Reflective teaching

Recently، interest in research on EFL teaching، CLT-based methodology and materials، and post-method pedagogy has gain momentum in the Iranian mainstream education. This study was conducted; 1) to explore EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the present EFL methodologies and content of high school textbooks; 2) to examine any probable relationship between teachers’ attitudes towards post method pedagogy and their students’ achievement; and 3) to probe any correlation between the teachers’ instructional experience and their attitudes towards the present teaching methods and materials. To this end، a questionnaire was designed to elicit EFL teachers’ beliefs. The subjects were 594 Iranian EFL teachers selected from different cities all over Iran. After the administration of the questionnaire، the data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical procedures. The results indicated that: a) the Iranian EFL teachers hold different patterns of attitudes towards the dominant teaching methods and content of high school English textbooks، b) there is no relationship between the teachers’ positive or negative attitudes towards post method and their students’ achievement، and c) more experienced teachers’ attitudes are different from the attitudes held by less-experienced ones.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of using motivation strategies on EFL teachers’ motivation and reflective teaching. In order to do this, 30 Iranian female EFL teachers who were the researcher’s colleagues and expressed their willingness to participate in this study were selected. The group filled out a reflective teaching questionnaire by Akbari, Behzadpour, and Dadvand (2010) and motivation strategies questionnairre by Chastain (1988) as the pretest at the outset of the study and subsequently sat for a workshop where the researcher introduced motivation strategies and techniques to them. Following the end of the workshop, the teachers went back to their routine teaching program for 15 sessions and the researcher administered the reflectivity questionnaire and motivation strategies questionnaire as the posttest to the 30 teachers after those 15 sessions. In order to test the null hypotheses, that is to check any significant difference in the degree of the reflective teaching and motivation of the group prior to and after the treatment, a paired samples t-test was conducted in this research. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the participants’ scores on the motivation pretest and posttest; favoring the posttest. Also,there was a significant difference between the participants’ scores on the reflective teaching pretest and posttest, favoring the posttest. Therefore, the results showed that motivation strategies significantly affect the teachers’ motivation and reflective teaching.

This study set out to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between EFL teachers' emotional intelligence, reflectivity, and autonomy, and their students' L2 performance. The participants of this study included 88 EFL teachers who taught English at different private English teaching institutes and their students (N = 1266). First, the teachers completed three validated questionnaires: Emotional Quotient Inventory (Bar-On, 1997), Teacher Reflectivity Questionnaire (Akbari, Behzadpour & Dadvand, 2010), and Teacher Work-Autonomy Scale (Friedman, 1999). Then, their learners’ scores on their final English proficiency exams were collected as indication of their L2 performance. The results of the study revealed that there was significant positive relationship between teachers' reflectivity, emotional intelligence and autonomy, on the one hand, and their students' L2 performance, on the other. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that from among the variables of this study, reflectivity was the stronger predictor of the learners' L2 performance. In addition, the findings indicated that EFL teachers' educational degree and gender significantly affect their levels of emotional intelligence and reflectivity. The findings of this study offer evidence to substantiate teachers’ emotional intelligence, reflectivity, and autonomy as important variables in L2 teaching and confirm their instructional nature.

During the course of the past few decades, teachers have increasingly become the center of attention in education, since their significant role in teaching contexts has been approved, and therefore their different aspects, such as reflective teaching and burnout have received great attention. This study investigated the relationship between teacher burnout, and reflective teaching among Iranian EFL teachers. To this end, 50 participants (25 males and 25 females) were selected through convenience sampling. The participants were administered Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators’ Survey and Behzadpour Reflective Teaching Questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. The results of the study revealed that there was a weak negative relationship between reflective teaching and burnout for male and female teachers and for both groups considered as a composite group of language teachers.

The present study is aimed at investigating the relationship among Iranian EFL teachers’ reflective teaching, reflective thinking and classroom management ability. To this purpose, 102 male and female EFL teachers, aged between 25 and 40, with different academic background who were teaching at different levels, were chosen to fill in three questionnaires on reflective thinking, reflective teaching and classroom management. In this connection, the Spearman Rank-Order correlation was used as the analytical method to analyze the data and to come to the conclusion. The obtained result showed that there was a positive correlation between teachers’ reflective teaching and class management. A strong relationship was observed between reflective thinking and class management and there was also a positive correlation between teachers’ reflective thinking and reflective teaching.

As reflective practice has become an influential factor in teacher professional development, teachers need some techniques to enhance their reflective teaching. In this light, this study was intended to examine: (a) whether self-evaluation techniques could promote English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ reflective teaching, (b) whether EFL teachers who used self-evaluation techniques would differ from the teachers who did not use them in the 5 aspects of reflection (practical, cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and critical), and (c) whether EFL teachers’ years of experience and gender would make a significant difference in their degree of reflectivity. To these ends, 20 male and female Iranian EFL teachers participated in the study with its pretest posttest control group design and responded to Akbari, Behzadpour, and Dadvand’s (2010) Teacher Reflectivity Questionnaire. Unlike the control group, the experimental group employed 3 self-evaluation techniques of video recording lessons, advance organizers, and colleagues’ reviews. Results from a one-way analysis of covariance, a one-way multivariate analysis of covariance, and a two-way analysis of variance revealed that the self-evaluation techniques significantly improved the EFL teachers’ reflectivity. Also, the self-evaluation techniques made a significant difference in the practical, cognitive, metacognitive, and critical aspects of the teachers’ reflection. However, the EFL teachers’ years of experience and gender did not make a significant difference in their degree of reflectivity. The findings encourage EFL teachers to join other stakeholders to evaluate and reflect upon their own teaching for positive changes in EFL classrooms

The study investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' perception of critical pedagogy (CP) and reflective teaching (RT), the possible effect of gender, academic degree, and teaching experience on teachers’ perceptions of CP, the possible differences among the three groups of teachers of universities, public schools and private language institutes regarding their perception of CP and also the possible difference between the reported CP perception of teachers and their actual classroom implementation. The instruments adopted for data collection purposes included the CP Questionnaire developed by Pishvaei and Kasaian (2013) and the RT Inventory developed by Akbari, Behzadpour and Dadvand (2010) which were validated through pilot-testing and factor analysis. Then, the CP Classroom Observation Checklist, was developed by the researchers and was viewed by an expert. The results of one-way ANOVA showed that there were significant differences among the three groups of university, school, and language institute EFL teachers regarding CP perception. Also, the results of Pearson correlation showed a significant relationship between participants' perception of CP and RT. Moreover, the results of Factorial ANOVA indicated that gender and teaching experience did not significantly differentiate the participants concerning CP perception; however, academic degree did so. Furthermore, the results of Independent Samples t-test revealed significant differences between the participants' reported perception of CP and their actual classroom implementation of it. The findings of the study might imply that English teachers should be equipped with the knowledge of how to put CP into practice in actual classroom settings in addition to the propositional knowledge of the concept.

Forty general English teachers at the university level attended three supervisory sessions. The qualitative data were collected through a triangulation of various techniques, including: pre/post-supervision semi-structured interviews, classroom observation checklists, reflective journals, field notes, and transcriptions of audio-recorded data from supervisory meetings. Thematic analysis was used to identify recurring themes at each layer of the onion model. The Chi-square analysis revealed a significant difference between teachers’ attitudes and strategies before and after the supervisory meetings. The results demonstrated that teachers experienced a process of growth with a developmental trajectory from the outer layers to the inner layers of the onion model fostering the core qualities of self-confidence, self-efficacy, self-awareness, and autonomy. Furthermore, the analysis indicated that the supervisor played a significant role in teachers’ development by using supervisory strategies such as: empathetic listening and accepting the problems, empowerment by activating core qualities, giving attention to inner obstacles, giving balanced attention to cognition, emotion, and motivation, and help to get autonomy in core reflection. The findings support making deliberate efforts to establish regular supervisory practicum meetings as part of academic professional culture, and the core reflection approach as a valuable strategy.

To effectively and reflectively impart knowledge to their students, Iranian EFL teachers should cultivate their critical thinking dispositions (CTDs). Therefore, the aim of this mixed-methods study is twofold: Firstly, to explore how CTDs and their role in reflective teaching (RT) are addressed and perceived among EFL teachers, and secondly, to explore the interplay between EFL teachers’ CTDs and RT. To do so, 303 Iranian EFL teachers participated in this study. The data collection instruments were two questionnaires, namely CT dispositions and RT questionnaires, and a semi-structured interview. Upon collecting the data, Pearson correlations and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using AMOS 20 were used to analyze the quantitative data. Moreover, the descriptive qualitative content analysis technique was used to analyze the qualitative data. The quantitative findings indicated that the largest statistically significant value, which identified the strength of the relationships between CTDs and RT, was attributed to integrity. This value showed that the integrity explains 13 percent of the variance in RT scores based on Regression Weights for RT and CTDs. The second significant variable was perseverance, which explained six percent of the variance in RT scores. Courage and humility variables also explain one percent of the variance in RT scores. Moreover, the qualitative results indicated that CTDs played a significant role in Iranian EFL teachers’ RT practices. The findings may have implications for the Iranian EFL stakeholders, EFL teachers, and EFL teacher training programs.

The current study aimed to explore the effectiveness of a process based reflective teacher training course that utilized situational role plays, video analysis, and scenario evidence as guided reflective and caring practices for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher candidates. To this end, 45 teacher candidates at a teacher education university in Iran participated in a semi-structured interview (pre-intervention and post-intervention interview) and created process-oriented narrative journals documenting their reflective and caring practices. The findings of the study indicated that all the three groups of participants (role play group, scenario-based evidence group, and video evidence group) benefitted from the course and demonstrated improvement in various ways. The emerged themes from each group (role play group: 23 categories, video group: 17 categories, and scenario-based evidence group: 16 categories) illustrated how these strategies supported teacher candidates in developing their caring and reflective practices.

Teachers have the power to change their students' lives for the better, therefore teachers should be armed with some skills to be effective. Reflective teaching as one of these skills empowers teachers to observe and evaluate themselves. Although research on reflective teaching has a long tradition, little is known about whether it could be a significant predictor of language teacher immunity and work motivation as two important factors determining the success or failure of teachers, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Thus, the present study aimed at examining the possible association among reflective teaching, language teacher immunity, and work motivation through path analysis. To this end, English Language Teacher Reflective Inventory (ELTRI), Language Teacher Immunity Instrument (LTII), and Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale (MWMS) were administered to 320 Iranian EFL teachers. Data analysis revealed that teachers with higher reflective teaching practices are more immunized and motivated. Moreover, the significant role of language teacher immunity on work motivation was discovered. The implications of the present study may shed new light on the significance of incorporating reflective approach into teacher development programs as a core subject.

This study was done to investigate the relationship between technological pedagogical content knowledge and reflective teaching of Iranian ESP teachers in online classrooms. To meet the goals, 254 ESP teachers from different universities in Iran were selected to take part in the study. The technological pedagogical content knowledge and teachers’ reflective teaching questionnaires were used as the main instruments of the study. Pearson correlation and multiple regression were calculated to analyze the data gathered from the questionnaires. The findings showed that the relationship between Iranian ESP teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge and their reflective teaching in online classrooms was significant and the components of TPCK significantly predicted the Iranian ESP teachers’ reflective teaching. The findings of the study assist ESP teachers to employ technological pedagogical content knowledge to enhance their reflective teaching in the teaching process.