A critical and collaborative stance towards retrospective reflection in language teacher education


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Turhan B., Kırkgöz Y.

European Journal of Teacher Education, vol.46, no.2, pp.222-240, 2023 (SSCI)

Abstract

The focus of this paper is to investigate how teacher candidates reflect on their observations in practicum schools from

a retrospective angle. First, ten English language teacher candidates, who were pairs during the practicum, wrote reflection

reports considering the dynamics of a language classroom throughout a period of ten weeks. Those reports were scrutinised to reveal

the criticality level of the participants' reflections. Second, the researchers conducted retrospective interviews on the reflection

process with each pair twice, one in the middle of the semester and the other at the end of the semester. Third, critical incidents

experienced by the participants during observations were elicited via snake interviews. All qualitative data were analysed using constant

comparative analysis technique. Some slight changes in the participants’ views on language teaching towards the end of observations

were detected, although the participants could not reach a high level of criticality in their reflections.