A Case Study On Young Teacher Reflection In Teaching English In A Vocational School

This study aims to explore an expert EFL teacher’s view of reflection and herexperiences of reflective practice in teaching. Specifically, it intends to discover thecontent, ways and approaches of her reflective thinking as well key factors that influenceher reflection. The data are mainly collected from interviews, observation notes and casedocuments. The major findings of the research are as follows:Firstly, this expert teacher’s understanding of reflection experiences a deepeningprocess from merely “summarizing experiences” to “problem solving”. She has a fairlystrong sense of reflection and a very positive view of the value of reflection for improvingteaching, teacher and students relationship, and teacher development.Secondly, the data analysis shows that she usually reflects in her teaching on herprofessional knowledge and teaching ability, personal educational beliefs and professionalmorality. Among the three, her reflection on professional knowledge reveals some changefrom theory-practice disconnection to theory for practice. Besides, due to time limit shepractices reflection after class more than before class and during the class. In addition, sheadopts both self-and collective reflection strategies, such as keeping teaching journals,writing classroom research papers, and talking with colleagues and students.Finally, several key factors are discovered to have affected this teacher’s reflection.Facilitating factors include her professional knowledge base, positive emotion andcolleagues’ support. Inhibiting factors include the limited time and energy as well asschool’s not very supportive work environment,Based on these findings, the researcher makes tentative suggestions for improvingteacher reflection from both the individual teacher and school levels.