Investigating EFL Teachers’ Reflective Levels in Reading Comprehension Instruction Through Journal Writing
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Abstract
This study examines the levels of reflection that teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reach when writing about their reading comprehension instruction. Ten EFL teachers working in Jordanian public schools were purposively selected and asked to keep reflective journals. Their entries were analyzed qualitatively using Lane et al.’s (2014) framework, which grades the depth and quality of reflection, and the presence and frequency of descriptive, evaluative, reflective, and imaginative levels in the entries were examined. Descriptive and evaluative reflections predominated, whereas participants engaged only minimally at the reflective and imaginative levels. These results suggest that the participants tended to document instructional routines rather than analyze them critically or propose alternative practices, a pattern that may reflect curriculum constraints and linguistic challenges. The study is original in examining EFL teachers’ reflective levels in reading comprehension instruction specifically, whereas previous studies in the Jordanian context have addressed all components of the lesson within a single investigation. The findings point to the need for focused reflective practices that could improve teachers’ performance and learners’ outcomes in diverse EFL contexts, and in this way they contribute to the development of reflective pedagogy.
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