonance with Dewey’s concerns about linear models of thinking misrepresenting the nature of reflection. Reflection is a highly complex process in which thinking, interaction, knowledge and learning have a reflexive relationship (see Semetsky, 2008).

Dewey’s work in teacher education, emphasizing a pragmatic and scientific rationality, is widely held to be instrumental in establishing reflection as a driver for moving away from routinization (e.g. Osterman and Kottkamp, 2004) and encouraging active and ongoing consideration of beliefs and possible action. Dewey’s contribution (1933), followed by others such as Habermas (1972), Stenhouse (1975), van Manen (1977), Schön (1983) and Kolb (1984), consolidated the notion of reflection in relation to action, even though this is not always an easy process. In many ways the process can be ‘troublesome’ because it involves ‘overcoming the inertia that inclines one to accept suggestions at their face value’. It can involve reconsidering beliefs and practices and can involve willingness to ‘endure a condition of mental unrest and disturbance’ (Dewey, 1933: 13).

Dewey drew attention to particular values (open-mindedness, responsibility and whole-heartedness) that are pre-requisites for successful reflection. Farrell confirms the continuing importance of these qualities (Farrell, 2008) and they continue to be important in recent research on reflective practice (e.g. Dzay Chulim, 2015). Open-mindedness is a desire to listen to more than one side of an issue, fully embrace, and give attention to alternative options. Responsibility involves the disposition to carefully consider the consequences of actions and willingness to accept those consequences, and whole-heartedness ‘implies that teachers can overcome fears and doubts to critically evaluate their practice in order to make meaningful change’ (Farrell, 2008: 1).

Although it is important to recognize the enduring influence of Dewey, it is certainly possible to trace reflection in education back to Descartes (rationality) and further back to Plato and Socrates. The works of Kant and Wittgenstein (see Cornford, 2002) have also been key contributions in the way reflection is seen as fundamental to individual education and personal growth. We do not intend to provide a comprehensive history here, but in the chapters that follow we will return to some of these philosophic positions in considering ways that reflection is defined and positioned.

For us, Dewey is particularly influential and we would recommend reading some of his initial formulations (1933). Dewey’s notions of continuously challenging and re-visiting current educational practices provide both the impetus and spirit of this book and our work on reflective practice to date (e.g. Mann and Walsh, 2013; Walsh and Mann, 2015). Partly because of the value put on autonomy and reflection by Dewey and his followers, there has been a general trend away from the notion of teacher training towards one of teacher education. This is often characterized as a movement from transmission to constructivism. The emphasis of second language teacher education, as distinct from second language teacher training (Richards and Nunan, 1990; Wallace, 1991), means that the focus of attention is much more on the realization that teachers need to develop themselves and that this is a life-time CPD (continuing professional development) process. Mann (2005: 8–9) provides a detailed consideration of the terms ‘education’, ‘development’ and ‘training’. Here, we simply recognize the possible negative connotations of the term ‘training’ (leading to greater adoption of the term ‘teacher preparation’) but we consider that some skills, tools and strategies can be trained, and indeed in Chapters 3 and 4 we consider specific ways in which reflective practice might be modelled and demonstrated.

There is clearly more to teacher preparation than skills training; teachers need to be equipped with the tools that will enable them to find out about their own classrooms and make adjustments (Bartlett, 1990). In short, it is helpful for teachers to be able to adapt their role from teacher to that of teacher-researcher, a logical extension of what Wallace (1991: 8) terms ‘the applied science model’ of teacher education, first proposed by the American sociologist Schön (1983, 1987). Dewey’s ideas were further developed by Schön, who argued for the importance of teachers as ‘reflective practitioners’ (1983: 332). Schön argued that teachers could come to new understandings of their professional practice through processes of reflection and reframing. The influence of Schön’s ideas is clear in the way reflection has developed within teacher education (e.g. Stanley, 1998; Zeichner and Liston, 1996; Farrell, 2004). In particular, Schön put forward a model of ‘reflection-in-action’, according to which teachers are involved in critical thought, questioning and re-appraising their actions (1983). Habermas (1972) was also influential in the development of Schön’s arguments for a critical/reflective form of reasoning (based on a fundamental mode of enquiry in social sciences). Habermas and Schön are also important in the development of more ‘critical’ forms of reflection.

Schön was particularly influential in distinguishing between reflection-in-action and ‘reflection-on-action’. Reflection-in-action is synchronous with the professional act (thinking on your feet) and reflection-on-action is asynchronous (a reflection after the professional action or incident). Killion and Todnem (1991) added ‘reflection-for-action’, which is prospective and identifies steps or guidelines to follow to succeed in a given task in the future. ‘For-action’ pushes the process in more sustained and systematic directions and so overlaps with notions of research (e.g. action research, exploratory practice) and we return to this aspect of RP in Chapter 9.

Reflecting on past actions is an endeavour that increases understanding of the teaching/learning process (Wallace, 1998). Competencies are acquired by participants who have an active role in their own development, which in turn is based on two types of knowledge: received knowledge and experiential knowledge. Received knowledge is ‘the intellectual content of the profession’ (Wallace, 1991:...