Shaping reflective tools
to context
Steve Mann, University of Warwick
Steve Walsh, Newcastle University
Reflective practice
 Case for reflective practice (RP) and
critical reflective practice (CRP) is wellestablished.
 RP/CRP are now at the heart of a number
of teacher education programmes (preservice teacher training (e.g. CELTA) to to
MA as well as ongoing CPD.
 Teachers’ ability to reflect on practice, to
analyze and to act are crucial.
The orthodoxy of reflection in
TESOL
 Dewey’s initial vision of ‘reflective thinking’ in
the ‘educational process’ (Dewey 1933)
 Schön’s (1983) view of the ‘reflective practitioner’
 Richards & Nunan (1990) and Wallace (1991)
 Translated into TESOL by publications such as
(e.g. Bailey, Curtis & Nunan 2001, Farrell 2007),
 Action research (e.g. Freeman 1998, Burns 1999,
Edge 2001)
Orthodox but vague
‘it is hard to keep up with the continuous
stream of new contributions on reflection in
the teaching profession’ (Bengtsson 1995:
24).
 It has become ‘unclear what constitutes
reflective practice’ and the notion of
reflective practice has lost its ‘sharpness of
meaning’ (Morrison, 1995: 82)

Shifting attention from written
to spoken?
 Written accounts are arguably an administrative
account or record rather than an indicator that
reflection is ongoing. Also, problem of ‘faking it’
(Hobbs 2007).
 CRP as a process lends itself to dialogue and coconstructed meaning-making.
 Developing understandings, acquiring new
knowledge and skills, and implementing
professional practices perhaps best occur through
dialogue and discussion over time.
In investigating spoken reflective
interaction we are concerned with…
Provision of space
Roles
Norms of interaction (discourse
choices)
Tasks/activities/tools
Kurtuglu-Hooton (2010: 37)
 ‘A teacher educator colleague’:
“The lesson may not be perfect but with
honest reflection and evaluation trainees
should be able to change what didn't work
well for better practice in the next lesson.”
 Reflection and evaluation – uneasy
bedfellows?
Criteria-led – evaluative in nature
 Trainers procedures and discursive
practices learnt through community of
practice (Lave & Wenger 1991).
 Trainers have participatory structures
they evoke in feedback that are for them
‘normal and unremarkable’.
(Copland 2010: 471)
Walsh (2006)
 There is a clear and evident gap between student and
staff perceptions of CRP and the reasons for its
existence.
 Students (typically) operate at a ‘surface’ level which
addresses the ‘here and now’ of their professional lives:
how to plan a lesson, how to collect information for an
assignment, how to ensure that written records are
kept up to date.
 In contrast, and, not surprisingly given their more
extensive professional experience, staff are considering
the ‘bigger picture’, operating at a deep level where
CRP is advocated as an artefact which underpins
professional practice.
Appropriate tools
Walsh (2006) SETT grid aims at
 developing an appropriate ‘metalanguage’
 facilitating description and reflection on
practice.
 promotes, through collaborative dialogue,
changes in practice.
in-action and on-action
 Difference between reflection-in-action and
reflection-on-action.
 Reflection-in-action arises in classroom situations
where the teacher has to rethink, tweak,
improvise, or reorient aspects of the lesson.
 Stimulated recall is particularly useful in recalling
such reflection-in-action and tying it to the more
general
Four balances
 Balance between Narcissus and Icarus
(Edge 2011)
 Direction and Reflection (Farr 2011)
 Monologic and Dialogic (Mann and
Copland 2010)
 IRF and Rogerian Discourse (Edge 2002)
Icarus and Narcissus
 Icarus had wings and flew higher than he
should. Narcissus stayed too long observing
himself and put down roots.
 ‘the mutually-shaping interactions between
our roots and our wings, our self-knowledge
and our environmental knowledge’ provide
awareness so that we can ‘commit ourselves to
future action based on that combined
awareness’ (Edge 2011:17)
Towards the dialogic
 Dialogic talk creates more space for extended turns,
reflective talk, peer contributions (Mann and Copland
2010)
 it encourages participants to move from an interpsychological to an intra-psychological stage of
development.
the dialogic – inter /intra
 inter-psychological stage of development occurs
through dialogue and ‘making public’ experiential
knowledge, emergent understanding and articulations
 Participants may then reflect on and learn from these
discussions, internalizing and appropriating new
meanings, new understandings (intra-psychological
stage of development)
Conclusions
Students need to be taught how to reflect critically and this
should become a key element of all teacher education
programmes. Students need appropriate tools and a
metalanguage.
However, reflection does not have to be criteria-led or always
based on critical evaluation, there can be space for other
kinds of discourse.
Need more attention to ‘levels of reflective activity’ and how
different discourses, roles, task and tools encourage
reflection