Relationship between Reflective Teaching and Iranian EFL Learners’ Language Achievement

Subject Areas : All areas of language and translation

Farzaneh Abazari ¹ , Behzad Ghonsooly ² , Shahram Afraz ³

1 - Department of English Language, Qeshm Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qeshm, Iran
2 - Department of English, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
3 - Deptartment of English Language, Qeshm Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qeshm, Iran

Received: 2022-10-02 Accepted : 2023-03-15 Published : 2023-04-01

Keywords: language learning, Language achievement, reflective teaching, teachers’ awareness,

Abstract :

Language learning and achievement are related to the skills teachers practice and the presence of expert capability such as teachers’ reflectivity. The objective of the present study was to search the extent to which EFL teachers are involved in reflective instruction, and test the level of growing teachers’ awareness of reflective teaching which leads to students’ language achievement. Data were collected by the following instruments: a) a TOEFL test administered to 350 Iranian EFL students, b) reflective journals written by 120 Iranian EFL teachers, and c) Reflective Teaching Inventory. For the qualitative stage, 120 male and female EFL teachers from two language institutes in Kerman, the center of Iran, were selected through convenient sampling and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. After completing the treatment, a reflective teaching inventory as a post-test was given to the two groups to test the impact of the treatment. The results of the t-test indicated that the experimental group outdid the control group in taking advantage of reflective teaching components. This finding raises provocative questions regarding reflective teaching and teaching skills.

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Ms. Farzaneh Abazari is a Ph.D. student in TEFL at Qeshm University, Qeshm, Iran. She has been involved in teaching English for more than ten years at some universities. Her main interests include methods and techniques of language teaching.
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Dr. Behzad Ghonsooly is a full professor of Applied Linguistics at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran. He has published 10 books in the EFL field and more than 60 papers in various national and international journals. His main research interests are lan-guage testing and introspection psychology.
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Dr. Shahram Afraz is an assistant professor of English Language Teaching at Islamic Azad University, Qeshm Branch, Iran. He mainly teaches language testing, research methodolo-gy, sociology, linguistics, teaching language methodology, etc. His main areas of interest include teachers' education, cooperative learn-ing, language testing, and research. He has published more than 40 papers in international and national academic journals.
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