An Action Research On Developing Junior Students' Reflective Competence In English Learning

Reflection, being the process of re-inspection of one's own cogitation, is an indispensable part of learning. According to Constructivism, learning is not the passive process of reception, duplication and assimilation. It demands students'constructive competence, requiring students' reflection, generalization and abstraction. Obviously, the reflection in learning is the process of students' active accomplishment. In this sense, the student-centered ideology is sufficiently advocated.The New Curriculum Reform advocates the student-centered learning, which is not only an obvious display of the constructivist theory, but also the necessary desire for high-quality English teaching. Reflection, a main element of Creative teaching, is both the definite display of autonomous learning and the beginning of self-education. Based on the meta-cognitive theory, reflective learning aims at students' lifelong development. In this view, to guarantee the role of students, the combination between English learning and reflective learning is necessary. On the other hand, students are inclined to practice reflective learning, which reminds teachers of the task to foster students' awareness of reflective learning.Grounded on the theory of Meta-cognition and Constructivism, this paper aims at exploring the approaches for improving junior students' reflective ability. This paper attempts to solve the following questions:1) What is the status quo of students' reflective learning?2) What is the positive influence of the action research on students' reflective competence?3) Do significant differences exist in students' reflective ability before and after the instruction?4) Do students' performances in English examination correlate with the four scales of students' reflective competence?5) What problems will the students encounter during reflection? During the three months' teaching, the teacher consciously fosters students' reflective awareness. Students are introduced to some reflective strategies, such as self-evaluation, reflective learning diary. At the end of the research, questionnaire and English examination are applied. Questionnaire is aimed at quantitatively analyzing whether there exists significant difference in students' reflective ability before and after the research, while interview qualitatively gets the general idea about students'recognition and application of reflective strategies. Meanwhile, the examination is correlated with students' reflective learning, with the purpose to prove the influence of students' reflectivity on the English examination.The results are as follows:1) The students are not good at reflective learning, due to the lack of the essential reflective knowledge and strategies.2) With the basic understanding of reflective learning, the students tend to differ greatly in the overall reflective level after the instruction, which indicates the three-month action research has a positive influence on students' reflective competence.3) Students' performances in English examination correlate with students' reflective competence, in other words, the enhancement of students' reflective competence will definitely lead to students' academic success in English.4) The reflective diary and self-appraisal applied during the action research are effective ways to raise students' reflective awareness and enthusiasm.5) The meta-cognitive strategies and constructive learning have a directive effect on the formation of students' reflective competence.6) The student can also meet all sorts of barriers in concrete learning, for instance: the lack of perseverance for reflection, the limitation of students' reflection, and so on.