FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION

JANUARY 2013

HBEL1103

INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

MATRICULATION NO.

801031035645001

IDENTIFICATION CARD NO.

801031-03-5645

TELEPHONE NO.

013-9158841

E-MAIL

ashrafmhzaid@gmail.com

LEARNING CENTRE

ALOR STAR LEARNING CENTRE

TASK 1
Reflection is a metacognitive strategy that helps teacher think critically upon their experiences,
actions and decisions during their teaching practices. According to Leitch & Day (2000) cited from
the journal article by Fatemi, Azar Hossini, Majid Elahi Shirvan & Yasser Rezvani (2001), being an
effective reflective practitioner is more than just imporving practice and developing additional
competence. Reflective practice in ESL/EFL is based on understandings of self, society and moral
purposes and involves stopping, noticing, evaluating and inquiring about problems encountered in
different situations. Based on the statements, reflective teaching means looking at what the teacher
does in the classroom, thinking about why do they do it and thinking about if it works which is a
process of self-observation and self-evaluation. By collecting information about what goes in our
classroom and by analysing and evaluating this information, we identify and explore our own
practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes and improvements in our teaching.
Reflective teaching is therefore a means of professional development which begins in our classroom.
Reflective practice helps teacher to have a deeper understanding of their own teaching styles, teaching
beliefs and teaching identities. As the teacher reflects of what they do, they will better understand
their roles as teachers. According to Al-Jabri (2009) cited from the journal article by Fatemi, Azar
Hossini, Majid Elahi Shirvan & Yasser Rezvani (2001), many teachers considered reflection as a tool
for professional development, a tool that helped them improve their teaching. The teachers also
reported a high level of engagement in activities which involved or provided opportunities for
reflection.
As a reflective teacher, there are some characteristics that I must possess. One of the characteristics
that a reflective teacher must possess is thinking. Thinking here means that the teacher need to be
active, deliberate and conscious processing of thoughts for examining goals, beliefs and practices. By
becoming a thinking teacher, I can help my student to overcome their problems and develop their
English proficiency. A thinking teacher can organise the teaching plan for the students by using the
suitable method of teaching in the classroom. In the lesson, the teacher will be able to achieve their
goals for the good and weak students by the end of the lesson equally. The next characteristic is
open-minded, which is reflective teacher is open to the individuality of students. Reflective teachers
recognize that the social process of education is also personal, and that it cannot be coerced form
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others, but must be chosen by them. It means that, to develop the proficiency of the students, a
teacher must know the problem of the students first. Then, the teacher must plan how to teach them
by using the appropriate way of methods to suit the students need. So that, when the teaching and
learning process happened in the classroom, the students will be able to learn wilingly by themselves
and not being forced by their teacher. The next characteristic is sympathetic to the interests, needs
and insights of the students. A reflective teacher enchance relationships with students by
acknowleding students capacity as reflective thinkers. Reflective teacher take seriously students
problems, hypotheses and conclusions. This will help the students to their needs and interest in
learning. Reflective teachers also must be patient. They must know that it takes time for ideas to be
developed, delineated and evaluated. Reflective instruction may take days, weeks or years to achive
its purpose. The reflective teacher must also flexible. The teachers allow for divergence and
technological change. They seek to expand options rather than limit them. They consider alternatives
methods and points of view and they are willing to change their mind. In teaching and learning
process, the teacher must be always flexible when dealing with the students. This is how to develop
the student proficiency by using the different methods and ways to achieve the learning outcomes and
at the same time, the teachers are flexible to change their way of teaching towards the understanding
of the lesson for the students.
As the conclusion, all the characteristics mentioned above must be possessed as a reflective teacher
and it can help the teacher to develop the English proficiency of the learners in the school.

TASK 2
Schon (1983) describes two types of reflection: reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action.
Reflection-in-action is the real life reflection that teachers engage in as they face a problem in the
classroom while teaching. Reflection-in-action helps us as we complete a task. It is that process that
allows us to reshape what we are working on, while we are working on it. It is that on-going
experimentation that helps us find a viable solution. In this, we do not use a trial-and-error method.
Rather, our actions are much more reasoned and purposeful than that. If something isnt working
correctly (doesnt seem right, doesnt seem to move you closer to the goal) then you reflect (a
conscious activity) in the action-present. A critical aspect is the questioning of the assumptional
nature of knowing-in-action (KIA), where KIA is not the action itself, but what the action really
indicates that we know. Reflecting-in-action is generally called forth when a surprice appears in the
process of accomplishing the task. And that surprise causes one to question how the surprise
occurred given our usual thinking process.
As the example in my classroom situation, on that particular day, I was teaching the students about
nouns. The students were in the second lower class. In my presentation activity, I used the
flashcards to show them about nouns. The nouns were categorized by people, animals, places and
things. During the presentation, the students showed that they able to understand the category of
nouns presented by me. But when the independence work activity started, the students had some
problems to list the nouns by their categories in the worksheet given by me. They able to list the
nouns in the animals and things categories but they cant do the people and places categories. At that
time, I noticed and reflected that the problem was with the students vocabulary. They had limited
range of vocabularies, therefore they cant do the task well and my goal cant be achieved. So, my
action at that particular time, I asked some of them to go to the library and brought a few of picture
dictionaries. After that, I reorganized again my students and divided them into groups. The
independent work then become the group work. The students were very excited because they able to
look the pictures of nouns and they able to list it in their worksheet. So that, my goal was achieved
with the reflection-in-action that I have done.

As the second example, I was having a teaching and learning process which I conducted in a
computer lab. I was teaching about health and I was using the projector as my teaching aids. While I
was presenting my lesson, I found that my students didnt pay their attention. Maybe because of the
method that I used. I just show them some of the brochures on health and gave the explanation of it.
I noticed that the good students need more activities on student-centered. So, I changed my activity
to another activity. I asked the students to find more about health not just particular on brochures
only. I gave the permission to use the computers and used the internet to find more informations
about health. The students showed their interests and they interacted actively with me by asking
questions and so on. This help the students understanding of the lesson and they able to do the next
task given by me without any problems.
One the other hand, reflection-on-action occurs after the event. This is the most common type of
reflection and is done in groups. Reflection-on-action is provided by final reflection papers, portions
of design documents tittled lessons learned and also any time (written or otherwise) in which you
evaluate your own process (this is actually a critical part of the design process and should well be
incorporated into your design documents). Reflection-on-action on the other hand, occur after the
activity has taken place when you are thinking about what you (and others) did, judging how
successful you were and whether any changes to what you did could have resulted in different
outcomes. This is usually the type of reflection which you are asked to write about as part of your
teaching.
As the example in the classroom situation, I have taught my students on comprehension and in my
independent work activity, I found my students were having some difficulties on answering the
questions based on the comprehension. I felt a little bit of frustration. So that, after the lesson, I did
my reflection and I found that the text for comprehension which I used during the lesson was quite
difficult for the students level. Then, I realized that I should used a simple comprehension text for
the student. It will give more opportunity to them to understand.
As the second example, on a particular day, I was teaching my students on grammar about prefix and
suffix. The students were enjoying my lesson because they were good students. But they were
having difficulties in their practice on the worksheet given by me. I continued the lesson by guiding
them on doing the exercise given. After the lesson, I did my reflection and I found the problem which
was the practice which I gave to them was not a practice but more to test. A practice is an activity
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which the students will able to do the exercise by finding the answers during the lesson or guided by
their teacher. So, in my future lesson, I know what I am going to do.

TASK 3
In this task, I have interviewed two teachers on their perceptions on reflective teaching. The
following writing is about their oppinions and their perceptions on reflective teaching.
Teacher A
A reflective teaching is a concept to differentiate the reflective action. An action which involves the
willingness to do the self-evaluation and development continuously. Reflective teaching focusses on
the technical aims, effectiveness and consequences. It also about giving the new suggestions in
teaching. Generally, I do teach reflectively. This is because in reflective teaching, the teacher will
able to play the real teachers roles and active in in the teaching and learning process. It gives more
opportunities for the teacher to learn about students problems, their social and moral. I also become
more open-minded, responsible to my teaching and determination. One of the main benefits of
reflective teaching is to look and find the weaknesses of my students and I also will able to find the
solution or ways to solve the problems and overcome the weaknesses. On the other hand, I will able
to monitor the effectiveness of my teaching in the teaching and learning process in my classroom.
These are the main benefits of reflective teaching for me.
Teacher B
From my opinion, reflective teaching means to look over again of what I have done in the classroom,
think about why I have done it and think whether it works or not. Reflective teaching is an selfobservation process and self-evaluation process. By collecting all the informations on what is
happened in the classroom and by doing the analysis and evaluated the informations collected, I will
able to identify and explore more on my belief and practice which is the fundamental in my action.
This will bring towards the changes and improvements in my teaching. Generally, I do teach
reflectively. Why? It is because I can seek for the weaknesses of my students and find the solutions
to overcome the weaknesses and develop their proficiency to a higher level. I also can evaluate my
students abilities and the effectiveness in my teaching. Talking about main benefits, reflective
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teaching will bring the teacher to the next level and to become self-directed. A teacher has their own
responsible on his or her self-development. Besides that, the teacher will able to do self-evaluation.
On the other hand, the teacher able to think analitically, critically and creatively while re-evaluating
the teaching.

REFERENCES
Fatemi, Azar Hosseini, Majid Elahi Shirvan & Ysser Rezvani. (2011). The Effect of Teachers SelfReflection on EFL Learners Writing Achievement. Cross-Cultural Communication (Volume
7, No.3) : 177-183
Reflective Teacher Model. [Online]. Available:
http://www.usi.edu/science/teachered/teachingmodel.asp