Pre-Service English Teachers’ Perceptions of Reflective Teaching

Reflective teaching (RT) is widely known as an effective tool for pre-service English teachers (PETs) to learn to teach. Given the importance of RT, this study aims to examine how PETs perceive RT through three categories, including their understanding of RT, the benefits and challenges of RT. Mixed-methods approach was adopted to collect data from thirty-two PETs through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that most of the PETs were able to identify RT’s activities and aims, its form of practice, however, the majority of them could not make sense of the RT process and tools for practice. In addition, the participant PETs tended to perceive that RT would bring them numerous benefits, such as understanding their teaching experiences, enhancing their teaching knowledge, and making plans to develop their teaching competence. Challenges in exercising RT were also perceived by the teachers, namely, their inadequate knowledge of RT and language teaching, and their limited skills of examining and evaluating the teaching performance. Accordingly, a number of pedagogical implications are proposed to raise PETs’ understanding of RT and to optimize the effectiveness of training and self-training English language teachers through RT.