A Case Study Based On College English Teachers’ Reflective Teaching Practice

Researches concerned about college English teachers have caught the eyeballs of many distinguished educators and researchers with the intensive reform carries out in the realm of college English education. Therefore, college English teachers would face higher requirements and more challenges. In the age of “post-method”, the focus of teachers’ education has shifted from teaching method to teachers’ professional development(Xu & Li, 2012). Reflective teaching, an effective approach which can initiate teachers’ inner desire for self-development has attracted many professionals’ attention. Many overseas researches prove that a tight relationship exists between reflective teaching and teachers’ development and qualitative methods have already been adopted extensively. While within our country, the fact is that qualitative studies are rarely few and researches relates to teachers’ development mainly focus on quantitative method. However as classroom environment is dynamic and teachers is subjective initiative in handling their classes, qualitative studies are more appropriate for the study of college English teachers.In the hope of enriching the qualitative research results about reflective teaching, the research has been carried out. This research is designed from the point of view of qualitative approach to specify features of college English teachers’ reflective teaching practice as well as the main contents of their reflection. The positive effect of their reflective teaching practice is discussed too.Consequently three research questions are raised:(1) what are the contents of college English teachers’ reflection from the four teachers’ reflective diaries, interviews and classroom observation;(2) what are the main features of college English teachers’ reflection manifested in the collected materials;(3) how does college English teachers’ reflective teaching facilitates their professional development? What are the supportive factors that influence college English teachers’ reflection; and what are the restrictive factors that affect college English teachers’ reflection?To successfully accomplish this research, this study adopts one of qualitative methodologies——multiple cases study method with four college English teachers from a university in Jiang Su province. Four ways are employed for data collection. The four teachers are required to write at least one piece of diary every two weeks. And 25 pieces of valid diaries have been successfully collected. Meanwhile classroom observation of the four teachers’ classroom teaching has been conducted during which observation notes are taken; altogether 96 pieces of classroom observation reports have been collected. Each of the four teachers has written a record of their life history(especially their educational experiences and professional training experiences). Finally the related semi-structured interviews are carried out with the four teachers as the interviewees.The research results manifest that, firstly the contents of teachers’ reflection are various and multiple. Teachers’ personal teaching experience results in the variety of the reflection contents. Secondly, there are mainly four features of the four college English teachers’ reflection, which are the pursuit of student-oriented teaching pattern, the common aim in promoting students’ active participation, teachers’ positive attitude and universal problems in the process of teachers’ reflection. Thirdly, the teachers all find out that reflection has positive influence on their teaching and helps them accumulate more teaching experience. Meanwhile, in the process of practising reflective teaching, they realize the circulation of three elements, which are theories, teaching practice and reflection. And all these have imperceptibly promoted their professional development.