Focus of reflection

As proposed by researchers (e.g. Ur 1999; Zeichner and Liston 1996; Stenhouse 1975), some of the characteristics of an effective reflective teacher are related to the constant enquiry of their teaching practice, which may involve the analysis of everything happening in and outside the classroom. Given that I would carry out this study with students who were being educated to become English teachers, and their possible concerns while reflecting would be the various aspects of the teaching practice (as I had observed in previous years of working with them), I include in this section a brief review of what the literature indicates are the aspects on which we typically base our reflection.

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According to Ur (1999), the basis for professional progress is teachers’ own reflection on daily classroom events such as classroom management. Valli (1993:14) supports the idea when referring mainly to PSTs and novice teachers: ‘Given the difficulties beginning teachers have with discipline and classroom disorder, this focus on the teaching-learning process is not surprising’. In the same vein, the results of a study conducted by Lee and Loughran (2000) with PSTs immersed in a school-based teaching programme in Australia show that student teachers begin focusing their reflection on specific concerns that arise when doing their practices. These concerns varied throughout Lee and Loughran’s study, but are mainly focused on the following themes they classify: teachers, students, content, context, pedagogy, classroom management, and assessment. According to the results, even though PSTs reflected on all the topics, they focused their reflection mainly on students, pedagogy and classroom management, displaying greater concern for these themes from the beginning to the end of the study. The themes that received less concern were the content and context of the instruction.

Similar to the aspects classified by Lee and Loughran (2000), Zeichner and Liston (1996) identify what they call traditions of RP in order to exemplify the various aspects on which teachers might focus their reflection. These traditions are more specific than the categories exposed by Lee and Loughran (2000) and each one focuses on different aspects of teaching expertise. According to Zeichner and Liston, ‘good teaching needs to attend to all of the elements that are highlighted by the various traditions: the representation of subject matter, student thinking and understanding, research-based teaching strategies, and the social context of teaching’ (1996:52). The five traditions identified by Zeichner and Liston (1996:51– 62) are:

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1. Academic tradition: stresses reflection on subject matter and the representation and translation of that subject matter to promote students’ understanding.

2. Social efficiency tradition: highlights the thoughtful application of teaching strategies according to previous research. Takes advantage of research and teachers’ experience, intuition, and their own values.

3. Developmentalist tradition: emphasises reflection about students, their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, thinking, and understanding, their interests, and their developmental readiness for particular tasks.

4. Social reconstructionist tradition: teaching recognises that instruction is embedded within institutional, cultural, and political contexts and that these contexts affect what we do and are affected by what we do.

5. Generic tradition: encourages teachers to reflect about their teaching in general, without much attention to how teachers reflect, what the reflection is about, or the degree to which the teachers’ reflection should involve an examination of the social and institutional contexts in which they work.

In the description of each tradition, the elements on which teachers should base their reflection are related to all the areas involved in the teaching (and learning) process: the subject matter to promote effective learning, the use of strategies according to research findings, students’ culture, background and individual interests and differences, and the context, among other aspects. Interestingly, Zeichner and Liston’s (1996) second tradition puts special emphasis on reflecting on research-based use of teaching strategies. Zeichner and Liston (1996), Moore (2012), and Edge (2002b) all recognise that teachers’ practices are influenced in many ways by their practical theories. This theory-practice relationship has been acknowledged by Handal and Lauvas (1987, cited in Zeichner and Liston 1996)

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who state that teaching that includes reflection, and which integrates teachers’ practical theories with their actual daily action, is necessary. Handal and Lauvas (1987, cited in Zeichner and Liston 1996:38–39) propose that the relation between theory and practice should be reflected before, during, and after the lesson. This reflection will allow teachers to relate what they do to what theory states; it will enable them to question the activities they are about to do with their students, how those activities work or worked (reflection in and on action), the moral and ethical basis of their actions, and how they contribute to a caring classroom environment or to the enhancement of equity and justice.

According to Moore (2012), the reflective teacher, like the reflective learner or PST, may analyse his or her own classroom behaviour, not simply by asking him-/herself about what he or she did correctly or incorrectly, or about what worked well or did not, but also about more important and useful questions such as: why things went wrong or right, how his or her current experiences of life and work influenced behaviour in a particular way, and what was the impact on students and the context of his or her decisions or actions. ‘Such questions are reminiscent of three “clusters of reflective activity” singled out by Boud et al. (1985) as being potentially productive in the reflective process: that is to say: returning to experience, attending to feelings, re-evaluating experience’ (Moore 2012:125).

Up to this point I have discussed what reflection is, the qualities of good reflective practitioners (which position them as critical reflective teachers), and what the focus of reflection might be. The question is not only on what to reflect, or its qualities, but also what it means to achieve high levels of reflection.

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