The Art of Reflection

    I wonder how many of my students had the same thought during a bad lesson, “I can’t wait for this lesson to finish and I promise I will never think about it again.” Sharing that thought with my students appeared to be the only time the students and myself were on the same page. Looking back on my time as a new teacher I noticed a number of errors, most notably that there is no such thing as a “bad lesson”. There are lessons that fail to achieve your goals, there are lessons in which not one single student has learnt a thing, in fact, there is a good chance the students have forgotten how to remain conscious, but that does not mean the lesson was bad. If that sounds crazy, the next sentence might just blow your mind. The lesson does not finish when the students leave the classroom. Learning never stops, it just changes direction.

    Reflection is a crucial skill for teachers. We may think we are engaging in reflection when we talk to colleagues about our classes, but throwaway comments such as, “My lesson went well” or “ My students were interesting today” tell us nothing, except that the word "interesting" when it comes out of a teacher's mouth can mean absolutely anything. We need to analyse and evaluate what happened in the classroom this can lead to improvements in our teaching. We need to ask ourselves more probing questions such as:

• Did the lesson work? Why?
• What were the students doing, when and why?

    Every teacher knows the benefits of lesson planning, but how many of us spend the same amount of time reflecting on our lessons? We should look at a lesson as having three parts (planning, production, and reflection) with each part taking equal importance. In fact, what do you think about this ...

You should spend as much time reflecting on a lesson as you did planning it.

    To analyse and evaluate a lesson we first need to collect information. One of the easiest and most effective ways of collecting information is to begin a reflection diary. My reflection diary began as a way for me to keep track of what I did in the lesson and evolved into a tool that documented the method of the teaching. When I reflect I like to think about how much teacher talking time there was in the lesson, was the lesson teacher centred or student centred, did I use concept checking questions (C.C.Q.), did the students participate, did I scaffold the language, and what can be improved? Just as each teacher is different, each reflection diary will also be different. Modify your diary to suit your needs and the needs of your students.

    But this just gives us data from the teacher's point of view, what about the students? This blog post I wrote for ELT Planning goes into more detail about student reflection. Basically, for homework, students have to complete their own reflection journals. I was always waiting until the end of term before finding out what my students thought of the lessons, that way madness leads. Get the students reflecting early and often and they will take control of their learning, be more active, develop critical thinking skills and get much needed writing practice. 

    The information you have gained from your reflection activities can be used to help you improve your teaching. Think about what the information tells you about your teaching, immerse yourself in the relevant literature, talk to colleagues, reflect as a group, ask questions and attend your local TESOL chapter meetings. The art of reflection is an inventive circle.

Learning Never Stops

Further Reading

Gibbs' reflective cycle is fab-u-lous, this pdf sets out the key points and Gibbs' paper can be found here

This blog post was published on weebly in 2015, like an idiot I have forgotten the login details for that blog. I have added the post to this blog so I can respond to any comments.