Does Writing Promote Reflective Practice?

Abstract

Reflective practice is now a major component of most language teacher education and development programs worldwide. One other popular method that has been suggested as to how English language teachers could reflect on their work is by writing regularly in a teaching journal. This chapter asks a very important question about reflecting on practice: does writing promote reflective practice? I use a case study as a backdrop for discussing the use of teaching journals of how three EFL teachers in Korea met for 16 weeks to reflect on their work. This reflection included the use of regular journal writing. This chapter focuses on the contents of the teaching journals, the extent to which journal writing promoted reflection and the reasons why some teachers may not like writing a journal as a tool for reflection. Thus, the chapter offers suggestions, and some cautions, for language teachers, especially for non-native speaker ESL/EFL teachers, when using writing as a form of reflective practice.