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The Impact of Pre-service Teachers’ Reflection

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

As an application drawn from this study, in Turkey there is a need to improve teacher education programs
based on constructivist models (Armutcu and Yaman, 2010) especially in the field of English Language
Teaching (ELT). Since this is a case study, more extensive research should be conducted for the gen-
eralizability of the results to explore the effectiveness of reflection in practice teaching. An interesting
future research project would be to do a follow up study with the same group of pre-service students in
upcoming years which will enable the researchers to monitor the impact of reflection throughout their
academic studies. Another future study could focus on novice in-service English teachers to highlight
what the strengths and weaknesses are in their teaching which should be reflected in teacher education
programs.

CONCLUSION

This chapter tried to highlight the importance of reflection and reflective practices in pre-service teacher
education programs. Especially, this chapter aimed to share the findings of a study which tried to explore
the effects of reflection and reflective activities on freshmen English pre-service teachers’ instructional
practices in a Turkish context. The findings of the study supported that if teacher education programs
integrate reflection and reflective practice into their programs, pre-service teachers will develop the
ability to better understand their teaching skills and practices and critical thinking skills at early stages.
In addition, the study proposes that there is an emergent need for evaluating and developing pre-
service teacher education programs. Most of the pre-service English teachers start their teaching prac-
tice right before their graduation which results in feelings of frustration and incapability as they start
their teaching career after graduation. This obviously indicates that there is serious need for beginning
practice teaching during the first years of teacher education programs. In order to accomplish this, all
of the ELT programs in Turkey should establish a consortium to take action on improving the practicum
component of current programs.

REFERENCES

Armutcu, N., & Yaman, S. (2010). ELT pre-service teachers’ teacher reflection through practicum.
Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 3, 28–35. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.009
Çakıroğlu, E., & Çakıroğlu, J. (2003). Reflections on teacher education in Turkey. European Journal of
Teacher Education, 26, 253–265. doi:10.1080/0261976032000088774
Calderhead, J. (1987). Reflective teaching and teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 5(1),
43–52. doi:10.1016/0742-051X(89)90018-8

Crowe, A. R., & Berry, A. (2007). Teaching prospective teachers about learning to think like a teacher:
Articulating some of our principles. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher
education: Values, relationships and practices (pp. 31–44). New York: Routledge.

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