A Case Study On EFL Teacher Reflection In Secondary Vocational School

Teacher professional development has attracted more and more attention in recent years,and teachers' self-development plays a very important role in their professional development.One of the content of teacher professional development is teacher reflection,and it is widely accepted as one of the effective ways to promote teacher professional development.Nowadays,there are many researches on the connotation,contents and methods of teacher reflection home and abroad,and some researches about this theme have been involved in the specific teaching practice.However,most of the researches about EFL(English as a Foreign Language)teacher reflection are related to middle school or high school EFL teachers,secondary vocational school EFL teacher reflection still needs further exploration.This case study aims to investigate a secondary vocational school EFL teacher's reflection experience so as to reveal this teacher's reflection approaches,the characteristics of her reflection and the factors influencing teacher reflection,thus to provide helpful suggestions for teacher professional development.Moreover,the writer also hopes that the research will arouse attention to the reflection of secondary vocational school EFL teachers,and offer empirical materials for the enrichment and development of China's EFL teacher reflection theories.The research questions are: 1)What are the approaches that the secondary vocational school EFL teacher adopts to reflect her classroom teaching? 2)How does the secondary vocational school EFL teacher's reflection influence her teaching in secondary vocational schools? What are the gains and difficulties during the process? 3)What are the factors influencing this secondary vocational school teacher's reflection?The findings of the research are as follows: 1)This secondary vocational school EFL teacher adopts various approaches to reflect on teaching,including self-reflection and co-operation reflection.Writing reflection journals and academic papers are ways of self-reflection while students' feedback and peer communication belong to co-operation reflection.Every reflection approach has its own characteristics.2)EFL teacher reflection has greatly changed teaching,which helps to improve teaching effects and change the teacher' belief and attitude towards teaching.However,there are also some difficulties which need to be overcome in teacher reflection.3)Factors which influence teacher reflection include positive factors and obstructive factors.The positive factors include teacher's professional theoretical knowledge,positive emotional attitude and supports from the colleagues while the obstructive factors include the heavy workload and work strength and teaching environment which still need to be improved.Based on the findings of the research,the researcher summarizes the major findings,implications and limitations of the research,as well as suggestions for further study at the end of the thesis.The researcher also hopes to provide reference for teachers who have similar background and experience through the deep exploration of one of the secondary vocational school EFL teachers' reflection.