Promoting Professional Development Through Reflective Teaching: An Empirical Study On Chinese EFL Teachers

EFL teacher education in China has gradually become a focused area of research in the foreign language education circle and among the literature dealing with EFL teacher development, many references are made to the concept of reflective teaching and teachers and teacher educators are encouraged to engage in reflective practices, but these studies and claims lack empirical support. The present study, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, investigated 30 university EFL teachers of English majors and non-English majors situated in three eastern Chinese cities, Beijing, Qingdao and Shanghai. Questionnaires and semi-controlled introspective interviews are employed in data collection.The research tries to answer the following questions: 1) what is Chinese EFL teachers' understanding of reflective teaching? 2) What are the most common and least common reflective practices, if there is any, among Chinese EFL teachers in universities? 3) How does the teachers' personal background such as educational experience, teaching experience and language proficiency relate to their reflective practices?The findings based on statistical analysis and qualitative summarizations are: Not much enthusiasm is shown in pursuing professional development through individual reflective methods such as journaling. Instead, reflective teaching through collaboration such as group discussion and mentoring is much desired. Positive correlations between teaching experience and action research, teaching experience and pedagogical knowledge, studying abroad experience and language proficiency, studying abroad experience and pedagogical skills are shown. The implications are respecting teacher autonomy and at the same time providing scaffolding by supervisors and teacher educators.