The use of blog activities to promote reflection in an ELT practicum

Abstract

The current study aimed to promote reflection on teaching practice among eighteen pre-service English language teachers at a public university in Turkey via integration of reflective blog activities into a practicum. Data were collected through archival documents of participants‟ blog entries, two focus group interviews and two surveys. The framework analysis to detect the depth of reflection in a total of 457 blog entries of the participants revealed evidence of medium or high level reflection in most (61% ) of the entries and the highest level of reflection was found in 12% of the entries. The results indicated that the blog activities guided and systematically promoted reflectivity among pre-service teachers and thus might have created for them an opportunity to engage in deeper levels of reflection. Among the types of blog activities, journal writing and self-evaluation activities yielded higher reflection levels. Exchanging online peer feedback, sharing practice teaching experiences, having a larger audience, as well as the blended design of the course and efficiency of blogs were cited in the interviews and surveys as the features related to blogs which might have influenced the extent of reflection demonstrated by the participants. In English language teacher training, this study could provide an example for the utilization of blog activities as an alternative method to enhance reflection by pre-service teachers in a context where English is used as a foreign language.