Reflective practice I
1.5.2.1
Reflecting in action
1.5.2.2 Reflecting on action
1.5.2.3 Reflecting on action versus reflection
in action
1.5.2.4 Activity: Why, why why?
1.5.2.5 Teaching principles
1.5.2.1
Reflecting in action
Most experienced teachers think on their feet, or reflect-in-action
(Schön, 1987: 28, reported in Roberts, 1998: 51) while they are teaching.
This enables them to react as soon as they see the students have a problem
by deviating from the original lesson plan in an appropriate way, perhaps
by quickly introducing more examples or explaining again in a simpler
way. More often than not this happens without conscious effort, indeed
the decision-making may be entirely intuitive.
1.5.2.2
Reflecting on action
Reflection-on-action more typically takes place after the lesson
is over. It involves in-depth, critical consideration of what happened
in the lesson (or part of it), why this might have happened, and what
might have happened had different decisions been made. This more explicit
noticing process can:
- help inexperienced teachers develop their ability to reflect-in-action in future lessons and
- encourage more experienced teachers to occasionally reappraise their approach.
Note: The assumption that awareness-raising can result in the restructuring of intuitive knowledge is not uncontentious (see, eg, Atkinson and Claxton, 2000: 3), but convincing arguments have been presented in its favour (eg Gilpin and Clibbon, 2000).
1.5.2.3
Reflecting on action versus reflection in action
The relationship between reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action
is similar to that between language learning and language acquisition
as defined by Krashen (1981).
For spontaneous communication in real situations, Krashen argued, second language learners rely on their acquired (subconscious) knowledge of language. There simply isn't time, or sufficient mental processing resources, to depend on the consciously learned system in real communicative circumstances, even if we happen to be thinking about these and trying to apply them at the time!
Similarly, a teacher can not take time out to consciously think through the theory in order to make an on-the-spot decision about what to do next when a lesson is not going according to plan. They must use their intuition, or knowledge-in-action*, to guide them.
Unlike Krashen, I do not believe that the conscious / unconscious systems are impermeable. Developing conscious knowledge and beliefs through reflection-on-action can help to develop intuitive knowledge that allows reflection-in-action to come into play in the real-time classroom, just as consciousness-raising of language form (encouraging 'noticing') can act as a catalyst to language acquisition for spontaneous communicative use, and, some would argue prevent 'fossilization'. Intuitive action is based on tacit beliefs and knowledge; if these are developed as a result of awareness-raising then it follows that the nature of intuitive action can be changed.
*Although 'intuition' and 'knowing-in-action' are not synonymous, the two are closely linked. See Furlong, 2000: 30.
1.5.2.4
Activity: Why, why why?
You know how children go through a stage when they incessantly ask 'what?'
and 'why?' about everything? Try to see your own teaching through the
eyes of such a child. To do this:
- look over a lesson plan
shortly after you have taught the lesson, while it is still fresh in
you mind. Alternatively, make an audio or video tape of a lesson and
play the tape back to yourself. The point is to jog your memory of all
the details of the lesson ('stimulated recall'). Try to 'relive' the
lesson in your head, but imagine that small child is standing beside
you throughout the lesson. At which points of the lesson will he or
she ask, 'What's that for?', 'What are they doing now?', 'Why did you
say that?' and of course, 'Why, why, why?' What are your replies?
- Alternatively, get someone
else to observe one of your lessons and take notes to act as a reminder
of what happened. After the lesson, he or she should quiz you in a childlike,
'playing-dumb' way about what you did and why.
- Note down your answers.
Identify the occasions when something unplanned happened and you made
a decision.
- Why did you decide on the particular course of action?
- What alternatives were there?
- Why did you not choose these at the time?
- If you had anticipated the event, would you have acted differently?
- Why?
- Did you notice any points in the lesson when you seemed to make an important decision intuitively?
1.5.2.5
Teaching principles
If you repeat the exercise in section 1.5.2.4 two or
three times you will probably begin to see clusters of responses that
seem to relate to the same general area. For example, there may be three
or four answers that explain actions on the grounds that they encourage
or help the students to work out a rule for themselves. This cluster seems
to point to a principle: that students should learn inductively.
See if you can identify some of your own language teaching principles from your observations. Add to this list as you engage in more reflection over the coming weeks (you will be asked to come back to this activity in section 1.6.2.2). (Adapted from an idea suggested by Mike Breen.)
