| Since the early eighties in the 20th century, different approaches to teacher development have been proposed and implemented in teacher education program. Wallace (1991) summarized 3 main models in teacher education, such as the craft model, the applied science model and the reflective model, of which the reflective model has widely been endorsed, for it stresses the teacher's innate power and responsibility in promoting professional growth and development. Of the various reflective approaches, such as teaching journals, lesson reports, surveys and questionnaires, audio or video recordings, observation and action research, journal writing is one of the most influential means to enhance student teachers'professional development. As Bartlett (1990:209) commented, "the recording of our practice can be done by audio or visual means (tape-recording a lesson, using photography, etc), but the best means would seem to involve some form of writing. In writing, we begin not only to observe, but we take the first step on or about our practice." Journal writing holds an important and indispensable position in teacher education home and abroad, many teacher educators have conducted research into it, most of which focused on in-service teachers'journal entries. This study aims to make an research on EFL student teachers'reflective journals on microteaching in order to gain insights into the role journal writing plays in promoting student teachers' reflectivity and professional growth, since student teachers are just standing at the threshold of their teaching career, it is of great significance to develop their reflective habit via journal writing in an early stage.This study is basically a qualitative one, adopting the reflective journal writing and the interviewing method among pre-service EFL teachers from Class 7 and Class 8 in Central China Normal University. In the journal analysis method, ten student teachers' journal entries were selected randomly for further analysis and investigation. There were totally 180 journal entries which were read 3 times during which the content of the journal entries were summarized and categorized and the reflective level were identified; in the interviewing method,17 student teachers (including those 4 whose journal entries were analyzed) were selected for follow-up group interview, mainly 3 aspects were dug into including student teachers'personal feeling towards the journaling experience, merits and problems of the journal writing and problems concerning the microteaching.Finally, from analyzing and discussing the abundant contents and ideas and the thought-provoking reflections generating from student teachers'journal entries and the follow-up interviews, merits with journal writing were summarized as follows:first, it helps student teachers to keep record of thoughts;second, it pushes student teachers to reflect and make their thoughts deep and systematic;third, it promotes interaction, both between tutors and student teachers, and among student teachers themselves; Last, it enhances student teachers'writing competency. Problems existing in journal writing mainly included:student teachers lacked ideas in choosing topic;they had no idea in how to reflect; the overall amount of journal were too demanding for student teachers; higher frequency of feedbacks from the tutor were expected and etc. With regard to the existing problems concerning journal writing and microteaching, the paper listed some applicable measures to improve them mainly synthesizing from student teachers'journals and the follow-up interviews. Generally speaking, the merits of journal writing are far outweighed the problems, therefore it is safely to draw the conclusion that reflective journal plays a key role in developing student teachers'reflective thinking and promoting their professional development, thus it is of great necessity to integrate it into the teacher education programme.
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