International Journal of language Education.
Vol.
2 No.
2 pp.
IN-SERVICE EFL TEACHERSAo EXPERIENCES OF CONDUCTING
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AS CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Tosriadi Universitas Sebelas Maret.
Indonesia Email: adytandjung7@gmail.
Abdul Asib Universitas Sebelas Maret.
Indonesia Email: abdul.
asib@yahoo.
Sri Marmanto Universitas Sebelas Maret.
Indonesia Email: srimarmanto@yahoo.
DOI : 10.
26858/ijole.
Abstract Teaching is a demanding job and it requires professional individual to perform the job.
There is a need for teachers, especially language teachers to reflect on their action in order to be professional educators.
To ease teachers in conducting reflective practice there are some tools that can be utilized.
This qualitative case study investigated experiences of in-service EFL teachers in Indonesia in conducting reflective practice.
More specifically, it discussed the tools of reflective practice employed by participating teachers in doing reflection.
Four in-service EFL teachers were purposively chosen as respondents of the study.
The data were acquired by spreading questionnaire, doing interview, and conducting document analysis.
The results of the study revealed there were five tools of reflective practice utilezed by in-service EFL teachers in doing reflective practice, namely.
teaching journal, peer observation, studentsAo feedback, video/audio recording, and action research.
The finding of the study informed that the practice of reflective practice among in-service EFL teachers was not maximal yet.
Especially on the utilization of video/audio recording and action research.
Moreover, no teachers were getting involved in peer coaching activity.
Keywords: reflective practice tools, in-service EFL teachers, reflective practice, professional development activity, teaching improvement.
INTRODUCTION
As the main actor of education teachers hold an important role in teaching and PeraturanPemerintahRepublik Indonesia (PPRI) No 74, 2008 on teacher states teaching as profession, thus it obliges teachers to be professional.
There are several roles teachers should perform as the instructing, directing, training, scoring, and evaluating students (PPRI, 2.
Further.
The Regulation of The Republic of Indonesia Number 14, 2005 on Teacher and Lecturer Chapter IV.
Article 10 Verse 1, requires teachers to possess a set of competences which includes pedagogical competence, competence, and social competence .
s cited in Dikti, 2.
In response to this mandate therefore, teachers have to be both professional and empowered.
Based on these regulations, it is obvious that teaching profession requires teachers to have some knowledge and skills to be able to perform their duties well, so they can create a more Professional considered one element that supports teachersAo competence in catering the demands of schooling systems today as teachers are expected to be professional.
Tosriadi.
Abdul Asib, & Sri Marmanto.
In-Service EFL TeachersAo Experience ofA There is a growing interest of professional development for English teachers to address the daily needs of teachers and learners in todayAos world.
Professional development is believed to be one of the most effective ways to empower teachers.
The term Aoprofessional developmentAo has been used in many Wong .
1, p.
defines professional development as Aua lifelong endeavor, a way of being, and a perspective on how one practices as well the practice itselfAy.
Professional development may be in the form of personal decisions in order to improve teachersAo practices of working into a more professional level.
It can also be in the form of institutional working program to empower their teacher.
One of personal professional development that can be practiced by educators is reflective practice.
This study is aimed at elaborating in-service EFL teachersAo experiences in conducting reflective practice as a form of professional development activity.
More specifically, it attempts to answer the following research questionAy What tools of reflective do inservice EFL teachersAo utilize in doing reflective practice?Ay those of successful practitioners.
As defined by Schon, reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering experiences in applying knowledge to practice (Schon, 1996 cited in Schon, 2.
Farrell .
suggests that reflective practice should be the feature of EFL/ESL teaching due to its usefulness.
He pinpoints that AuRoutine in teaching without any reflection can lead to this type of 'cutting the slice off the roast' and can lead to burnout on the jobAy (Farrell, 1999, p.
Pennington .
as cited in Farrel .
8, p.
highlights reflective practice "as a means for .
improving classroom processes and outcomes, and .
developing confident, selfmotivated teachers and learners".
Many researchers agree that reflective practice will enable teachers to renew their teaching by reflecting their teaching experience Tools of Reflective Practice There are some tools teachers can use in conducting reflective practice.
Some experts propose several forms of reflective practice activities, such as.
learning journal, peer observation, studentsAo feedback, peer coaching, video/audio recording, and action Teaching journal:Goker .
says reflective or teaching journal is considered as one of the most common tools utilized by educators or reflective practitioners in doing reflection because of its practical utilization in providing useful evaluation.
Similarly.
Zulfikar&Mujiburrahman .
teaching journal facilitates teachers to make some reflections on their teaching and then generate feedback for the improvement of their classroom practices.
The finding of their study generated from interviews indicates that most participants are convinced that teaching journals help them become reflective teachers.
It also reveals that most of in-service teachers regard teaching journal as an effective tool to increase teaching awareness, and thus improve their performance during teaching.
Whitton.
Sinclair.
Barker.
Nahlohy, & Nosworthy .
find out by actively using teaching LITERATURE REVIEW Overview of the Term John Dewey is generally recognized as the founding father of the reflective practice Reflection or reflective practice, which is a relatively old concept in teacher education, was first defined by its founder.
John Dewey.
According to Dewey .
as cited in How We Think.
Dewey .
7, p.
AuReflection is an active, persistent, and careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge, of the grounds that support that knowledge, and the further conclusions to which that knowledge leadsAy.
DeweyAos concept of reflective practice inspired many other researchers in the field to revise or expand the term.
One of the researchers who expanded the theory is Schon.
He recommends reflective practice as a way for teachers to recognize consonance between their own individual practices and International Journal of language Education.
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2 pp.
journal teachers can develop their professional growth since it enables teachers make evaluation of their teaching.
Peer observation: Conducting peer Zacharias .
proposes 3 reasons why peer observation is needed.
to learn, to describe, and to evaluate teachersAo pedagogy Further.
Cakir .
contends that through peer observation teachers will get new insights to improve their teachings because it provides teachers opportunity to identify some problems they cannot observe by themselves.
While Richards & Farrell .
claim peer observation has a number of benefits.
it helps teacher become more aware of the problem they confront, and it also help teachers narrow the gap between the ideal condition of teaching with what actually happen.
Rose .
7, p.
says Aupeer coaching partnerships will support individual teachers in reflecting on and describing their As a result of these focused discussions, a teacher is able to better understand practice and be able to take steps to improve practiceAy .
Similarly.
Sharifi & Abdolmanafi .
Aucollaboration is a vital ingredient for reflective coursesAy .
while teachers can reflect on their peers and evaluate and comment each other in order to improve According to Weston .
Auobservations provide value to both the AuvisitedAy and AuvisitorAy teacher, whose collaboration before and after the observed lesson promotes active reflectionAy .
A study by Merc .
also informs us about the positive attitude of EFL teachers on classroom peer observation, even though they are lack of experiences.
Instead, this study also confirms conducting classroom observation has more advantages than disadvantages because teacher can learn many positive things from his or her Peer coaching: Joyce & Showers .
inShowers& Joyce .
comment that peer coaching was first coined as an on-site dimension for staff development in United States.
Yee .
defines peer coaching as collaborative process among two or more individual who together to reflect the current practice in educational field.
It may be used for expanding, refining, or building new On the other hand.
Ladyshewsky .
4, p.
comments AuPeer coaching is a learning strategy that is used extensively in education to promote learning.
The term AopeerAo denotes equal standing or rank in any AoCoachingAo is a term we are familiar with from sports and is a strategy that is used to guide others towards achieving maximal AoPeer coachingAo, therefore, is an educational strategy in which individuals of equal rank or standing coach one another towards achieving some higher level of performanceAy.
Further, he mentions several benefits of conducting peer coaching.
Those are mutual problem solving.
learning through and self and peer development.
Other researchers.
Scott & Miner .
add peer coaching is a collaborative nonjudgmental process which is aimed to develop strong professional relationship between colleagues.
Lately, peer coaching has been proven to be an effective means to improve staff development and provide opportunity and support for teachers to implement new ideas or strategies.
Video/audio recording:Video or audio recording is another tool that can be utilized by teachers to evaluate or look deeper to their Tice .
highlights audio or video recording lets teachers revisit their behavior during teaching session from a different perspective During teaching and learning process, there might be some incidents missed from teachersAo observation.
Mathew.
Mathew & Peechattu .
7, p.
AuVideo or audio recordings of lessons can provide very useful information for reflection.
Through watching their own or other peer membersAo recordings, student teachers can develop their awareness of teaching.
A teacher may do many things in class but may not be aware of many things happening in the class which Tosriadi.
Abdul Asib, & Sri Marmanto.
In-Service EFL TeachersAo Experience ofA the teacher may not normally see.
classroom video can vividly picture the whole process of teaching.
It can trigger teachersAo reflective thinking, reflect on their weaknesses and help them get some inspiration and ideas for their teaching improvementAy Jaworski .
0, p.
highlights several benefits of recording the teaching, they are Auto offset the isolation of teachers who rarely see beyond their own classrooms, by providing glimpses of other teachers at work, to provide opportunities for viewing other teaching styles and observing other teachers' strategies in the classroom, to provide a medium for reviewing a teacher's own classroom as an aid to reflection on teaching, and to provide a shared experience which can form a starting point for discussion of teaching, leading to identification of important issues and the possibility of working on these issues in the classroomAy.
Kember .
also believes that audio/video recording is the least intrusive method for gathering data for reflection.
StudentsAo feedback: Other way to evaluate teaching and learning process can be conducted by asking studentsAo feedback.
Tice .
opines studentsAo feedback as a poweful tools that can be utilized by teachers to know studentsAo perception and opinion about teaching and learning process carried out by teacher.
Teacher can ask studentsAo opinions and ideas about teaching and learning process through direct questions or Mathew.
Mathew, &Peechattu .
argue studentsAo feedback will give new perspectives to teaching and learning process run by teachers.
StudentsAo feedback will also be meaningful for teachers in some respects.
Firstly, it can be used to improve teaching, and secondly, it will also be useful to create a good relationship among teachers and students (Iqbal.
Ramzan, &Arain, 2.
the other hand.
Burniske & Meibaum .
as cited in Iqbal.
Ramzan & Arain .
argue that even studentsAo feedback can provide useful information, but it cannot be used as single parameter to judge teachersAo performance since it has some limitation, such us the limitation of studentsAo knowledge related to teaching strategies, classroom management, and curriculum.
Action research:Cirocki & Farelly .
view action research as Auan approach to classroom-based research that connects classroom research and action towards changeAy .
which is very important to gain deeper understanding on classroom Mathew.
Mathew, &Peechattu .
emphasize action research can be a reflective tool to overcome classroom They believe action research is a progressive problem solving process to understand teachersAo teaching and it helps teachers to become more aware of what is happening in their classroom.
Skytt .
announces that action research is a kind of strategy for teachers to investigate problems or interest related to their professional Hamilton .
cited in Skytt .
0, p.
says Auaction research is a process of systematic inquiry into a self-identified teaching or learning problem to better understand its complex dynamics and to develop strategies geared towards the problemAos improvementAy.
ThatAos why through action research it is expected teachers can make improvement of their teaching activity.
Instead.
Richards .
as cited in Qing .
opines action research can be very useful in getting to know our Through action research teachers can investigate learnersAo cognitive styles and their preferences for particular learning Cirocki & Farelly .
utter that doing action research seems to overwhelmed for so many teachers, thus, many teachers decide not to conduct it.
Further, they classify several factors that may hinder teachers from conducting action research, some of them are lack of training, motivation, and lack of support from instution.
Previously, there have been several research studies discussing reflective practice among EFL or ESL teachers.
One of which is a research carried by Fatemipour .
It was a descriptive study.
It involved International Journal of language Education.
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40 English teachers who were selected through simple random sampling.
It was believed that in order to reflect teaching and learning process, reflective teachers need some tools to obtain reliable data for The data in this study were collected through questionnaire, observation, interview and documentation .
eacher The result of the study revealed there were four most effective tools of reflective practice utilized by participating The followings were the tools of reflective practice ranked from the most effective to the least.
teacher diary .
eaching journa.
, peer observation, studentsAo feedback, and audio/video recording.
Teacher diary .
eaching journa.
was considered as the most efficient tool in doing reflective practice.
Peer observation was considered more effective than two remaining tools.
StudentsAo feedback was positioned in the third place.
Audio/video recording was the least effective tool for reflective practice.
spread out to participants to identify the tools of reflective practice utilize by in-service EFL teachers.
After filling out the questionnaire, we discussed interview schedule with participants.
we let them decided the day, time, and location of the We also let the participants to choose the language of interview, and finally they decided to have interview in Indonesian to avoid misunderstanding.
The interviews were carried out at school .
chool library and The questionnaire, documentation and interview were analyzed by using Interactive Models by Miles.
Huberman, & Saldana .
involved data collection, data condensation, data display, and drawing conclusion.
Since interviews were conducted in Indonesian, we firstly transcribed the recording of the interview into English.
We also coded the data to make it easier in identifying the themes appeared.
Meanwhile, the results of transformed into percentage.
Some of the codes appeared in the result of the study are as follow: T1# refers to participant 1.
INT, refers to interview, to indicate data were extracted from interview and the last QST, used to indicate data were taken from METHODOLOGY This study is a qualitative case study.
involved 4 female in-service EFL teachers teaching at vocational high school in Indonesia.
The participating teachers had varied teaching experience ranging from 827 years.
The samples were selected through purposive sampling.
In this case, we set up some criteria before selecting the sample.
Those were.
they should pose at least 1 year teaching experience and the second they had experience of conducting reflective practice.
we also did interview with the participating teachers to know if they understood about reflective practice and its implementation on teacher development program.
Instruments used in this study were questionnaire, documentation and interview.
A close questionnaire was designed in accordance with research question.
Instead, in-dept interview was also conducted to get more accurate data from participants.
The data in this study were gathered through questionnaire , document analysis and interview.
A close questionnaire was FINDINGS The findings of the study are presented in accordance with research questions.
Thus, it describes tools of reflective practice utilized by in-service EFL.
In-service EFL participated in this study had employed some tools of reflective practice to ease them in doing reflection.
The results of questionnaire and interview reveal there are five tools utilized by respondents in doing reflection.
Those tools are teaching journal, peer observation, video/audio recording, studentsAo feedback, and action research.
Teaching Journal Table below shows the summary of the result of questionnaire on the number of Tosriadi.
Abdul Asib, & Sri Marmanto.
In-Service EFL TeachersAo Experience ofA teachers who employed teaching journal in doing reflective practice.
Table 1: The Summary of Number of Participants Who Used Teaching Journal Statements Response Always Often Usually Rarely I reflect my teaching and my classroom activities on my 25% 75% teaching journal to make evaluation of my classroom I use teaching journal as a medium to AutellAy my daily 25% 75% teaching .
valuating teaching strategies, learning materials, studentsAo difficulty, et.
I write some problems I encountered during teaching and 50% 50% learning process in a teaching journal.
Never (Source: QST) The result of questionnaire revealed that all respondents utilized teaching journal as the tool to reflect their teaching.
Teaching journal seemed to be the most common tool utilized by the respondents in doing reflection, it might be because it was much easier to utilize.
As a tool in doing reflection.
T3#JT elaborated her experience in utilizing teaching journal AuI always take notes related to my teaching, it might be not in detailed nor comprehensive.
Those notes contain outlines of problems I encountered when I teachAy (T3#JT.
INT.
May .
From this interview.
T3#JT indicated she always rethinks her classroom action by taking notes to problems she found in her Another respondent.
T2#AZ, added that she usually wrote her teaching journal during or after the classroom.
Au.
I write this .
eaching journa.
while on the job or after teaching.
contains teaching-related problems that need solutions.
I look for solution by discussing with my colleagues or finding from other sourcesAy (T3#AZ.
INT.
May, .
Eventhough all respondents utilized teaching journal as tool to reflect their teaching, there was no fixed format for their teaching journal.
T4#ES, explained.
Au.
the format .
f teaching journa.
is diverse among teachers since it is used for personal purposesAy T4#ES.
INT.
May .
Generally, the participants of this study utilized their notebooks as their teaching There was no agreed format for their teaching journal.
But, one teacher.
T2#AZ, already had some guidline questions to help her work with her teaching journal.
T2#AZ
started her teaching journal by identifying the objectives, material, and method used to deliver the topic.
And then, it was followed by some guidline questions, there were 6 questions in total.
What I did well? 2.
What my students did well? 3.
What I did not do so well? 4.
What my students did not do so well? What would I change? 6.
What did I learn from my teaching today? (Doc of Teaching Journal of T2#AZ) From T2#AZAos we can see her reflection is quite comprehensive.
She does not only focus on studentsAo related problems, but she tries to investigate both students and teacher Peer Observation Other way to do reflective practice is by conducting peer observation.
In this case, teachers watch each otherAos teaching to learn from their colleague.
The following table is the result of questionnaire on number of participants who did peer observation as part of their reflective teaching in order to be a professional teacher.
International Journal of language Education.
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Table 2: The Summary of Number of Participants Who Conducted Peer Observation Statements Response Always Often Usually Rarely I sometimes ask my colleague to observe and give - 100% comment on my teaching.
I sometimes observe my colleague classroom and learn
- 100%
how to conduct effective teaching I learn many things from observing other fellow
- 100%
teachersAo classroom I discuss practical/theoretical issues in language teaching with my colleagues after doing peer observation.
Never (Source:QST) other aspect or case they found in their Au.
for example, when I found student A did not obey my rules .
I talked to other teachers who taught this student previously, to learn more about him .
is characte.
(T3#JT.
INT.
May In doing peer observation, the participating teachers prepared it really well.
It is proven by the existance of observation form they used during peer observation.
The forms contains several points such as teaching and learning process, teaching method, classroom management, clarity, and problem solving.
On the first point, teaching and learning process, teachers commented on how to open and close teaching and learning process and how to propose questions to And then, the next they also commented on the appropriateness of the selection of teaching technique with the For example in one of the sheets or forms , we found a participant commented on her friend who was teaching about passive She wrote on the form Au students are still confused about verb changing, so before starting the explanation about passive voice, it will be better if you make sure that studens have already understood about verb changeAy.
And then, related to classroom management, their comments are varied from how to handle students who come late, how to handle talkative students to how to manage time distribution for both lecturing and The next point is clarity, here teacher commented on teachersAo voice during teaching and learning process, if it is clear All respondents in this study agreed to say they AuusuallyAy did peer observation.
They prefered to use term AuusuallyAy to indicate that it was an occasional agenda, in this case, it was done once per semester.
From the interview with participants of this study, it is clear that peer observation has become a biannual routine.
It is usually conducted by the end of the academic year.
T2#AZ expressed:
Au.
We.
English teachers, do peer observation routinely.
I think teachers of other subjects have not done it yet.
When we did peer observation, we came to the classroom with observation sheet to help us do the observation.
There are several indicators .
n the shee.
we need to observe.
We just need to fill in the form during observationAy (T2#AZ.
INT.
May, .
Another participant.
T4#ES, also Au Peer observation is usually conducted once per semester.
observe each otherAos teaching, then we have discussion on the results of We can learn much by doing observationAy (T4#ES.
INT.
May .
From the interview it can be said that peer observation is not only about teachers observing each other, but there is a follow up It is followed by discussion between observer and teacher being observed.
T3#JT
Added discussion was not only about the result of observation, they could talk about Tosriadi.
Abdul Asib, & Sri Marmanto.
In-Service EFL TeachersAo Experience ofA enough or not.
And then, they also commented if the concept is well explained.
The last point is problem solving.
It includes how teacher solved classroom problem she found during her teaching.
ata source: peer observation shee.
evaluating their teaching through reflective StudentsAo feedback is an important tool to understand studentsAo perception toward teachersAo teaching.
The use of studentsAo feedback in doing reflective practice is quite popular among participating It can be seen from the result of questionnaire presented on the following StudentsAo Feedback StudentsAo feedback is another tool utilized by in-service EFL teachers in Table 3: The summary of number of participants who asked for studentsAo feedback Statements Response Always Often Usuall Rarely I conduct pre-lesson conferencing to discuss what I am 50% 50% going to teach and engage my students to give their opinion or ideas.
Together with my students.
I set up classroom norms and 75% 25% rules at the beginning of the meeting.
I sometimes talk to my students about their learning styles and preferences Never (Source:QST) Table 3.
above revealed that teachers regularly ask for studentsAo feedback to improve their teaching.
StudentsAo feedback is expected to give teachers some views about their weakness in teaching.
It is supported by the finding on the interview.
As stated by T2#AZ.
Au StudentsAo feedback is necessary to renew our teaching.
There might be some students who dislike our current teaching method.
Or it might be confusing them.
So, student feedback is very important to teacherAos teachingAy (T2#AZ.
INT.
May .
In line with T2#AZ.
T3#JT also stated that she gained benefit from studentsAo AuI always ask for studentsAo feedback for teaching improvement.
I usually did it by asking questions, spoken or written.
I feel this activity benefits me because it informs me about studentsAo perception to us .
heir teacher.
Ay (T3#JT,INT.
May Further, she explained some students were very shy to comment on their teacher.
To anticipate this case.
T4#ES preferred to ask for comments from her students in a piece of paper and kept it anonym.
Some comments from students are very constructive .
he following comments are taken from studentsAo feedback gathered by participating teacher.
Au You are good in teaching, but you advice your students too much.
So, you run out of time and the lesson was incomplet.
(Student A).
AuWe like your class because you are a decisive teacher.
Please do not get mad at us during your teachingAy (Student B).
Au Your voice .
is too small, as the result students who sit on the explanationAy(Student C) By looking at those comments, it is obvious the essence of using students feedback to evaluate teachersAo performance in teaching is positive.
By considering studentsAo comments teacher can adjust their performance with studentsAo need.
So, teacher can do better in their teaching.
International Journal of language Education.
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Video/audio recording The use of video/ audio recording is not a favourite tool in doing reflection.
Out of four participants, there were only 2 participants who did video or audio The result of questionnaire below indicated video or audio recording is not a popular attempt to help teacher do reflection over their teaching.
Table 4: The summary of number of participants who recorded lesson Statements Response Always Often Usually Rarely I record my lesson and play it after the class as form of 50% I also show my teaching video and ask for some 25% suggestions from my colleague I sometimes look at my teaching video and analyze what 50% runs well and what does not.
Never (Source:QST) T3#JT and T4#ES acknowledged that Further, she added AuAyby recording they have not had any thought of recording lesson, we see other sides of our their lesson.
we will see some students AuFor this time.
I have not recorded did not pay attention to our lesson my lesson yet.
Perhaps, next time( during teaching and learning T3#JT.
Int.
May .
process, and it was not observable Meanwhile, participants who had during teaching sessionAy (T2#AZ, already practiced video or audio recording INT.
May .
said there were benefits on it.
They said through video or audi recording they can Action research investigate their teaching from different In order to grow professionally, teacher can point of view.
also engage in writing scholarly article to Au.
in my opinion, recording lesson solve their classroom problem.
Conducting is very beneficial.
Teacher can action research is one of the tools of her/his reflective practice teacher can utilize to promote teacher professional development.
perspectivesAy (T1#DS.
INT.
May Unfortunately, the finding of this study informed us that conducting action research T2#AZ agreed with T1#DS about is not a common practice among participants.
the benefit of recording the lesson.
Table 5: The summary of number of participants who carried out action research Statements Response Always Often Usually Rarely I try to analyze the incident that occurred during my teaching as genesis for research topic I sometimes analyze classroom incident and devise it as research topic Based on the classroom problem.
I conduct an action research to overcome the problem Never (Source:QST) AuFor action research.
I did it when I was in Jakarta.
It was a collaborative action research.
Two participants.
T2#AZ, and T3#JT asserted that they had experience of conducting action research.
T2#AZ said:
Tosriadi.
Abdul Asib, & Sri Marmanto.
In-Service EFL TeachersAo Experience ofA Honestly.
I find it difficult to write due to lack of training, especially when I have to conduct my own action research, it is really hard.
Morover.
I have not found any reasons that oblige me to write.
Hmm.
may be later for my prefermentAy (T2#AZ.
INT.
May .
Quite similar to T2#AZ.
T3#JT opined:
AuI did action research, but I stucked on chapter 3.
Since I do not write for a long time.
I found difficulties in writing finding and interpretation It probably caused by lack of training, morover teachers are not empowered .
hrough regulatio.
to In fact, doing research is very important for teachers, by doing so they know the appropriate teaching method with studentsAo learning styleAy( (T2#JT.
INT.
May .
reflective practice utilized by participating The obatained results from this study revealed there are 5 tools of reflective practice employed by in-service EFL teachers to ease them reflect on their The results of this study are in partial harmony with a research conducted by Fatemipour .
who, in his research, arrived to a conclusion that there were four most effective tools utilized by ESL teachers in Iranian context.
He found teaching journal is the most effective reflective tools utilized by Iranian ESL teachers who participated in his study.
This current study has revealed that all partcipants utilize teaching journal as a tool to reflect their teaching.
Teaching Zulfikar&Mujiburrahman .
facilitates teachers to make some reflections on their By doing so, they can improve the quality of their teaching.
The participants of this study utilized teaching journal as part of their routine.
In this case, they tried to take note of the classroom incidents the encountered in their classroom.
Their decision to take note and make some evaluation over their teaching shows their awareness of their responsibility as Based on the finding, it is also found that participating teachers also employed peer observation as a means to conduct reflective They shared some benefits of conducting peer observation.
T4#ES stated that they can learn many things by doing peer This statement was supported by other teachers.
T3#JT for example elaborated that they can discuss manythings after the This current study comes to a conclusion that the participants felt positive with peer observation as a tool to reflect their teaching, since it facilitates them with opportunity to learn from each other.
The benefits of doing peer observation experienced by participants have previously been discussed byZacharias .
He proposesseveral reasons why teachers should engage in peer observation, those are to learn, to describe, and to evaluate teachersAo While.
T1#DS and T4#ES mentioned they never got involved in action research.
seemed doing action research among high school teachers is not a common activity.
The participants of this study also revealed that doing action research was really hard.
T1#DS expressed as follow AuI have never carried out action research yet.
It is not easyAy (T1#DS.
INT.
May .
So, the data above revealed a fact that conducting action research is a challenge for While, doing research is considered important for teachers to solve problems or just to test the effectiveness of certain teaching techniques DISCUSSION Teachers will always be the one of the most important pillars in educational context.
The way they carry out teaching and learning process will always be one of teacher related issues discussed worldwide.
As stated on the previous section, this study was aimed at investigating in-service EFL teachers experience in conducting reflective practice.
More specifically, it talks about some tools of International Journal of language Education.
Vol.
2 No.
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pedagogy competences.
In line, it is also supported by Weston .
who says peer observation can provide positive value for both teachers who conduct observation .
Aside from teaching journal and peer observation, studentsAo feedback is other useful tool for reflection.
Teachers who participated in this study said they they occasionally asked for studentsAo feedback.
teaching journal and peer observation, all respondents of this study utilized studentsAo feedback to evaluate their teaching Mathew.
Mathew, & Peechattu .
argue studentsAo feedback will give new perspectives to teaching and learning process run by teachers.
The finding of the study also informed us that studentsAo feedback is very useful to create a meaningful teaching and learning process.
By regularly asking for studentsAo feedback teachers can evaluate if they run a meaningful teaching and learning process.
StudentsAo feedback is another form of democracy in the classroom since teachers teach their students by considering their studentsAo needs, not only by teacher personal Some of the participants also utilize video/audio recording to reflect their There are 2 participants out of 4 partticipants who used this tool as means to conduct teaching evaluation.
The other remaining 2 teachers said they never did video recording, since they did not really know about this activity.
Teachers involved in this study, who employed video/audio recording, said video/ audio recording is very beneficial for teachers.
Through this means they can investigate their classroom action more thoroughly.
They can revisit their classroom by looking at their teaching video.
Regarded to the use of video/audio recording.
Jaworski .
highlights video/audio recording is aimed to provide opportunities to observe other teachersAo teaching style.
Finding of this study does not show that point since participating teachers did not share their recorded teaching video with other They used teaching video for personal evaluation.
The last tool of reflective practice to discuss based on the finding of the study is the utilization of action research.
Conducting action research seems to be least favourite tools to make evaluation.
Even teacher who has completed their master degree still encountered problems in carrying out action research, especially in writing the Most of the participants said conducting action research is not easy.
It goes along with Cirocki & FarellyAos opinion .
doing action research seems to be overwhelmed for so teachers, thus, many teachers decide not to conduct it.
While in fact, conducting action research as stated by Richards .
in Qing .
can be utilized to investigate learnersAo learning We assume, most teachers did not do research because they were lack of knowledge in research.
Moreover, there is no regulations that oblige them to conduct action
CONCLUSION
Based on the above finding and discussion, some conclusion are drawn.
The first, conducting reflective practice is crucial for language teachers since it fosters teacher Through reflective practice, teachers can evaluate their classroom performance by revisiting their So, it leads them to be professional The second, in-service EFL teachers who participated in this study have conducted reflective practice, unfortunately it has not done maximally yet.
Teachers need to encourage themselves to gain more knowledge and training on reflective practice, specifically in carrying out action The last, since there is teachersAo limitation in doing reflective practice, institutional support is needed.
For example, by inviting trainer to train teachers on how to conduct reflective practice in appropriate Tosriadi.
Abdul Asib, & Sri Marmanto.
In-Service EFL TeachersAo Experience ofA
REFERENCES