LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference Proceedings

EX P L O R I N G A N D T R A N S F O R M I N G :A DIALOGUE ON SELF-REFLECTIVE
PRAC TI C E S FO R TE AC HER D EV ELOP M E NT
Rob Moreau & Jackie Suginaga
Critical self-reflection is an example of a transformative process. We can use it toreshape existing knowledge and beliefs, and enhance what we do on a professional andpersonal level. As an application of self-reflective practices, this post-conference reporthas been written as a dialogue. Reflecting together, as we have done, has proved to be a
powerful way for us to develop our individual thinking and open up new perspectives on
critical reflection on our work and working environments. We hope that this dialogue, inturn, will act as a catalyst for change in our own professional development, and serveas an inspiration to our colleagues and our students.
批判的に自己を振り返ることは潜在的な変化の過程である。自分が持っている知識や信条を作り直すため、教師、個人レベルでの考えや実践を高めるために、批判的な自己の振り返りを使うことができる。自己の振り返りを発展させるものとして、この大会後のレポートは対話形式で書かれている。この形式は、著者にとって個人の思考を超え、新たな視点を開くために有効な道具になると考えたからだ。そしてそれが私達
自身が教師として成長するための触媒の役目を果たし、学習者にも同じ効果をもたらすことを期待するものである。

Origins: A Chat in the Teachers College Library, August 2010
Our roundtable presentation at the Realizing Autonomy conference grew out of a poster
presentation we gave at Nakasendo in June 2011, which, in turn, evolved from a chancemeeting in the library at Teachers College, Tokyo a while back. The chat that day went
something like this:
Rob: So, what’s your MA paper on, Jackie?
Jackie: Well, overall, it’s about teacher autonomy in relation to teacher development on aprofessional and also a personal level. I talk about how people like Dick Allwright, Phil Bensonand others maintain that teacher education is most eﬀective when it’s blended with approaches
like reflective practice, action research, and exploratory practice.

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Rob: What are the diﬀerences between these practices?
Jackie: Well, basically, reflective practice requires teachers to critically reflect on therelationship between teaching and learning; action research is studying classroom practices inorder to understand them better or solve particular problems; and exploratory practice iswhere teachers work together with their students to develop their mutual knowledge andunderstanding of learning. You could say that action research focuses more on investigating aproblem, with the end result being an action taken to improve the quality of teaching. Action
research also tends to require a lot more planning and adherence to an academic researchmodel, compared to exploratory practice, which seeks to tackle “puzzles” in the classroom increative and practical ways that involve and benefit learners (Allwright & Hanks, 2009). So
exploratory practice focuses less on the action per se and more on understanding. But bothtypes of research require teachers to engage in reflection, which, in turn, can lead to greater
teaching expertise.
Rob: I see. I wrote about teacher development too. And I also discussed the need for teachers
to focus on self-reflection as a way to continue to grow and develop throughout their careers.
In my paper, I wrote about one goal of teacher education programs being the fostering ofprofessionalism and life-long development in teachers, and about the central role that selfreflection plays in accomplishing this. In teacher training courses, novice teachers usually study
a variety of core subjects, such as second language acquisition, grammar, and phonetics andphonology, among others, which can be extremely useful in developing a knowledge base thatallows teachers to better understand the subject they are teaching. However, this is only one
part of the picture. There must also be a focus on how teachers can adapt this knowledge tobetter suit the needs of their teaching contexts and then continue to refine their understanding
to meet the changing dynamics of their classrooms. With the understanding gained throughself-reflection, teachers can improve their teaching methodology and create more learning
opportunities for students. An added bonus of this is that, in being reflective practitioners
themselves, teachers may become role models for their students, encouraging them to develop
their own reflective practices and find strategies that might help them become more eﬀective
language learners.
Jackie: So, while both of us have looked into reflective practice, I’ve approached it throughaction research and exploratory research as ways to understand and solve problems of learning,whereas you come at it from the point of view of enhancing teachers’ professional
development.

Before the Conference: Reflections on the Planning StageAs the date of the Realizing Autonomy Conference drew nearer, we put our heads together tocome up with issues that interested or puzzled us about critical reflection.
Rob: So, what kind of things did you think about when we started to plan our presentation?
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Jackie: I thought about the constraints and limitations that reflective practitioners have todeal with. From personal experience, many teachers don’t get much opportunity or
encouragement at work to engage in reflection. Professional or personal self-development issomething that tends to occur, for many of us, outside of our teaching jobs. In my case, thisstarted with my MA For others, it may be through involvement with a group like the Learner
Development SIG. So, with little or no guidance or support from our places of work, an initialproblem is knowing where or how to start.
Rob: I agree it can be a pretty overwhelming task. As teachers today seem to be becoming
busier and busier, they might think they really don’t have the time to look critically at theirteaching practice and the context in which they work.
Jackie: And then, on the other hand, some teachers do have the time, but may not have theawareness that what happens in their classrooms could be improved as a result of taking time
for reflection. So a basic aim of our presentation was to highlight that critical self-reflection
requires relatively little time, but can oﬀer substantial rewards.
Rob: I know that we were both excited about sharing the knowledge we had gained fromreading the literature on reflective practice. Let me just read this quote from Brookfield (1995),
which I’ve found very helpful as a way to think about the benefits of reflection:
Reflection becomes critical when it has two distinct purposes. First is to understandhow considerations of power undergird, frame and distort educational processes andinteractions. The second is to question assumptions and practices that seem to makeour teaching lives easier but actually work against our own best long-term interests. (p.
8)
Jackie: That’s a pretty powerful statement. I think that it takes a lot of courage toacknowledge the constraints of power. It’s easier to take for granted the conditions of ourteaching context, for example, an uncongenial arrangement of desks in the classroom or a
restrictive curriculum, rather than questioning and, perhaps, seeking to change them. Similarly,
relating to Brookfield’s second purpose, many of us may feel that questioning our own beliefs iseasier to forego than to face. In fact, if we don’t reflect deeply, it may sometimes be because weare too attached to our beliefs and don’t want to consider the possibility of changing them—even when changing them would clearly be beneficial.
Rob: That’s right. Brookfield, again, gives some good examples of the danger of being too
attached to our own and others’ beliefs. I like his example of how student journals and learning
logs are now all the rage (Brookfield, 1995, p. 13). Because it is such a common practice, ateacher may believe that logs must be beneficial to all their students across the board. But, forsome students who don’t feel they have such interesting lives, writing a journal may become an
activity that just makes them feel even more inadequate, instead of being a positive means to
express themselves in English. This example shows the need for teachers to try to get inside
the heads of their students, and avoid just sticking to “accepted” methods and procedures. I

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feel that digging deeper to understand our practice better is something that can evolve overtime.
Jackie: Yes, becoming a critically reflective practitioner is something that doesn’t happen
overnight. So, I think that we should always remember to question what we are doing with ourlearners and why, and encourage our students to do the same.
At the Conference: Reflections on How the Events Unfurled
On the day of the conference, we looked forward to presenting and discussing these ideas withparticipants. We set the scene with a brief review of the literature on autonomy, teacher
autonomy, critical reflection and how these concepts are interrelated. Then we invited the 12
participants to form groups and brainstorm answers to the following questions: What isreflection? What are the reasons for engaging in reflection, and what are the reasons we often
don’t? How should we go about reflection? When is a good time to reflect? After
brainstorming, the participants made posters of their ideas.
Rob: I like how we staged our roundtable presentation. The participants appeared to share
our enthusiasm for the subject and were very receptive to what we had to share.
Jackie: Yes, that worked well, but I think we both felt that we could have cut down on sometime spent on the review of the literature, so that we could have moved more quickly on to thediscussion.
Rob: You’re right. I also think we were a bit overambitious. But what did you think of theposter-making section?

Figure 1. Poster with ideas about how we should reflect as teachers.
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Figure 2. Poster with ideas about when we should reflect as teachers.

Figure 3. Poster with ideas about how we should reflect as teachers.

Jackie: When I had a look at the video of the presentation, I could see that the postermaking session was a productive activity and everyone was engaged in animated conversations
about their reflection topic. Of course, we did have a number of distinguished participants,
which definitely helped.
Rob: Many of the comments on the posters were very intriguing, and some touched a personalnote concerning certain limitations in the way I reflect now. For example, one of the posters(Figure 1) simply stated, “Comments later don’t make sense.” I recalled how many of theSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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jottings in my notebooks fit that description perfectly. This has encouraged me to try to be
more systematic about my reflections to avoid such random jottings in the future. I also
thought the poster that depicted reflection as a cycle of moments before, during, and after
teaching was eﬀective (Figure 2) because it tied in with Schön’s (1987) ideas of reflecting-inaction and reflecting-on-action. That’s to say, thinking on your feet and reflecting on thesedecisions afterwards can be an important part of teacher development. It’s good to remind
yourself that reflection is a process, and not just a point in time. What did you discover, Jackie?
Jackie: The comments “Don’t fill the vacuum” (Figure 3) and “detachment” (Figure 1) hit home
especially for me. Personally, I feel that these two concepts are always wrestling with eachother. When I set aside time for reflection and try to detach myself to see the bigger picture, I
find that the pressures of time and the desire to do other things (making materials, researching
the literature, etc.) are pulling me in the other direction. This, I have realized, is to someextent a time-management issue. Also, I feel that I need to be mindful of how I spend my timeand cultivate new habits of reflection without turning that practice into a mechanical routine.
I think one way I can do this is to remind myself of the immense benefits reflection could
bring to both my students and myself.
Rob: The posters and discussion were really the highlight of the session, but I’m glad we got to
fit a survey into the final few minutes (see Appendix A). We got a lot of interesting comments,
didn’t we?
Jackie: We certainly did. Both the survey and the round table discussions reinforced mysuspicions that, although we are well aware of the need to reflect, many of us fail to do so for anumber of reasons. I’ll just review what some of the participants said. Perhaps not surprisingly,
everyone who attended the session said that they do reflect on their teaching. On a scale of 1
to 5, ten people wrote 5, that it was very important to engage in self-reflection, and two people
wrote 4. However, although most participants said they engage in reflection, when asked “whatfactors might keep you from reflecting on your teaching?” one person stated they “have no one
to reflect with”, while another commented they “don’t see the value in it”. Moreover, twopeople wrote that they have “work overload” and seven people said that they “don’t have time”
to reflect. This suggests that we need to find creative ways to tackle these obstacles that,
despite our best intentions, prevent us from engaging in self-reflection. I understand that thismay be easier said than done, but feel that if we don’t make the time to detach and reflect fromtime to time in both a professional and personal capacity, we are going to miss out on
opportunities for discovery and development.
Rob: I was thinking about this a bit, Jackie, and there are lots of ways that teachers can tackle
the problem of being busy and having a limited amount of time to reflect. Like many people, I
find that discussing various teaching issues at lunchtime or during breaks at work has beenreally rewarding.
Jackie: That’s a good point, which relates to the answers we received from another question
we asked: “What form of self-reflection do you engage in?” Most people replied that theySpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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engaged in peer discussions or journal writing. I personally prefer dialogue to written journalreflections, as the objective voice of a peer can really help push the boundaries of my own
perspectives. Also, these kinds of reflective discoveries can emerge from a spontaneousconversation or a preplanned meeting with a colleague or peer. At my university, my colleagues
and I have decided to invite full- and part-time English teachers from the International
Culture Department to take part in bimonthly, informal meetings where we can reflect on our
teaching and exchange ideas about our practice.
Rob: Yes, monthly or regular get-togethers would be a good place to have reflective discussions
with our peers. One thing we didn’t really have time for in the session was the booklet that we
had prepared (Appendix B, downloadable at http://ld-sig.org/LL/19two/moreau-suginagaAppendixB.pdf).
Jackie: Yes, it was too bad that we didn’t manage to get feedback from the participants. The
booklet was a tool that we developed from our own struggles to get started with self-reflection.
For example, when I first started writing journals, I felt, after a while, that I was just writing
for the sake of it. I never really looked at the reflections again and it became another thing on
my to-do list rather than a productive exercise. So I had to rethink this process and realizedthat I needed more guidance in what to reflect on and how to do it critically. This was one
reason why we made the booklet, wasn’t it, Rob? Our aim was to give teachers something towork with and adapt to their teaching contexts based on materials we have created ourselves
and adapted from the literature.
Rob: Yes, in preparing the booklet, I could also see the benefits of the various approaches forkeeping track of reflections.
Jackie: We included some worksheets like Planning for the Classroom, so teachers can reflecton questions relating to lesson planning. There’s also a worksheet with a list of issues inteaching, including error correction, homework, testing, and so on, so that teachers can write
about their current beliefs. It’s only by becoming more aware of our beliefs that we can start totransform them gradually. Then a couple of worksheets focus on student reflections. On one,teachers can write general observations about their students while the other is a student
feedback form, where students can list all the class activities and make notes about what theylearned, didn’t understand, or want to know more about.
Rob: Actually, I personally felt that the booklet contained too much information. For my own
use, I would take only the key points of what we put together and create an A4-sized reflection
template that could be used on a daily basis without taking up so much time. The small items
of information that I could collect over a period of time may allow me to create a fairly
detailed picture of my teaching and having this information recorded in a consistent fashion
might take the randomness out of my current notebook-based approach. I guess that was thepoint of the reflection-materials handout anyway—to adapt the ideas to best suit our needs.

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Jackie: So, when we revise the booklet for our next conference, we could think about theorganization. It might be good to separate the materials for teachers and students, and maybe
add some examples of reflections from our students, and some personal perspectives fromteachers who have used or adapted their own reflective materials.

From Reflection to Action
With the conference behind us, it’s back to business as usual in our classes. So what were themost significant things we learned from reflecting on our session, and, more importantly, howwill this change our own practice?
Rob: Well, we talked about the problem of having too little time in which to present all of thethings we wanted to at the conference, but I think that, at the end of the day, the presentation
provided an opportunity for people to talk about reflection and get excited about it. As a next
step, it would be good to do a workshop where we could create a space to get people’s feedback
based on the worksheet activities and how these could be adapted more specifically to various
teaching contexts. The opportunity would be there for us to talk about some of the techniquesand methods that we have developed in our own practices as a result of the reflection we’ve
done before, during, and since the Realizing Autonomy Conference.
Jackie: That sounds good. We could also talk about some of the assumptions that we havequestioned in relation to our practice. For example, I would like to review my assumption thatgroup work is always the best way for all students. I think some less extroverted students
might be more productive if they engaged less in group work. I have many other ideas toexplore. And I agree that our next workshop should move beyond highlighting the long-term
benefits of critical reflection, and give people an opportunity to explore some practical ways toincorporate critical reflection into their individual contexts.
Rob: One final thing I’d like to mention is that doing the presentation really reinforced, forme, the idea that we don’t have to be in search of any one specific method of reflection. The
most important thing is to develop what works for us individually at the time and then adapt it
as the need arises. It seems to me that, as we develop as teachers, we need to constantly
reevaluate the ways that we look at our practice. Sharing thoughts with our participantsbrought home the fact that reflection on teaching is a complex activity. It is important to keep
trying new ways of delving into our individual practices and our individual belief systems. Any
final thoughts, Jackie?
Jackie: Well, Rob, I think that in teaching, and in life in general, it’s good to stop and take alook around; otherwise, we might miss out on something important. In both our professional
and personal lives, critical self-reflection is a transferable skill that can be used to help us gain abetter understanding of any experience. We’re always reshaping existing knowledge and beliefs
to become better teachers and also better people. Our lives as teachers are often very

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demanding, so in order for us be able to tackle challenges and deal with constraints, we need tobe ready and equipped not just professionally but in a holistic sense, as human beings.

Robert Moreau teaches at International Christian University High School and The University ofElectro-Communications. His research interests include genre-based instruction, teacher self-reflection, andteacher and learner autonomy.
Jackie Suginaga is a fu"-time lecturer at Komazawa Women’s University and a graduate #om
Columbia Teachers Co"ege, Tokyo. Her research interests include learner and teacher autonomy, criticalreflection, and learner aﬀect.
To cite this article: Moreau, R., & Suginaga, J. (2012). Exploring and transforming: A dialogue on self-reflective
practices for teacher development. In K. Irie & A. Stewart (Eds.), Proceedings of the JALT Learner Development
SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference, [Special issue] Learning Learning, 19(2), 60-69. Retrieved from http://ldsig.org/LL/19two/moreau-suginaga.pdf

References
Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language
teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7, 113-141.
Allwright, D., & Hanks, J. (2009). The developing language learner: An introduction to exploratory
practice. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan.
Benson, P. (2011). Teaching and researching autonomy. Harlow, U.K.: Pearson.
Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critica"y reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley andSons.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Intrinsic motivation and eﬀective teaching. In J. L. Bess (Ed.),
Teaching we" and liking it: Motivating faculty to teach eﬀectively (pp. 72-89). Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Graves, N., & Vye, S. (2006). Professionalism is personal: How teachers in Japan help
themselves through development of self-reflection practices. In M. Kohyama & E. M.
Skier (Eds.), More autonomy you ask! (pp. 155-173). Tokyo, Japan: Learner Development
Special Interest Group of the Japan Association of Language Teachers.
Murphey, T. (1993). Why don’t teachers learn what learners learn? Taking the guesswork out
with action logging. English Teaching Forum, 31 (1) 6-10.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Appendix A
SurveyExploring and Transforming:
Self-Reflective Practices for Teacher Development
Jackie Suginaga and Robert Moreau

Please help us out by doing this quick survey! Thanks!!
1. Where do you teach?
University
High school
Junior High school
Elementary school
Kindergarten
Special needs
Conversation School
Other
2. How long have you been teaching?
0-1
1-2
2-5
5-10
10-15
15 plus
3. Do you reflect on your teaching?
No
Yes
Not sure

4. Reflecting on teaching helps teachers in theirdevelopment. To what extent do you agree withthis?

6. When do you reflect on your teaching?
After a lesson
Before a lesson
During a lesson
Once a week
At the end of the term
At the end of the year
All of the above
Other

7. What form of self-reflection do you engage in?
Journal writing
Post lesson reports
Voice recordings
Peer discussion
Observation
Video recordings
Other _________________________________

8. What is your gender?
FemaleMale

9. Do you believe that our personal life and what we
do in outside teaching hours is related to our0---------------------------------------------------------------- teaching?
No – why5
Not important
Very Important

5. What factors might keep you from reflecting on
your teaching?
Yes - howI don’t have time
I don’t see the value in it
I’m not sure how to
I am an experienced teacher and don’t need too
Other _____________________________
10. OPTIONAL - If you have any comments on the topic of reflection to aid teacher development,
please write in the space below.
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