A Study On Non-English Majors’ Reflections In Learner Journals For IELTS Courses

It has been a long-held view that reflection plays an important and indispensable role in learning.The significance of cultivating students’ reflection during learning has been emphasized in recent years,especially with regard to college students.However,the application of reflective practices is not always smooth.As a commonly used reflective tool,learner journals which allow students to write about their reflection on past learning experience have been studied by numerous scholars in different contexts.The present study attempts to focus on exploring the factors that exert influences on student reflective writing.More specifically,the study intends to answer the following questions:1)Based on the analysis of journal content,what are the characteristics of students’reflective writing and levels of their reflection showed in the learner journals?2)What are students’ perceptions of and attitudes towards writing learner journals in the target language?3)What are the factors that influence EFL learners’ reflective writing when they write learner journals?In terms of the research design,participants in the present study are 40 non-English majors who have to attend their pre-sessional language courses before being admitted by a British university.Besides,qualitative approach is adopted in this study and the data mainly come from students’ weekly learner journals as well as student responses to several open-ended questions.By carefully reading and analyzing student journals,the results show that there are some common characteristics in student reflective writing,first,they tend to relate reflection to their personal experience;second,they attend to feelings when they reflect;third,their reflections are mainly retrospective without sufficient prospective writing.Also,students use large amount of description in their writing.Besides,students are inclined to utilize the same patterns when they finish the reflective practice.In addition,openness can be found in many students’ learner journals.In terms of the levels of reflection,it is showed that most students’ reflection remains at a low level and critical reflection can hardly be found.Furthermore,students’ perception of and attitudes towards writing learner journals are studied based on the results of the open-ended questions.Before the journal writing assignment,students had a poor or vague perception of reflection as well as learner journal assignment.Yet,after the practice,the majority of students gain a deeper understanding about learner journal writing.Besides,most students recognize the value of learner journal in promoting their learning in both cognitive and affective way.Additionally,students also point out difficulties they have experienced in the journaling process,including their unfamiliarity of the task,their lack of motivation and perseverance and the like.Furthermore,more than half of the students claim that they are willing to carry on writing journals in their further study.With respect to suggestions offered by students on the implementation of learner journals,students mainly talk about their suggestions from four angles:the format of learner journals;the interval of two learner journal writing;criteria for learner journals of good quality and teacher feedback.Based on the results above,the author further explores the factors influencing students’ reflective writing in learner journals.Finally,some pedagogical implications are proposed including giving more attention to reflective training,teaching students how to reflect effectively and establishing trust between students and teachers,hoping to better the application of learner journals.