Using journals as a means of teacher’s reflection on action to enhance teaching quality at faculty of english – hanoi national university of education

To fulfill this purpose, the study aims to answer the following question: How effective is journal writing as a means of reflection-on-action effective in promoting teaching quality as

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

-NGUYỄN THỊ MINH THANH NGUYỄ N THỊ MINH THANH

USING JOURNALS AS A MEANS OF TEACHER’S REFLECTION-USING JOURNALS AS

A MEANS OF TEACHER’S

REFLECTION-ON-ON-ACTION TO ENHANCE TEACHING QUALITY AT FACULTY OF ACTION TO

ENHANCE TEACHING QUALITY AT FACULTY OF

ENGLISH – HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION ENGLISH –

HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

(Sử dụng hình thức ghi nhật kí để tự đánh giá sau bài dạy của giáo viên

nhằm nâng (Sửdụng cao hình ch th ất ức lượ ghi ng h ật gi kí ảng đểt ự d ạ đánh yở giá khoa su ti bài ếng dạy Anh,

của trường giáoviên Đạ nh i ằ h m ọc nâng Sư cao phạ ch m ất Hà lượng N gi ội) ảng dạy

ở khoa tiếng Anh, trường Đại học Sư phạm Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyField: English Teaching MethodologyCode:Code:60 6014.14.10.10

HANOIHANOI– –20122012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH THANH

-USING JOURNALS AS A MEANS OF TEACHER’S ON-ACTION TO ENHANCE TEACHING QUALITY AT FACULTY

REFLECTION-OF ENGLISH – HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY REFLECTION-OF EDUCATION

(Sử dụng hình thức ghi nhật kí để tự đánh giá sau bài dạy của giáo viên nhằm

nâng cao chất lượng giảng dạy ở khoa tiếng Anh,

trường Đại học Sư phạm Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Methods of the study 4

5 Significance of the study 4

6 Overview of the study 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORITICAL BACKGROUND 1 Reflective practice 1.1 Definition 6

1.2 Reflection procedure 8

1.3 Types of reflection 9

2 Journals as a means of reflection 10

2.1 Definition 10

2.2 Functions and advantages of journals 11

2.3 Focus of journal writing 13

2.4 Analysis of journals 14

2.5 Prompts for journal entries 14

2.6 Guidelines for writing journals 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 1 Participants 18

2 Data collection instruments 18

2.1 Questionnaire 18

2.2 Interview 19

2.3 Journals 19

3 Research procedure 20

3.1 Problem identification 20

3.2 Preliminary investigation 21

3.3 Hypothesis 22

3.2 Intervention 22

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1 Data analysis approach 24

2 Results of questionnaire 24

2.1 Teachers’ understanding of reflective practice 24

2.2 Teachers’ use of reflective practice 25

2.3 Teachers’ use of journals 26

3 Results of analyzing reflective journals 27

3.1 Participant 1 27

3.2 Participant 2 28

3.3 Participant 3 29

3.4 Participant 4 30

4 Results of interview 334.1 Effectiveness of journal writing 33

42 Difficulties in reflection process 35

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Reflective practice has become a major focus in ESL/EFL teacher educationprograms worldwide since it is undoubtedly beneficial and essential forprofessional growth and more effective teaching As cited in Maat and Zakaria(2010), reflection has contributed to self improvement (Schon, 1983) This will lead

to the changes in teachers’ cognition and teaching practices (Cooney, Shealy &Arnold, 1997, cited in Maat & Zakaria, 2010) According to Cohen and Hill (2000),reflection can be used as a tool to investigate teaching practices in order to achievemeaningful educational reform

Some people may argue that experience is the key to professional growth asteachers form routines and strategies to deal with recurring situations of teaching.However, according to Parker (1984), research shows that “for many experiencedteachers, many classroom routines and strategies are applied almost automaticallyand do not involve a great deal of conscious thought or reflection” (cited in Richardand Lockhart, 1996, p.4) These researchers asserted that it is vital to examineexperience in a systematic way so that it can play a productive role Sharing thesame viewpoint, Odeh, Kurt, and Atamtürk stated that reflective practice allowsteachers to “think about what, how and why they do it” and therefore “step out ofroutine action and make adaptations to match the needs of the learners” (p.3).Larrivee and Cooper (2006) also insisted that there are many reasons why teachersshould be reflective One of the obvious reasons is that they have to cope with awide range of situations and make several decisions regarding their students Beingreflective and critical will help them effectively deal with complexities ofclassrooms Another reason is that there are growing demands on teachers, whichmay cause them to feel isolated Systematic reflection could help teachers take

control of their teaching and feel self-confident In addition, reflective practicehelps teachers avoid routines and promotes responsibility for their actions.

As can be seen, the importance of reflection to professional development ofteaching is undeniable However, although teachers are aware of the benefits andimportance of reflective practice, they do not apply it to their teaching practice Thefact that several procedures take place simultaneously during a lesson makes itdifficult for teachers to be aware of their own teaching mistakes in classrooms andwhy they happen This is illustrated by Richard and Lockart (1996) when he quotedthe comments by a number of teachers after watching their own videotapedteaching:

I had no idea I did so much talking and didn’t let students practice.

My pacing was terrible I didn't give students enough time to practice one task before going on to another.

I did a bad job on the group work exercises The students didn't understand what they were supposed to do.

I seemed to ignore half the students in the class.

Concerning the use of reflective practice, the research by Odeh, Kurt, and Atamtürkshowed that “there is a gap between theory and practice” and that the majority ofparticipating teachers practice reflection-in-action and ignore reflection-on-action –

a deeper level of reflection

The case of EFL teachers at the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University ofEducation (FOE – HNUE) is no exception As a novice teacher, the researcher findsthat reflective practice is of great value to professional development; however, fromher own experience and observation as well as discussions with her colleagues, thisactivity is not popular despite the teachers’ awareness of its benefits Reflection isespecially of great significance because teachers in this context are trainingteachers-to-be, and it is stated by Scales that “Reflective teachers are more likely todevelop reflective learners If we practice reflection we can more effectively

encourage learners to reflect on, analyze, evaluate, and improve their ownlearning.” (p.14)

Due to the importance of reflective practice in professional self-development andthe above-mentioned current situation, it is desirable to introduce activities topromote teachers’ reflection-on-action In this action research, journal writing isintroduced as a means of reflection to hopefully enhance teachers’ reflectivepractice and teaching quality

1 Aims of the study

This study is an attempt to promote teacher’s reflection-on-action in FOE-HNUEvia the use of journal writing It will investigate the effectiveness of this activityand the teachers’ difficulties when using journals as a means of reflection-on-action

To fulfill this purpose, the study aims to answer the following question:

How effective is journal writing as a means of reflection-on-action effective

in promoting teaching quality as perceived by teachers?

2 Scope of the study

This study focuses on enhancing teachers’ reflection-on-action of teachers at FOE –HNUE using journal writing Within its scope, the research aims at justifying theeffectiveness of using this means of reflection as perceived by the participants andinvestigating their difficulties in their reflective practice

3 Methods of the study

This study is conducted as an action research because it aims at promoting teachers’reflection-on-action within a certain context, namely the Faculty of English, HanoiNational University of Education In order to fulfill that aim, journal writing isutilized by the participants Interviews and teachers’ reflection journals areemployed in order to get data which are analyzed by qualitative method

4 Significance of the study

This research provides an opportunity for the participants in the target context tosystematically reflect on their teaching, from which they can have their ownassessment of the effectiveness of journal writing as a means of reflection-on-action.This will accordingly lead to their decision on whether to continue using journals intheir professional development process or not In addition, the findings on teachers’obstacles when using this means of reflection will hopefully help to improve theeffectiveness of this activity, which eventually aims at enhancing teachers’ self-development and teaching quality

5 Overview of the study

This paper is divided into the following main parts:

Part I: Introduction - presents the rationale, aims of study, research questions,

scope, method, significance, and organization of the study

Part II: Development - this part is divided into 4 chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background – provides the theoretical framework of

reflective practice and journal writing

Chapter 2: Methodology – describes the study population, the research design as

well as data gathering instruments

Chapter 3: Results and discussion - analyses and discusses data

Chapter 4: Findings and implications - presents findings and implications

Limitations and suggestions for further research are also provided

Part III: Conclusion – gives summary of the research and limitations as well as

suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Reflective practice

In teaching, reflective thinking, reflective inquiry, reflective teaching, reflection andreflective practice are used more or less as synonyms In this study, these terms areunderstood interchangeably

Since originated by John Dewey (1933), the concept of reflective practice has beendefined in many ways by various researchers According to this educator, it is whenpeople face a complex situation and wonder what needs to be done that they begin toreflect on that situation He stated that the purpose of reflective practice is to direct theteacher in taking actions and in making decisions In order to clarify his ideas, Deweyprovided a distinction between routine actions and reflection actions, betweenunsystematic thoughts and reflective thinking

In Dewey’s view, teachers who act routinely react to circumstances without thinkingabout the reasons or different alternatives These teachers often take things for grantedand do not try to justify their teaching methods, resulting in limited numbers ofsolutions As a result, non-reflective teachers often fail to recognize problems, havelittle motivation for improvement, and are therefore unlikely to fulfill their professionalpotential In contrast, reflective teachers do not follow habitual ways of teaching Theyspend time considering what happens in classroom and the consequences of theiractions with the aim of improving their performance Reflective teachers engagethemselves in thoughtful consideration of dilemmas in their own teaching practice andthink about these dilemmas in relation to several factors and contexts

This distinction between mere thinking and reflection is also emphasized by Scaleswith a list of features of reflection in professional settings as follows:

of which we are aware It enables us to act in deliberate and intentional fashion toknow what we are about when we act” (p.2)

Larrivee and Cooper (2006, p.4) cited different definitions for this concept by severalauthors, some of which are as follows Reflective practice is:

 A process that helps teachers think about what happened, why ithappened, and what else could have been done to reach their goals (Cruickshank &Applegate, 1981, p 553)

 The use of higher-level thinking, such as critical inquiry andmetacognition, which allow one to move beyond a focus on isolated facts or data to perceive

a broader context for understanding behavior and events (Hatton & Smith, 1995, p.40)

 A critical, questioning orientation and a deep commitment to thediscovery and analysis of information concerning the quality of a

professional’s designed action (Bright, 1996, p.165)

 An ongoing process of examining and refining practice, variouslyfocused on the personal, pedagogical, curricular, intellectual, societal, and/or

ethical contexts associated with professional work (Cole & Knowles, 2000,p.2).

 The thoughtful consideration and questioning of what we do, what works

and what doesn’t, and what premises and rationales underlie our teaching and that of others (Hubball, Collins & Pratt, 2005, p.60)

While looking through all definitions above, there seems to be a consensus on theconcept of reflective practice Reflection comes from teachers’ willingness to questiontheir own practice with the aim of enhancing their teaching and students’ learning It is

a purposeful and systematic process that enables teachers to explore, contemplate andanalyze their experiences in classrooms which results in deep understanding and finallyguides the teachers in making decisions and taking actions to improve theirprofessional practice

In order for reflection process to be productive, teachers ought to follow a certainnumber of steps These steps are going to be presented in the next part

1.2 Reflection procedure

Different authors suggest different sets of steps that teachers should take when they

reflect on their teaching Larrivee and Cooper (2006) proposed three steps, including 1)

Solitary reflection - thoughtful consideration of your actions and critical inquiry into

the impact of your own behavior keeps you alert to the consequences of your actions

on students, 2) Ongoing inquiry - unending questioning of the status quo and conventional wisdom by seeking your own truth, and 3) Perpetual problem-solving- solve the problem.

These steps correspond three questions given by by Driscoll and Teh (2001), namely

what? so what? and now what? Similarly, LaBoskey (1993, p.30) suggested three

following steps:

1 problem definition: describe and analyze the structural features of an

educational situation, issue, or problem

2 means/ends analysis: gather and evaluate information as to the possiblesources of the dilemma under consideration and to generate multiple alternative solutionsand their potential implications

3 generalization: integrate all of the information into a tempered conclusion about or solution for the problem identified

Andrew Green (2011) cited Dewey’s ideas, stating that reflective process incorporatesfive stages, including problem, suggestions, reasoning, hypothesis and testing

As can be seen, there are some variations among scholars’ suggestions; however, they

have some consensus Rogers (2001) (as cited in Rossouw, 2009) identified four

commonalities among the theoretical approaches he explored The first step is toidentify problem and make a decision to find a solution Second, additional informationrelated to the problem is collected This may involve “hypothesis and reasoning,acquiring, organising, and examining information, making assumptions and drawingconclusions” (p.28) Next, a plan and a decision are formed as a result of datacollection step; a new understanding or theory may be created Finally, actions aretaken based on the reflective process so that teachers could test the new findings inpractice and generate new understanding of the phenomenon

1.3 Types of reflection

Regarding types of reflection, Farrell (2008) stated that there are two main forms,namely weak form and strong form The former is when teachers “informally evaluatevarious aspects of their professional expertise” (Wallace, 1991, p.292 as cited inFarrell, 2008) According to this author, this form of informal reflection may notimprove teaching and instead can give unpleasant feelings and frustration to teachers

In contrast, the strong form means systematic and critical reflection

Similarly, Schön (1983) made the distinction between reflection-in-action andreflection-on-action (cited in Maat & Zakaria, 2010). According to him, reflection-in-action occurs during the activity; teachers observe their thinking and actions and theactivity may be reshaped and adapted in progress It is said that this type of reflection istemporary and easily forgotten Reflection-on-action, on the other hand, takes placeafter an activity – a retrospective thinking about an experience This form of reflection

is considered to be more systematic and thorough Van Manen (1991), as cited inLarrivee (2006), noted that reflection-on-action is more systematic, thorough, andeffective than reflection-in-action since teachers have more time for reflection, and theyare not distracted by multiple tasks in the teaching process Therefore, reflection-on-action rather than reflection-in-action is the focus of this study

2 Journals as a means of reflection

Journals are accounts of teaching experiences; it “records thoughts, feelings, issues andconcerns can provide both a window of the past and a gateway to the future” (Larriveeand Cooper, 2006, p21)

Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985, p.19), as cited in Boud (2001, p.2), define journal as

“intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore theirexperiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations”

Similarly, it is stated that journals are written record of both “experiences of , andfeelings about planning, preparing and delivering teaching and learning” (Scales, p.16)

According to this author, journals contain not only “general accounts of learningsessions” but also “critical incidents” which are more important since they provide the

“basis for learning and continuing professional development” (p.16)

Richards and Lockhart (1996), citing Bailey 1990, Porter et al 1990, and Walker 1985,suggested a procedure which consists of two steps for keeping a journal The first step

is to spend five or ten minutes after a lesson making entries on a regular basis, such asonce or twice a week or every day The second step is to review journals regularly inorder to realize what might have not been noticed in the writing step.

2.2 Functions and advantages of journals

Journal writing is a popular means of reflective practice and journal writing over timehelps teachers “develop the habit of reflection” (Yost, 1997, Yost, Forlanza-Bailey, &Shaw, 1999, cited in Larrivee and Cooper, 2006, p.22)

According to Larrivee and Cooper (2006), journal writing is a systematic reflection process since it enables teachers to become “more aware of what is going on

self-in both their self-inner and outer worlds” and promotes their self-disciplself-ine (p 21) Thesetwo authors clarified their points by listing the following functions that journal writingcan serve (p.21):

 Looking more objectively at classroom behaviors

 Identifying cause and effect relationships

 Seeing patterns of unsuccessful strategies overtime

Sharing the same viewpoint, Richards and Lockhart (1996) claimed that journal writing

“helps trigger insights about teaching” and functions as a “discovery process” in which

“events and ideas are recorded for the purpose of later reflection” (p.7)

In comparison with other modes of reflection, journal writing have certain advantages,one of the most important of which is that it “provides access to the hidden affectivevariables that greatly influence the way teachers teach and students learn” (Brock, Yu

and Wong, 1992, cited in Wallace, 1998, p.63) These authors also presented the

following advantages of journals:

1 They provide an effective means of variables that are important to individualteachers and learners

2 They serve as a means of generating questions and hypotheses about

teaching and learning processes

3 They enhance awareness about the way a teacher teaches and a student learns

4 They are an excellent tool for reflection

5 They are simple to conduct

6 They provide a first-hand account of teaching and learning experiences

7 They are the most natural form of classroom research in that no formalcorrelations are tested and no outside observer enters the classroom dynamic

8 They provide an on-going record of classroom events and teacher and

learner reflections

9 They enable the researcher to relate classroom events and examine trends emerging from the diaries

10 They promote the development of reflective teaching

(Brock, Yu and Wong, 1992, p 295, cited in Wallace, 1998, p.63)

For the above-mentioned reasons, journal writing is adopted for this study as a means

of reflective practice

2.3 Focus of journal writing as a means of reflection

In terms of the content of journal entries, there are a variety of topics from classroom experiences

Bartlett (1990, pp 209 – 210) (cited in Richards and Lockhart, 1996, p.7) gave furtherideas about this issue, listing teachers’ routine and conscious actions in the classroom;

conversations with students; critical incidents in a lesson; teachers’ personal lives asteachers; their beliefs about teaching; events outside the classroom that they thinkinfluence our teaching; and their views about language teaching and learning asexamples.

It is noticeable that a very favorable option for focus of reflection is critical incidents.Wallace (1998) considered critical incidents as “a way of reducing the burden ofdiary/journal-keeping and also achieving focus” (p.64) Critical incidents are keyoccurrences which are of significance or importance for the teacher These eitherpositive or negative incidents are situations for learning and will lead to generalisableideas and solutions which are transferable to other groups and learning situations Themost important thing to remember is that the teachers do not solely list the incidents;they have to discover why the incidents were significant to them, how they reacted andwhy, what are the options of reactions for them, and what the outcomes of thosereactions would have been

On the other hand, it is possible for teachers to reflect generally on their teachingprocess without a particular focus This option of reflection offers “a source of ideas orissues for further investigation” (Wallace, 1998, p.59) From this reflection, recurrentpatterns will emerge, leading to awareness of common features or problems that needdealing with

2.4 Analysis of journals

Journal writing only takes effect when the entries are analyzed This point is made byKathleen Bailey (1992, p 224 cited in Wallace, 1998, p.63) that “simply writing diaryentries does not yield the maximum potential benefit of the process In order to reallylearn from the record, the diarist should reread the journal entries and try to find thepatterns therein.”

Regarding this analysis, Wallace (1998, p.59) proposed two ways of analyzing notes which could also be applied for journal entries as follows:

field- They can be scanned as a source of ideas or issues for further investigation.Are there any recurrent concerns? Are there any common features or events? Are there anyideas that could be followed through? Are there persistent problems or themes that warrantmore detailed observation and analysis?

 The data may already be selective and focused on a particular issue (e.g.questioning techniques, student interaction) Have you got enough data to think your way to

a solution?

2.5 Prompts for journal entries

In order to make the full use of journal writing, Ross (1990) suggested that questioningprompts should be given to “stimulate greater awareness of personal values andimplicit theories of teaching” (cited in Larrivee and Cooper, 2006, p.22) Smyth (1991,cited in Larrivee and Cooper, 2006), therefore, proposed a series of four questions,respectively moving from description to meaning to confrontation to reconstruction, to

be a powerful tool for prompting higher-order reflection The questions are:

(1) What do I do?Description

(2) What does it mean? Meaning

(3) How did I come to be like this? Confrontation

(4) How might I do things differently? Reconstruction

Similarly, Driscoll and Teh (2001) provided a three-question framework of reflection along with “trigger questions” for each stage:

a What? Description of the event

What happened?

What did I see/do?

b So what? Analysis of the event How did I

feel at the time?

What were the effects of what I did (or did not do)?

c Now what? Proposed actions following the event

What are the implications of what I have described and analyzed?

How can I modify my practice?

The model of reflection provided by Gibbs (1988) is considered to be the mostcomplete since it asks clear and specific conclusions and action plans This modelconsists of the following questions:

What sense can you make of the situation? Bring in ideas from outside the experience

to help you What was really going on? Were different people’s experience similar or different in important ways?

It can be seen that the set of guidelines by Gibbs (1988) is the most detailed and

comprehensive and it comprises those by other authors above Therefore, this model isgoing to be adopted in this research

2.6 Guidelines for writing journals

Regarding the use of journals as a means of reflective practice, there are someguidelines and options for effective exploitation.

First, in terms of the time for journal writing, it is possible to write journalsimmediately after a teaching event or at the end of the day For the former option, it ismore advisable because then the teaching details are fresh in mind while in the latter,there may be more free time for reflection

Second, it is advisable to be regular in journal writing habits, especially in early days ofjournal writing

Third, it is advised that when starting to write, teachers should not spend too much timethinking about it; instead, they had better let the writing flow and try to capture theexperience and critical incidents

Another advice is that the writing style for journals should be free, spontaneous andinformal since it is a personal activity Furthermore, the use of illustration such asdiagrams, drawings or other visual aids is encouraged

Finally, teachers should review their journals regularly to see if there are any recurringthemes that they can choose for improvement and development In addition, it isbeneficial to summarize their journals at the end of a period This will not only showtheir progress but also provide a basis for their professional development In addition, it

is useful to highlight main ideas for summary and action plans

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

1 Participants

This action research involves four female lecturers from the Faculty of English, HanoiNational University of Education These participants are chosen on a voluntary basissince the basis of all reflection is a willingness to undertake the process and to value it

as a means of improvement and development When the researcher presented herresearch proposal at a research idea sharing session in her division and called forvoluntary participation, four teachers volunteered to take part in the study and agreed tosend their reflection journals to the researcher

All of the participants are working at the division of language skill development;however, each teacher is assigned to take charge of teaching different skills and coursebooks These teachers are very young; their teaching experience ranges from 1 year to

6 years Two participants have master degree while the other two are taking a mastercourse

2 Data collection instruments

In this study, interviews and journals are employed as the instruments of datacollecting

2.1 Questionnaire

Most of the items in the questionnaire (Appendix 1) are open-ended questions Thequestionnaire is divided into three main parts: the first part probes the participants’general understanding of reflective practice; the second part investigates their currentuse of reflective practice; and the last part asks about their use of journals as a means ofreflection

The questions in the first and the last parts were designed based on the literature review

on reflective practice and journals as a means of reflection respectively The secondpart adopted questions on current reflective practice given by Wallace (1998, p.55).Basing on the result of this questionnaire, the researcher had discussions with theparticipants about relevant issues of the study to make sure that they understand theaims of reflective practice, the procedure of reflection as well as the use of journals toreflect on their teaching In particular, the participants were also asked to choose thefocus of their reflection

2.2 Interview

After ten weeks of reflection, a semi-structured interview (Appendix 2) was conducted

in order to investigate two issues, namely the teachers’ perception of the effectiveness

of reflective practice and their difficulties in doing this activity The interview is structure in nature with some guided and follow-up questions It not only gives theinterviewee “a degree of power and control over the course of the interview” but alsoallows for great flexibility as well as rich information (Nguyen, 2008, p.51)

The guided journal (Appendix 3) includes two main parts; the first part is forinformation about lesson details while the second part consists of five following items,each of which is clarified with guided questions:

1 Description

In this part, teachers describe a significant event or a situation in their teaching.

2 Feelings

Teachers describe their reactions to the situation and how they felt about the situation

as well as the way they reacted

3 Analysis & evaluation

Teachers analyze the effect of what they did or did not do and evaluate the

experience In addition, they have to try to find out reasons for what happened

4 Conclusions

From the analysis and evaluation, teachers find solutions for the problem or drawconclusion about the implications of the event In addition, personal teaching style

or features can be recognized

5 Thoughts added during review

In this last item, teachers note down their thoughts or a new insight about the event after reviewing their journals

This use of guided journal sheet is in line with Larrivee and Cooper’s (2006, p.21)statement that “reflection can be facilitated via guided prompts, structuring periodicrereading of previous entries to search for any emerging patterns, and posing questions

in a nonjudgmental way as a means of creating ongoing dialogue”

3 Research procedure

3.1 Problem identification

The researcher herself is a novice teacher During her early teaching time, there weresome sessions in which other teachers came to observe her class She found itbeneficial since her colleagues gave her valuable feedback on her teaching so that shecould improve her practice However, she recognized that it was impossible to haveregular observation activities

As a result, a question was raised: In what way can I myself gain understanding of my

own teaching for professional improvement?

3.2 Preliminary investigation

In the next step, the researcher reviewed literature and had discussions with hercolleagues in order to answer the question above It turned out that colleague visits toher class sessions were a form of reflective practice It was also found out that teacherscould self-reflect on their own teaching in different ways This is also asserted byRichards and Lockhart (1996, p.3) that “while comments of a supervisor or otheroutside visitor can be a useful source of information about one's teaching, teachersthemselves are in the best position to examine their own teaching.”

The researcher realized that normally she herself practices reflection, but it is arbitraryduring or after her teaching; this may take place when she is on her way home or

discusses with her colleague Accordingly, another question was raised: How can this

reflection be more systematic and effective?

Thus, the next investigation was on self-reflective practice which was presented in theliterature review Finally, she decided to choose journal writing as a means ofreflection-on-action for her own teaching practice, which she found very beneficial.The researcher had a chance to present her investigation in a research idea sharingsession at her faculty Some of her colleagues were interested in participating in thestudy Therefore, this study was proposed to investigate the effectiveness of journalwriting as a means of reflection-on-action as well as teachers’ obstacles when using it.Before journals were used by the teacher as a means of reflection, a questionnaire wasdistributed in order to gain an overview of the participants’ knowledge as well ascurrent use of reflective practice

3.3 Hypothesis

It is hypothesized that journal writing is a useful means of promoting reflective practice

in the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education

With this hypothesis, the study was implemented so as to investigate its effectivenessand teachers’ difficulties in this activity In particular, it aims at answering thefollowing question:

How effective is journal writing as a means of reflection-on-action in

promoting teaching quality as perceived by teachers?

3.4 Intervention

After the preliminary investigation, the researcher had discussions with the participantsabout the aims and procedure of the study In addition, relevant issues related toreflective practice and journal writing were made clear to the teachers in order to makesure that they have a sound understanding required for productive participation.Especially, guideline for writing journals (as presented in the theoretical background)was presented to the participants After that, the guided journal format was introducedand each part in the format was explained and illustrated so that the participants couldknow how to write a reflection journal

The research took place during the first semester in the academic year 2011 – 2012(from January to June) However, the study started late, thus it lasted for only 10 week(from April to June) The teachers used the guided journal format to reflect on theirteaching every week They did not write journals immediately after each lesson;instead, they did it at home on the day they had classes These journals were then sent

to the researcher as a source of data for analysis When the teachers forgot to send thejournals or to write reflection journals, the researcher reminded them After the studyfinished, the participants were asked to revise their journals and discovered newinsights for their issues or identify their own recurrent teaching problems or strengths

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 Data analysis approach

In this study, an inductive approach to data analysis was adopted After the data hadbeen collected, they were analyzed and categorized into patterns The researcher thenread the data again to choose segments for illustrating the patterns

2 Results of questionnaire

2.1 Teachers’ understanding of reflective practice

Before conducting the intervention, it is necessary to find out the participants’knowledge of reflective activity and the use of journals as a means of reflection-on-action

It was revealed from the teachers’ responses to the questionnaire that they had heard ofthe term “reflective practice” or “reflection” before but they did not fully understandwhat it was For them, reflective practice is

+ Teacher’s self observation and evaluation of what she/he has done in class and how it works

+ It is a way of looking back what we have taught for students Then, we could see our strengths and drawbacks in teaching

One participant stated that “I’m not sure about reflective practice in teaching

“Reflective” may imply a consideration again what you did teach in the class, Isuppose.”

These conceptions are in line with the Scales’ remark that “a commonsense view ofreflection is that it involves just thinking about things” (p.8) It can be seen that theseteachers had a vague and incomplete understanding of reflective practice

This lack of knowledge is also shown in their answers about different alternatives forreflection and the reflection procedure Two participants stated that they had no ideas

about the options for carrying out reflective practice while the other two listed some tools such as diary, students’ feedback, peer observation, or recording lessons.

In terms of the steps in reflective practice, one teacher said that she did not know exactly what she had to do in reflection Other teachers gave the following procedures:+ Record what happened in the lesson, evaluate (them), improve (the situation), andthen the process starts over again

+ The first step, carry out the lesson, second step, take notes on the problems whileteaching and after teaching; third step, give out the solutions for the problems; lastly, teachthe same topic again by applying the solutions in practice

Their responses revealed their different levels of understanding of relevant issues ofreflective practice

In spite of this incomprehensive knowledge, the participants seemed to have positiveattitude toward this activity All of them asserted that reflection was very important ,explaining that it helped them to “experience about the strength as well as thedrawbacks of our lesson, to improve the quality of the lesson”, “find out the reasons for

a successful/ unsuccessful lesson and ways to fix that”, and “develop our strengths andlimit our drawbacks.”

2.2 Teachers’ use of reflective practice

Despite their awareness of the usefulness of reflective practice to their professionalgrowth, none of them actually implement it in a formal way However, whenresponding to the question about their use of reflection, they themselves insisted thatthey did reflect on their teaching

These teachers said that they reflected on their teaching when they went home orimmediately after the lessons for about ten to fifteen minutes In terms of forms ofreflection, none of them stated that their reflection was systematic This is illustrated inthe following response:

Actually after every lesson, I always recalled about the content, the procedure,the activities, students’ enrollment and interest, etc The problem is those re-considerations are just in mind or thought only, rather than careful writing.Such situation is quite consistent with Scales’ observation that “most of us spend timethinking about what we do and the effects we have on others, but we don’t always take

a step further and reflect on our actions and make plans to do things differently.” (p.8)This may also explain why these teachers said that their reflection was “unproductive”,

“somewhat productive”, or “not really productive” Indeed, what these teachersconsidered as reflection is termed by Wallace (1998) as “informal reflection”.According to this author, “informal reflection can be more therapeutic than productive.Contemplating problems does not necessarily lead to solving them” (1998, p.13).Instead, it can “lead to an intensification of unpleasant emotions without suggestingany way forward” (Wallace, 1998, p.14)

One teacher stated that besides thinking about her teaching in class, sometimes sheasked her students for their feedback or had colleagues visit her class sessions.However, these activities only happened once or twice

2.3 Teachers’ use of journals

The last part of the interview probes the participants’ use of journals Only one of theparticipants had used journals before when she participated in another study in whichshe had to write journals about her field trip For the others, they had never writtenjournals before This, along with their lack of comprehensive understanding ofreflective practice, could explain why asked about what they would include in theirjournals, these teachers gave merely a few items to write about

In short, from the interview, it can be seen that the participants have general ideas ofreflective practice and are aware of its importance as well as its benefits forprofessional growth However, their understanding is incomprehensive and they have

never reflected on their teaching in a structured and regular way In addition, journalwriting is not a familiar activity to them The preliminary investigation about theseaspects provided a basis for the researcher to implement her intervention moreeffectively.

3 Results of analyzing reflective journals

This part will present analysis of the participants’ journals to discover the effectiveness

of the activity as well as the teachers’ difficulties Due to the ethics of the research, allthe participants’ names used in this study are pseudonyms

3.1 Participant 1: HUONG

This teacher has two years of experience in teaching English She decided to reflect oncritical incidents that are related to interactions with students This is because shethought that “besides teaching, I have to deal with many other things, like givingmarks, managing my class, but I haven’t had much experience and I may make manymistakes.”

From the researcher’s observation, this teacher maintained her reflection on a regularbasis Every time she encountered a significant event, she wrote a journal about it athome

After looking at her journals, it can be seen that the reflection did change her beliefsand her practice For example, in one journal, she wrote that “I should be more carefuland don’t take things for granted Shouldn’t believe in students too much; anythingcould happen” when she found out a student cheating with his grade In addition,because there are some incidents recurring many times, she had the chance to makechanges and finally came to a list of things to deal with such incidents This could beseen in the following lines in her journal review:

After three times discovering students’ cheating, I should pay attention to these things:

1 Don’t talk about it at beginning of class to avoid tense atmosphere

2 Set the rules at beginning of the course about cheating and punishment

3 If they commit it for the first time, it may be good not to punish them

4 Shouldn’t reveal the names of cheating students in front of class

The review of all journals made her come to the conclusion that she was “quite easygoing with students” and “easily affected by emotions” Therefore, she concluded that

“there should be tight disciplines to ensure fairness and transparency for students.These should be set at the beginning of the course.”

It is also noticeable that some of her reflection results were not applied in that semesterbut they will be certainly useful for her next semester

3.2 Participant 2: QUYNH

This teacher has been teaching English for three years She chose to reflect on herteaching the course book “Innovations” – pre-intermediate since that was the first timeshe taught it For this course book, the four skills listening, reading, writing, andspeaking are taught in an integrated approach Each week, she taught two class periodsusing this book

Quynh did her journal writing regularly for the first three weeks, but then she forgot to

do it Only when the researcher emailed to remind her did she remember to continue it

As for the content of her reflection, it is realized from her journals that she focusedmore on negative issues than positive ones

It can be seen that after reviewing, some repeating issues are found out; for example,she wrote in the general review that “A common concern is that I need to consider thesuitability of activities like their topics or difficulty level”

Regarding actions based on journal writing, only few conclusions were appliedalthough all units in the book follow the same format, enabling teachers to easily makechanges basing on reflection results

Another thing worth mentioning is that Quynh made no reference to theory whenreflecting on her problems even when she could not find solutions to them Forexample, a problem remained unanswered is about how to check students’ performancewhen they work in groups However, she did not refer to any sources of possibleanswers to the problem; instead, she made a question mark.

3.3 Participant 3: LINH

This teacher has one year experience of teaching During the time of the study, she wasteaching reading and writing skills two periods every week That was the first time shewas assigned to teach English majored students She decided to reflect on teachingthese skills with the hope of discovering issues that she should focus on

At first, Linh was not very enthusiastic about writing journals and often forgot to sendher journals to the researcher However, from the forth week, there was a positivechange in her practice of journal writing This was the result of an incident in whichshe was given negative comments after a class visit by colleagues Those commentsmade her feel really frustrated and she was determined to pursue journal writing inorder to learn from her own mistakes

The review of all her journals revealed some of her teaching issues, as she listed asfollows:

+ Ineffective instructions

+ Unexciting class atmosphere

+ How to encourage students do peer feedback?

+ Usually forget to elicit answers from students

+ Overloaded with marking students’ writing paper

Among these, Linh found solutions to only a few issues For example, she wrote about how she dealt with the fact that she usually forgot to elicit answers from students:

“This time, I don’t ask directly I give an example in matching pictures withkinds of music, and then ask students why they know the answer By that way,

they know how to do the task and that’s more natural than otherwise when I ask

“How can you match pictures with kinds of music?” This way is much better.”However, for some issues, she could not find solutions or the solutions needed furtherinvestigation For instance, she did not know how to deal with the huge load ofchecking her students’ assignments As for the issues of “ineffective instructions” and

“How to encourage students do peer feedback?”, she wrote that “I will read theoryabout giving instruction” and “read about giving peer feedback” Thus, these problemswere left unanswered although she encountered these in the whole semester

3.4 Participant 4: SANG

This teacher has been teaching English for six years She chose to reflect on the use ofcourse book “Innovations” – advanced since this was the first time this book was used

in the faculty She taught two class periods every week In addition, she had the chance

to teach the same syllabus to two classes The four skills of reading, writing, listening,and speaking are taught in an integrated approach

It should be noted that a really big advantage that Sang had was that she taught twoclasses the same syllabus This enabled her to apply what she could learn from herreflections immediately This is an excerpt from her journal about one problem:

“I let the groups watch one extract from a film and take notes After that theyhad to retell the film as an anecdote They were interested in the activity but theanecdotes were not good as I had expected because they only listed the details.”This is her conclusion about the situation:

“Next time I will also let them watch and take notes Then, I will ask them towork in groups to discuss a picture of setting, characters and actions as well ascriteria of an anecdote They will base on this discussion to write theiranecdotes.”

After applying these changes, she concluded that “this is so effective The anecdotes ofclass C were much better!”

Over the period of the study, Sang did not carry out her journal writing very regularly;sometimes the researcher had to remind her In addition, she did not always review theeffects of her application of changes

The overall review of journals helped her to come to some conclusions about herteaching For example, she stated that “I realized I’m quite creative and flexible.” Thiswas shown in some situations in which she had to improvise: when she prepared for thewrong lesson, or when she finished the lesson with some class time left In addition,she concluded in her review that she was quite careless in her preparation For instance,

in one lesson, she did not study carefully about the acronym NBA or about the topic ofpolitics In another time, she did not remember the meanings of all the idioms in thelesson

Overall, from analyses of the participants’ journals, some effects of journal writing aswell as teachers’ obstacles could be found

It can be concluded that the reflection process helped the teachers find out somefeatures of their teaching, both positive and negative aspects In addition, it enablesthem to discover solutions to the problems that they encountered in their teaching.Some of these solutions were used to take actions while some were not

Regarding the participants’ difficulties, they include irregular reflection, no solutions toproblems, little reference to theory, no actions upon problems, and little review on thejournals as well as actions First, most of the participants did not carry out reflectivepractice on a regular basis Second, some of the problems were left unanswered or thesolutions were found without referring to any theory Another concern is that there arecases when they had the answers, they did not take actions to change their teaching

practice In other cases, when the teachers took actions, they forgot to review theeffects of those actions.

From the analyses, it can also be seen that the teachers tended to reflect more onnegative aspects than positive ones Besides, it is easier for the teachers to reflecteffectively and find emerging patterns if they focus on a specific aspect rather thanfocus on several ones at a time

4 Results of interview

4.1 Effectiveness of journal writing to reflective practice

When asked about the effectiveness of journal writing, all the participants held apositive attitude

First, journal writing is considered as a reminder to the teachers of reflecting on theirteaching One teacher stated that

Since I write journals, I’m aware that it’s something I should do as a teacher, and

I should do it regularly Before participating in this activity, I sometimes thoughtabout my teaching, usually when there’s something really significant happening.But when I have a folder named “Reflection journals” on my computer’s desktop,

I do it more often

Some teachers also emphasized that compared to their previous way of reflecting,writing journal makes the reflection deeper and more serious “writing down helps meget more insights into the teaching problems and it’s a more serious activity” Anotherteacher stated that “when writing journals, I can spend time looking at the lesson indetails Also, I can keep what I can learn from my mistakes for later use.”

4.2 Effectiveness of journal writing to teaching practice

Journal writing is also viewed as a means that helps the teachers realize their ownteaching features This is shown in the following response:

“After reviewing (the journals), I know many things that I did not notice before.Like, I see that I’m quite creative and flexible, capable of dealing with unexpectedsituations This made me feel confident and have high self-esteem I also know myweakness, which is careless preparation for lessons So I will try to be moreprepared for lessons.”

According to another teacher, this reflection activity enables her to realize her

“teaching style”: “I know that each teacher has her own teaching style And when Ilook back at my reflections, I can realize it For example, I know I usually follow areasonable teaching procedure; however, I’m not a very talkative teacher, so sometimesit’s hard to create an exciting atmosphere.” Another teacher realized during her reviewthat “when reviewing my journals, I see that I am too affected by my emotions Ishould control my feelings so that I won’t overreact.”

Besides, teachers commented that reflection practice is likely to change some of theirviewpoints For instance, one teacher answered that “Before I did it (reflectivepractice), I used to underestimate my students I think I have the knowledge, I transferthe knowledge to my students, but now I realize that I can learn a lot from mystudents.”

In addition, journal writing results in teachers’ actions to improve their teachingpractice According to one participant, the journals urge her to take actions: “If I justthink, then it doesn’t bother me to find solutions Because the reflection may make mefeel disappointed with myself; I want to improve but then I forget But when I havejournals, I look back at them and they remind me to take actions.”

For the teacher who taught the same syllabus to two classes, thus had the chances toimplement several solutions, she had a “sense of achievement”: “I really like it when Ican apply what I can learn from teaching the first class to another class right away Ican see changes! It’s the wonderful sense of achievement and progress.”

For the teachers who haven’t had the chances to apply all the solutions, they alsobelieved that they would use them to change their teaching This is stated by oneteacher as follows: “For some activities, I could make a change immediately in thatsemester but for some others, they’re not repeated, so I’ll leave the change until thenext semester Also, for some problems, I don’t know how to solve them; it requirestime to study more about those issues.”

Finally, journal writing leads to the teachers’ positive feelings about themselves This

is shown in some teachers’ comments For example, “this activity makes me moreresponsible for my teaching It helps me feel good about myself as a teacher.” Anotherteacher stated that “I’m happy to feel that maybe I’m becoming a more dedicatedteacher.”

4.3 Difficulties in reflection process

During the time the teachers used journals as a means of reflection-on-action, theyencountered a number of obstacles The most common difficulty cited by theparticipants is time constraint According to them, they “have no time for things thatare not compulsory We are very busy teaching private classes because we cannot live

on our salary.”

As a matter of fact, these teachers are very young and two of them are taking a mastercourse, thus they have to study and teach at the same time As claimed by a teacher inthis study

I have to come class to study, do assignments, prepare lesson plans, teach atschools and English center, so I go almost all day When I come home, I don’tthink about reflection Or sometimes I remember but I’m too tired to do it Ileave it for another day and then I forget, then I don’t remember the lessonclearly and less motivation to write down

In fact, it may takes only fifteen minutes to reflect on a teaching session withoutinvestigating deeply the solutions The reason might be that these teachers have notimplemented this activity long enough to form a habit.

In addition, in the working context of these teachers, self-reflection is not regulated as

a responsibility of teachers This situation, along with huge load of work of theteachers, accounts for the following comment by a participant: “Even though I knowreflection is really useful, I myself cannot keep doing it on a regular basis I’m a lazyteacher Sometimes I need something or someone to force me to do it.”

Time factor accordingly leads to another problem to the teachers According to theseteachers, even when they reflected and found out the teaching concerns and reasons,they did not have time to investigate answers to those concerns: “Journal writing helps

me discover many problems but I don’t have time to find solutions to them Therefore,the problems accumulate; there are so many things to investigate I have the feeling ofbeing overloaded.”

Another problem voiced by the teachers is psychological factor For them, the process

of writing down reflection is a demotivating activity because most of the time, theyhave to face with their own mistakes One participant claimed that “when the activityfailed, the feeling was quite terrible And then when I have to face it again whenwriting it down, it hurts me a lot”

These constraints account for the participants’ answers when asked about whether theywould continue using this activity after the ten weeks Despite their awareness andstatement of the benefits that journal writing might bring about to their professionalgrowth, only one teacher asserted that she would continue writing journals while theother three teachers hesitated They said that they would like to but could not ensurethat they could do it regularly and continuously