Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Teacher Development as Reflective Practitioners
Takako Machimura

Graduate School of Education, Chiba University
takako523machi@gmail.com

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to explain the manner in which novice English teachers develop their cognition
and action such as teaching styles through reflection. Korthagen (2001) defined reflection as the mental
process of trying to structure an experience, a problem, or existing knowledge or insight.
The study was conducted based on the results of a pilot study. The participants were novice English
teachers from a junior high school. This study was based on the ALACT model (Action, Looking back on theaction, Awareness of essential aspects, Creating Alternative methods of action, and Trial). In order to observe
the development of the teachers’ cognition and action, two forms of reflection―a teaching journal and areflective dialogue―were used. The teaching journal, which was maintained by each teacher provided
teachers with a written record and allowed them to reflect on their thoughts about teaching. A reflective
dialogue between a novice English teacher and a researcher was conducted to share the contents of theteaching journal. The results show that reflection through the use of a teaching journal and a reflective
dialogue encourages teachers to improve their teacher cognition and action.

1Introduction

Over the past few decades, a considerable number of studies on reflection have been done in teacher
education. Although these studies have been important, it was not made clear how a teacher develops
through reflection. Therefore, the current study focused on the cyclical process of practice and reflection.

2

Literature review

Schön (1983) proposed a theory of reflective practice in order to train teachers to be reflective practitioners.
He claimed that a practitioner could uncover and analyze the tacit understandings that grow up around therepetitive experiences of a specialized practice and make new sense of the uncertain or unique situations thathe/she experiences through reflection.

3

Pilot study

A pilot study was conducted using a web questionnaire, which is a public domain tool available through
Google Docs, to determine what kind of problems novice Japanese teachers of English experience inorganizing and teaching junior and high school classes. Once the form was created, the author obtained aURL that respondents could use to access the questionnaire. The URL was sent to the participants via email.
After they finished the questionnaire, the data was automatically collected and sent to the author.
The participants were junior and high school teachers of English and were randomly chosen. It wasconducted in the native language of the participants. The questionnaire items were as follows:
1. Gender
2. How long have you been working as a teacher of English?
3. What grade do you teach?
4. What kind of problems do you have teaching English?
5. With whom do you discuss the problem in order to solve it?
6. What makes you choose the person?
Responses from 17 English teachers were collected. The descriptions from teachers who had beenteaching a minimum of three years were observed about difficulties that both they and their34

Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
students have experienced; however, inexperienced teachers only answered their English ability andexplored their teaching style. This study focused on inexperienced teachers. It is necessary to examine inmore detail how novice teachers encounter and recognize problems in the classroom.

4Aim of study

The purpose of this study is to clarify the manner in which novice English teachers develop their cognition
and action such as teaching skills and style through two types of reflection.

5Methodology

5.1
Participants
The participants were two novice English teachers in the same public junior high school. One participant wasfemale, and one participant was male. The male participant was teaching eighth-grade students. The female
participant was teaching seventh-grade students and was working with an assistant language teacher(hereinafter, ALT).
5.2
ProceduresThis study was based on Korthagen's ALACT model. Korthagen (1985) developed this model, which
includes five phases of the ideal process of experiential learning that alternates between action and reflection(see Figure 1).
An interview regarding teaching plans was conducted with the novice English teachers before teaching
their class on a particular day, and then the researcher observed their class. After the class, the two teachers
wrote in their teaching journal, and a reflective dialogue was provided. This procedure was repeated fivetimes from June to July of 2013. Both methods were conducted in the native language of the participants.

Figure 1: The ALACT model
5.3
Methods of Reflection
5.3.1
Teaching journal
The teaching journal, which was maintained by each teacher, provided teachers with a written record andallowed them to reflect on their thoughts about teaching. The contents of the teaching journal were as follows.
This format was based on Barfield (2003) and Farrell (2007).
1. What did I do in the class?
2. How do I feel about what I did in today's class?
3. What was/ was not successful?
4. How can I change?
5.3.2
A reflective dialogue
A reflective dialogue between a novice English teacher and a researcher was conducted to share the contents
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Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguisticsof the teaching journal. Schön (1987) created “the ladder of reflection,” which is a model of a reflective
dialogue between a supervisor and a student. He categorized the rungs of the ladder of reflection in thefollowing way:
1. Designing.
2. Description of designing.
3. Reflection on description of designing.
4. Reflection on reflection on description.
A reflective dialogue between a researcher and a teacher was promoted through going up and down the rungsof the ladder of reflection.
5.4
Analysis
Text mining and an analysis of written data were conducted for each teaching journal using IBM SPSS Text
Analytics for Surveys (see Figure 2). Text mining enabled the discovery of new or unexpected ideas andprovided a common framework for the analysis of the participants’ reflections as follows:
1. The teaching journal and description of the interview data were analyzed as text data.
2. Categories were created based on frequency, synonyms, and word co-occurrence, and necessary lexicalinformation was interpreted using statistical data mining.
3. Additional information was extracted from the sensitivity analysis and the text mining of existing data.

Figure 2: The flowchart of the analysis of the teaching journal.
Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it in useable form.
It allows researchers to analyze different data dimensions and categorize and summarize the relationships
among extracted categories as identified. Sensitivity analysis is a method of predicting the outcome of adecision when the situation outcome is different from the key outcome predictions. Text mining is thecomputerized discovery of new, previously unknown information by automatically extracting informationfrom different written resources.

6Results and Discussion

6.1(1) What did I do in the class?
This is the first result from the teaching journal (see Figure 3). The word co-occurrence of “song” was suchas song & greeting & introduction & oral. In the cases of “phonics” and “greeting”, each of the word
co-occurrence was phonics such as phonics & song & greeting & introduction & oral and greeting likegreeting & introduction & oral. The categories of “greeting 2”, “review 2”, and “song 2” were indicated in
the teaching contents from a male teacher.

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Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
Bar chart

Cate gorie s
songphonics
gre e tingre view
oralintroduction
gree ting 2
revie w 2
song 2
sile nt
Numbe r of time s

3

5

Pe rce ntage s
80.0
80.0
60.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
2

4

1

Figure 3: Categories: What did I do in the class?
Table 1 shows the data from the reflective dialogue.

The word co-occurrence
songphonics
greeting

Table 1: Responses: What did I do in the class?
Participants & Entry Participants responses
M (3rd)We sang a song and reviewed infinitive.
F (3rd)After singing a song and studying phonics, we read atextbook and studied new words.
M (1st)I said hello to everyone and asked the day, the date andthe weather.

6.2(2) How do I feel about what I did in today’s class?
Figure 4 shows the second result of the bar chart of categories by frequency. The category of “student 2” wasindicated in the teaching contents from a male teacher.
Bar chart

Cate gorie s
thinkcanstude nt
timecannot
juststude nt 2
findtodayobse rve
pre vious lesson
Numbe r of time s

35Pe rce ntage s
80.0
80.0
60.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
2

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Figure 4: Categories: (2) How do I feel about what I did in today's class?
The data from the reflective dialogue is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Responses: How do I feel about what I did in today's class?
The word co-occurrence Participants & Entry Participants responses
thinkM (4th)I think today’s class was terrible for the students because
I just failed to carry out my teaching plan and forgot thematerial.
canF (2nd)Some students hesitated to sing a song. I was worried
about them. So I decided to make a worksheet about asong including some tasks. I hope students could enjoy37

Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
and concentrate on it.
Figure 5 shows the arrangement of the list of categories. Dimension 1 assigns a positive meaning to the rightside and a negative meaning to the left side. Dimension 2 assigns many words to the upper area and a few
words to the lower area. Each circle was marked as the extracted categories by the number of times.

Figure 5: Categories arrangement, marked by number of times.
From above, each time the teachers wrote in their reflection journals, the categories were increased. It seems
that each teacher gained a better understanding of effectively presenting content and developing efficientteaching methods.
6.3(3) What was successful?
This is the third result (see Figure 6). The word co-occurrence of “student” was like student & better. In
cases of “today” and “can,” the word co-occurrences were today such as today & doing & students and canlike can & student & better & think & success. As mentioned before, the category of “student 2” wasindicated in the teaching contents from a male teacher.
Categories
student
today
canthinkbetter
dostudent 2
success
Number of times

Bar chart352
Figure 6: Categories: (3) What was successful?

Percentages
75.075.075.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
4

1

The data for the female teacher’s responses in reflective dialogues is shown in Table 3. She began to use theinformation to improve her teaching skills after the third entry.

The word co-occurrence

Table 3: Responses: (3) What was successful?
Participants & Entry Participants responses
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Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics
student & today

F (1st)canF (3rd)Every time we reviewed, students did it orally. But today
I asked them to write the answer. It was the first time todo so. I hope students got a better understanding.
I could give instructions to students in English if I
compared previous lessons with today's lesson.

Figure 7 shows the arrangement of the list of categories. Each circle was marked as the extracted categories
by the number of times.

Figure 7: Categories arrangement, marked by number of times.
The teachers had difficulties in identifying successful teaching techniques.
6.4(3) What was not successful?
Figure 8 shows the categories by frequency. The word co-occurrence of “student” was like student &introduction & oral & tt. The word co-occurrence of “students” was extracted with “tt,” which means teamteaching. As previously mentioned, the female teacher was working with an ALT.
Categories
student
doing
situationtt
oral
introduction
fail
good
procedure
cantime allocation
Number of times

Bar chart

352
Figure 8: Categories: (3) What was not successful?

Percentages
80.0
80.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
41

The data from the reflective dialogues is shown in Table 4. The male teacher identified unsuccessful teaching
behaviors independently by reviewing his reflections.
39Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The word co-occurrence
student & doing

Table 4: Responses: (3) What was not successful?
Participants & Entry Participants responses
M (1st)I made a worksheet including many questions and wanted
to ask the answer. But I realized I did not have time to doso. So I just finished explaining infinitive. Moreover, I
could not walk around the classroom and check whatstudents were doing in today’s class.

Figure 9 shows the arrangement of the list of categories. Each circle was marked the extracted categories by
number of times.

Figure 9: Categories arrangement, marked by number of times.
No significant change was found in the results. It may be natural that the novice teachers experienced anxiety
regarding teaching throughout the study.
6.5(4) How can I change?
This is the final result from the teaching journals (see Figure 10). The word co-occurrence of “student”
was like student & observe & situation.
Categories
observe
studentdoingvariation
challenge
situation
wantgame
power
increase
do notmorewriting
Number of times

Bar chart

352
Figure 10: Categories: (4) How can I change?

40Percentages
60.0
60.0
60.0
60.0
60.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
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Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

The data from the reflective dialogues is shown in Table 5.
Table 5: Responses: (4) How can I change?
The word co-occurrence Participants & Entry Participants responses
student
M (4th)I asked the students to use a dictionary, but it was asimple activity. I think it was boring for them just tocheck the new words. So I should have prepared someactivities using a dictionary.
gameF (4th)We played a game with simple rules. Next time, I want tochange it and add some difficult rules to it for thestudents. I have been working with an ALT teacher, so I
am going to ask her opinion how to play a game.
Figure 11 shows the arrangement of the list of categories. Each circle was marked as the extracted categories
by number of times.

Figure 11: Categories arrangement, marked by number of times.
Both teachers identified which activities they want to change and explored their teaching methods
The results show that reflection through the use of a teaching journal and a reflective dialogue encourages
teachers to increase their teacher cognition and action such as teaching skills and styles.
Writing a teaching journal helps teachers evaluate and analyze their classes individually. Some statements
indicated that teachers tried to organize their next class based on their reflection. Needless to say, theteaching content affected all the entries in the teaching journal. Moreover, each teacher introduced the sameactivities that their students had already done in previous lessons. Therefore, the results and description
fluctuated or remained comparatively stable, accordingly.
A reflective dialogue induces teachers to challenge their own practices and gain an in-depth insight of theirclasses. Their thoughts and reflections can create a positive change in their teaching method. Novice teachers
face new challenges in the first year of teaching. Therefore, these teachers can gradually improve theirteaching skills through reflective dialogues.

7Conclusion

This study examined the manner in which novice Japanese English teachers modify their cognition andaction though two types of reflection: teaching journals and reflective dialogues. Teaching journals andreflective dialogues assist teachers in improving their teaching skills and methods. Verbalization, that is tosay, writing a teaching journal and talking in reflective dialogues, can deepen a teacher’s understanding of
his or her own classes.
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Selected Papers of the 18th Conference of Pan-Pan Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

References
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Special Interest Group of the Japan Association for Language Teaching.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2007). Reflective language teaching from research to practice. New York: Continuum.
Korthagen, F. A. J. (1985). Reflective Teaching and Preservice Teacher Education in the Netherlands.
Journal of Teacher Education, 36(11), 11-15.
Korthagen, F. A. J., Kessels, J., Koster, B., Lagerwerf, B., & Wubbels, T. (2001). Linking practice andtheory: The pedagogy of realistic teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner, how professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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