Reflective Teaching

Reflective teaching in English Language Teaching (ELT) involves teachers

critically examining their own teaching practices, beliefs, and assumptions to
improve their instruction and student outcomes. It's a continuous process of
self-observation and evaluation before, during, and after teaching.
What is Reflective Teaching?
 Self-Analysis:
Reflective teaching is about teachers looking at their own teaching
methods, strategies, and results to identify strengths and areas for
improvement.
 Critical Evaluation:
It involves critically evaluating teaching actions, considering what worked
and why, and why certain strategies might not have been effective.
 Continuous Improvement:
The goal is to continuously improve teaching practices and enhance
student learning outcomes.
 Before, During, and After:
Reflection can happen before planning a lesson, during the lesson as it
unfolds, and after the lesson to analyze what happened.

Why is Reflective Teaching Important in ELT?

 Improved Instruction:
By reflecting on their teaching, ELT teachers can identify areas where
their instruction can be made more effective.
 Enhanced Student Learning:
Better teaching leads to better student outcomes and engagement.
 Professional Development:
Reflective practice is a key component of professional development for
teachers, allowing them to grow and become more effective.
 Understanding Student Needs:

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 Reflection helps teachers understand their students' needs, learning
styles, and challenges, allowing them to tailor their instruction
accordingly.

How to Engage in Reflective Teaching

 Use Reflection Tools: Employ tools like reflective journals, exit slips,
teacher reflection surveys, or videotaping your teaching.
 Seek Feedback: Ask for feedback from colleagues, students, or
supervisors.
 Consider Different Perspectives: Think about how students see the
learning process, and how your teaching methods might be perceived
by them.
 Reflect on Your Beliefs: Examine your underlying beliefs about
teaching and learning, and how they might influence your practice.
 The 5R framework: Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, and
Reconstructing to make sense of a learning experience.
 Reflection-in-action: Taking place in the classroom.
 Reflection-on-action: Looking back at what you've done.
 Reflection-for-action: Using reflection to inform future planning.

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Reflective teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice
Julie Tice, Teacher, Trainer, Writer, British Council Lisbon

Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking

about why you do it, and thinking about if it works - a process of self-
observation and self-evaluation.

By collecting information about what goes on in our classroom, and by

analysing and evaluating this information, we identify and explore our own
practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes and
improvements in our teaching.

Reflective teaching is therefore a means of professional development which

begins in our classroom.

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  Why it is important
 Beginning the process of reflection
o Teacher diary

o Peer observation

o Recording lessons

o Student feedback

 What to do next
o Think

o Talk

o Read

o Ask
 Conclusion

Why it is important
Many teachers already think about their teaching and talk to colleagues about
it too. You might think or tell someone that "My lesson went well" or "My
students didn't seem to understand" or "My students were so badly behaved
today."

However, without more time spent focusing on or discussing what has

happened, we may tend to jump to conclusions about why things are
happening. We may only notice reactions of the louder students. Reflective
teaching therefore implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording
and analysing our thoughts and observations, as well as those of our
students, and then going on to making changes.

 If a lesson went well, we can describe it and think about why it was
successful.
 If the students didn't understand a language point, we introduced we

need to think about what we did and why it may have been unclear.
 If students are misbehaving - what were they doing, when and why?

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Beginning the Process of Reflection
You may begin a process of reflection in response to a particular problem that
has arisen with one or your classes, or simply as a way of finding out more
about your teaching. You may decide to focus on a particular class of
students, or to look at a feature of your teaching - for example how you deal
with incidents of misbehaviour or how you can encourage your students to
speak more English in class.

The first step is to gather information about what happens in the class. Here
are some different ways of doing this.

Teacher diary
This is the easiest way to begin a process of reflection since it is purely
personal. After each lesson you write in a notebook about what happened.
You may also describe your own reactions and feelings and those you
observed on the part of the students. You are likely to begin to pose questions
about what you have observed. Diary writing does require a certain discipline
in taking the time to do it on a regular basis.

Here are some suggestions for areas to focus on to help you start your diary.

Peer observation
Invite a colleague to come into your class to collect information about your
lesson. This may be with a simple observation task or through note taking.
This will relate back to the area you have identified to reflect upon. For
example, you might ask your colleague to focus on which students contribute
most in the lesson, what different patterns of interaction occur or how you deal
with errors.

Recording lessons
Video or audio recordings of lessons can provide very useful information for
reflection. You may do things in class you are not aware of or there may be
things happening in the class that as the teacher you do not normally see.

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  Audio recordings can be useful for considering aspects of teacher talk.
o How much do you talk?

o What about?

o Are instructions and explanations clear?

o How much time do you allocate to student talk?

o How do you respond to student talk?

 Video recordings can be useful in showing you aspects of your own

behaviour.
o Where do you stand?

o Who do you speak to?

o How do you come across to the students?

Student feedback
You can also ask your students what they think about what goes on in the
classroom. Their opinions and perceptions can add a different and valuable
perspective. This can be done with simple questionnaires or learning diaries
for example.

What to do next
Once you have some information recorded about what goes on in your
classroom, what do you do?

 Think

You may have noticed patterns occurring in your teaching through

your observation. You may also have noticed things that you were
previously unaware of. You may have been surprised by some of your
students' feedback. You may already have ideas for changes to
implement.
 Talk

Just by talking about what you have discovered - to a supportive

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 colleague or even a friend - you may be able to come up with some
ideas for how to do things differently.
o If you have colleagues who also wish to develop their teaching

using reflection as a tool, you can meet to discuss issues.

Discussion can be based around scenarios from your own
classes.
o Using a list of statements about teaching beliefs (for example,

pairwork is a valuable activity in the language class or lexis is

more important than grammar) you can discuss which ones you
agree or disagree with, and which ones are reflected in your
own teaching giving evidence from your self-observation.
 Read

You may decide that you need to find out more about a certain area.
There are plenty of websites for teachers of English now where you
can find useful teaching ideas, or more academic articles. There are
also magazines for teachers where you can find articles on a wide
range of topics. Or if you have access to a library or bookshop, there
are plenty of books for English language teachers.
 Ask

Pose questions to websites or magazines to get ideas from other

teachers. Or if you have a local teachers' association or other
opportunities for in-service training, ask for a session on an area that
interests you.

Conclusion
Reflective teaching is a cyclical process, because once you start to implement
changes, then the reflective and evaluative cycle begins again.

 What are you doing?

 Why are you doing it?

 How effective is it?

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  How are the students responding?
 How can you do it better?

As a result of your reflection, you may decide to do something in a different

way, or you may just decide that what you are doing is the best way. And that
is what professional development is all about.

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