Reflection

Although discussion of reflective thought in education dates back at least to Dewey (e.g. Dewey 1933), it is only since the 1980s that the term ‘reflection’ has become prominent in discussion of practitioner, including teacher, development. Within English language teacher education, reflection is often promoted as an important feature of effective practice (e.g. British Council 2015). Yet, while ‘reflection’ is frequently invoked, use of the term often lacks conceptual clarity (van Beveren et al., 2018), and we still understand relatively little about the role of reflection in (language) teacher development (Mann and Walsh 2017)