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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between novice and experienced English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ reflective teaching, and their burnout.

Participants who took part in this study included 158 (78 novice/80 experienced) EFL teachers of different ages (22-50) and teaching experience (1-25) from Tehran and Hamedan. They completed the English Language Teacher Reflective Inventory developed by Akbari et al. (2010), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator’s Survey developed by Maslach et al. (1996). The participants were selected via convenience sampling.

The results of two separate Pearson product-moment coefficients revealed that reflective teaching had a significant negative relationship with both novice and experienced EFL teachers’ burnout. Furthermore, the results of two separate regressions indicated that reflective teaching was a significant predictor of both novice and experienced EFL teachers’ burnout.

The findings of this study can help teacher educators and curriculum developers grasp a better picture of novice and experienced EFL instructors’ means of professional development (i.e. reflective teaching) and its relationship with educational and practical aspects of their career (i.e. burnout).

The first part presents a review of concepts relating to reflection, drawing on the literature in this area. This literature review relates to the following aspects of reflection: the definition of reflection, the process of reflection, strategies in reflection, content of reflection, barriers to reflection, and advantages of reflection.

The second part of this paper presents an investigation into the perceptions of a small sample of English language educators and supervisors, through personal interviews with 9 teachers and 3 supervisors from one higher education institution and other educational institutions in the United Arab Emirates. The findings of the investigation are analyzed with respect to the dimensions that appear in the literature review. These findings show that the teachers do have some knowledge of reflection. They reveal that the teachers: attitudes towards reflection and its applicability in the teaching and learning process is largely positive, mixed with some degree of skepticism. Teachers agree that reflection is useful, but many seem uncertain about how it can be applied in their situation. In some cases the interviewees seemed to be more concerned about the technicalities of their job, making collaborative reflection appear less of a priority.

It is suggested that mentor teachers engage in reflective conversations with preservice teachers to develop formative assessment as a teaching skill. However, there is minimal evidence documenting this process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process and impact of reflective conversation on preservice teachers’ learning about implementing formative assessment in the classroom.

This study draws on two dyads of mentor and preservice teachers to examine the role of conversation in helping preservice teachers learn to use formative assessment in elementary classrooms in the USA. A comparative case study method is used to analyze and synthesize the similarities, differences and patterns across both cases.

Qualitative data indicate that reflective conversations enable preservice teachers to reflect on their teaching practices and learn how to conduct formative assessment. However, a lack of critical reflection in the conversations results in generic solutions that do not focus on specific aspects of student learning.

This study suggests that mentor teachers using reflective conversation to guide preservice teacher’s critical analysis of their prior assumptions and teaching practices while referencing actual student learning is an essential element in learning to use formative assessment in the classroom.

This study contributes to the line of research that explores conversation between mentor and preservice teachers and provides an empirical analysis of conversations focused on learning to use formative assessment in elementary classrooms.

This chapter analyzes one teacher educator’s development of a pedagogy of reflection over a period of 25 years. My personal interpretation of the meaning of reflective practice leads to seven principles of a pedagogy of reflection that focus on relationship, listening, metacognition, modeling, and learning from experience. Justification of my pedagogy of reflection includes an account of books that influenced my development as a teacher educator and the insights gained from living and teaching in a different culture. Excerpts from and discussion of the work of two preservice teachers illustrate my pedagogy of reflection and emphasize the importance of replying supportively to each individual who shows awareness of the unique learning process involved in becoming a teacher. The research methodology of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices supported the development of my pedagogy of reflection and helped me to overcome the conditions that can constrain that development.

During a site-based certification program in a large county school district in the southeastern United States, 14 educators took 7 graduate courses on teaching emergent bilinguals. These educators made a shift in their practices and perceived a corresponding shift in their teaching efficacy. Ten years after the onset of this program, researchers returned to the site and conducted a mixed-methods study. The first purpose of this study was to explore educators’ perceptions regarding instructional practices for teaching emergent bilinguals after a decade had passed. The second purpose was to identify course features perceived by educators as having been most instrumental in fostering a long-term transformation in their teaching practices. Data were collected from a survey and interviews with the 14 educators (13 teachers and a program specialist) who had completed this certification program. Results indicated changes in their teaching methods and interactions with parents as well as heightened confidence for taking on leadership roles. Study participants identified professional learning communities, cyclical reflective activities, and action research projects as the course features that had been instrumental in transforming their practices for working with emergent bilinguals. Findings suggest that this site-based certification program was a catalyst for generating individual change that continued beyond program completion. By exploring this decade-long transformation, the current study provides implications for designing and implementing graduate certification courses that prepare in-service teachers to work effectively with emergent bilinguals.

Since reflectivity has a crucial role in education, it has attracted researchers’ attention in the last decades. As such, the present study aimed to construct and validate a questionnaire to assess the barriers to reflective practices of Iranian ESP (English for Specific Purposes) instructors. Furthermore, this study aimed to investigate the reliability of the scale.

To attain the purpose of the study, the researchers developed the first item pool of the questionnaire which included 67 items. Then, 4 experts were asked to pass their judgments on the items. Accordingly, 37 items were excluded and the next draft of the questionnaire that included 30 items remained. After their feedback, the revised scale was piloted with 10 ESP instructors to check the clarity of items. Then, the scale was administered to 210 ESP instructors. At the next stage, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run to assess the construct validity of the questionnaire. Based on the results, three items were removed. To investigate the internal consistency of the scale, a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was employed.

The final version of the scale included 27 items with three subscales, namely, learners, instructors and institutions’ issues. The results revealed that the questionnaire enjoyed an acceptable level of validity and reliability.

Apart from a few studies, no other study has scrutinized barriers to EFL teachers’ reflectivity. In addition, in the realm of ESP, no study has developed a scale to measure barriers to ESP teachers’ reflective practice.

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the pedagogical approaches that foster critical reflection using video among the pre-service teachers during tutorials.

The research is situated in a school-based teaching programme in which pairs of pre-service teachers taught small groups of primary aged children over a period of seven weeks. Volunteer pre-service teachers videotaped their lessons and selected video excerpts to share with their peers in the tutorial. The educator guided the pre-service teachers’ reflection using the video. A case study drawing on interviews with pre-service teachers and audio recordings of tutorials, charted the development of pedagogical decisions made by the educators to promote reflection.

The pre-service teachers had difficulties undertaking deep reflection of their own and peers’ teaching practice. The response by educators was to promote collaboration among pre-service teachers by discussing specific aspects of the teaching in small groups and to use a jigsaw approach. This enabled a deeper analysis of particular elements of the lesson that were then integrated to produce a more holistic understanding of the teaching. The video data are most suitable for reflection and provide valuable evidence for pre-service teachers to develop their practice.

For pre-service teachers to develop effective skills to analyse their own practice they need to experience teaching in a safe but challenging environment, over a sustained period; have opportunities to develop a shared understanding of what constitutes quality teaching; have opportunities to critically analyse their teaching in discussion with peers and educators and be able to be guided by a framework of reflective strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the outcomes of a final year action research project as part of an initial teacher education (ITE) programme in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The approach taken was to examine the responses of graduate and student teachers to interviews and written prompts within a framework of theoretical benefits of action research and reflective practice: linking theory to practice, transforming teaching strategies; transforming student learning outcomes; developing professionalism and lifelong learning; and raising the status of teachers through empowerment.

It was found that students referred to all of these outcomes in their responses, suggesting that classroom‐based action research is a valuable component of an ITE programme in the UAE.

This is a small‐scale study, but the results suggest that further examination of systematic reflective practice in the form of action research would be useful for teacher educators, especially those working in education systems undergoing reform.

Empirical research into effective teacher education practices in the UAE is limited. This paper will, therefore, be of interest to teacher educators considering action research as a component of ITE programmes and also in terms of considering tasks to promote reflective practice.

Educational research and many aspects of the educational system in Germany are facing a challenge. With Germany’s participation in large-scale assessment studies such as PISA, the German educational discourse is increasingly incorporating international developments in terms of educational standards, accountability, and students’ performance testing. At the same time, the long-standing history of German Didaktik has influenced and shaped teacher education programs in Germany for decades. Research conducted at a German university shows how these two concurrent developments can be fused – without neglecting their distinct differences. A crucial aspect revealed in this work shows that preservice teachers are prepared for their future profession in a rather output- and standard-based educational system in inquiry-based classes. In these classes, their research-based reflective thinking, didactic expertise, and their leadership skills in the sense of didactic ownership are strengthened.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on reflective mentoring practices. Teacher mentors are widely known to be an important catalyst for reflection. Through dialogue and professional conversations, teacher mentors can help their mentees to improve their teaching performance by facilitating their discussion of the praxis from different perspectives.

This qualitative mixed methods study is based on three separate studies from the Republic of Ireland, Malta and Norway involving: mentors of undergraduate student-teachers (U-M, n: 37); mentors of newly qualified teachers (NQT-M, n: 4); student-teachers (ST, n: 16); NQT, n: 8; and university tutors (UT, n: 8). In each study, mentors were provided with varying degrees of education on facilitating critical reflection for mentees. This study sought to draw out what reflective practices were being employed in mentoring across European contexts and what perceived impact they had. A cross-case analysis of data across the three countries was conducted using coding and constant comparison. Triangulation of data was employed across not only cases, but also across multiple methods data sets and across participant types.

All three studies reveal that mentoring approaches aiming to promote critical reflection have to be based on a developmental approach towards mentoring. They also have to challenge traditional hierarchical relationships and involve a commitment to collaborative, inquiry-oriented approaches towards mentoring.

By bringing different studies of reflection in mentoring practices together, it is possible to gain new knowledge on mentoring in teacher education. However, being a cross-country, cross-context and cross-cultural approach in itself contains certain restrictions.

The authors of this paper propose that professional forms of inquiry depend on the type of relationship and collaboration forged between the teacher mentor and mentee. A cross-case analysis approach provided evidence of reflective practice, which is common across three European countries and offers a snapshot of trends.