What Is Reflective Teaching and Why Is It Important?

Reflective teaching is a practical way to regain your confidence and interest in ESL education when your teaching starts to feel repetitive, or you’re unsure of a lesson’s effectiveness. Let’s take a closer look at what reflective teaching entails, why it’s important, and how you can implement reflective practices in your career.

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What is reflective teaching?

Reflective teaching is a teacher’s practice of thinking, writing, and/or speaking about their lessons and their teaching methods and approaches.

After some time, teachers can easily develop a fixed routine and start delivering lessons without thinking about them. Reflective teaching helps you change that routine and keep improving your teaching.

Thomas Farrell explains the concept in his essay Reflective Practice for Language Teachers:

“Reflective practice occurs, then, when teachers consciously take on the role of reflective practitioner and subject their own beliefs about teaching and learning to critical analysis, take full responsibility for their actions in the classroom, and continue to improve their teaching practice.”

Donald Schön distinguishes between two types of reflection in his book The Reflective Practitioner, called reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action.

• Reflection-in-action happens during the lesson. For example, you might notice that students look confused after your instructions and decide to demonstrate the activity before they start.
• Reflection-on-action happens after the lesson, when you review what worked and plan what to change next time. Teaching journals and lesson recordings are both forms of reflection-on-action.

What are the benefits of reflective teaching?

Farrell stated that “teachers who engage in reflective practice can develop a deeper understanding of their teaching, assess their professional growth, develop informed decision-making skills, and become proactive and confident in their teaching.”

Reflection gives you information about your lessons that you can use to make informed decisions. For example, a colleague who observes your speaking lesson might notice that you answer your own questions before students have time to respond.

That observation suggests a specific change: you wait a few seconds longer after each question. Your students also benefit when you adjust your lessons based on what you observe in class.

Reflection improves your lesson plans

Reflective teaching helps you become a better teacher: you engage your students more and consistently improve your lesson plans. You can measure your success by analyzing different aspects of your lessons, like teacher talking time or student collaboration.

For example, you might remember that students weren’t engaged during an activity. You can then analyze the reasons and find out you didn’t set a clear context, or you over-explained and delayed learners’ guided discovery. Or maybe the problem had nothing to do with your planning.

Whatever the reason, reflective teaching can help you think of a solution.

Need help planning your lessons? Explore these tips and get ready to create engaging grammar lessons.

Reflection helps you break repetitive teaching habits

The more you teach, the more likely you are to develop repetitive teaching habits. You reuse the same tried-and-tested activities and tell the same anecdotes. You also repeat the same grammar explanations.

Reusing activities is great, but make sure they don’t feel boring to you. You can’t expect your students to have fun when you’re not having fun.

Farrell writes, “If teachers engage in reflective practice, they can avoid such burnout because they take the time to stop and think about what is happening in their practice to make sense of it so that they can learn from their experiences rather than mindlessly repeat them year after year.”

Reflective teaching gets you to think about how to modify activities and lesson plans so they feel new and interesting to both you and your students.

Reflection encourages you to try new things

When the ELT course book activities start to get boring, try something new and create your own materials. Many online resources offer up-to-date lesson plans. Some of the most popular ones include BusyTeacher and TeachThis.com, and hundreds of other sites provide free or paid materials.

Collaborating with a fellow teacher is another great way to try new things. Working at a language school makes this easy, but you can also collaborate online through Facebook groups and LinkedIn. Teachers even share lesson plans through Instagram.

Learn more about the benefits of professional development for EFL teachers.

Reflection supports your continuing professional development

Continuing professional development (CPD) comes in many forms, such as Specialized TEFL/TESOL courses or Micro-credentials that offer targeted training. Reflective teaching also helps you continue developing and expanding your teaching skills throughout your career.

Reflecting on your teaching also lets you remember training from TEFL courses you’ve already taken. You can check your old notes and see whether you’re fully applying what you studied in your lessons.

Your reflections can show you which skills to develop next. Look for problems that appear in several journal entries or in your notes. For example, you might notice that your pronunciation activities rarely keep students engaged, or that you often struggle to manage classes of young learners.

Reflection provides opportunities to share your experience

Posting your teaching reflections on Instagram or LinkedIn helps start conversations around best teaching practices. Groups like Bridge’s Teaching English Online on Facebook are a great place to share your own teaching experience and also see what other teachers have been doing.

You’ll be surprised to see how many teachers have had the same experiences as you or will have suggestions on how to teach in new ways. Sharing your reflections lets you offer and receive great feedback, and it also builds your network or community of teachers.

Already part of a TEFL community? Do you have teaching experience? Find the best ways to set yourself apart as an English teacher.

What are the characteristics of reflective teaching?

Reflective teaching can take many forms, but a few characteristics appear throughout all types of reflective practices:

• Reflective teaching notes what happens in the classroom, why it happens, and how you can improve it.
• Reflective teaching challenges you, so you rarely teach the same lesson again in the exact same way. You’ll need to critique yourself and your go-to lesson plans.
• Many teachers write their reflections down, but writing isn’t the only option. Other teachers choose to speak about their lessons with a colleague or mentor, or what Farrell calls a “Critical Friend.”
• Reflective teaching is collaborative, often involving a head teacher or a colleague.
• Reflecting on and speaking about how your lessons go often leads to helpful insights.

Reflective teaching also relies on evidence. A lesson might feel successful, but students’ written work or their answers to a quick feedback survey can show a different result. Teachers use this evidence to decide what to change, and they check the effect of that change in the following class. This process repeats over time, so reflection becomes a regular part of their teaching.

How do you practice reflective teaching?

Some ways of practicing reflective teaching include:

• Teaching journals: Write down classroom reflections in a journal.
• Classroom observations: Ask a mentor to observe your lesson, or record the lesson and rewatch it yourself.
• Critical friends: Speak about your classes with a friend who can offer constructive criticism.
• Action research: Research something you struggle with, and maybe take a micro-credential course to improve specific teaching skills.
• Online groups: Teachers actively post online about reflective teaching in teacher development groups like the Bridge Teaching English Online Facebook Group. Posting online helps teachers get more recognition in the industry as well as organize their reflections.
• Blogs: Many teachers choose to share their reflections by creating their own EFL blogs. For example, Rachel Tsateri, an English teacher and writer, published a reflective post on her teacher talking time (TTT) on her website, The TEFL Zone.
• Teacher beliefs: Continue to develop and verbalize your own beliefs about what makes good teaching.

Try different methods to find the right one for you. Journaling is an easy first step, but more social teachers might prefer working with a critical friend or a teacher development group.

Another way to keep your reflection focused is to have a short set of questions that will work with whichever reflective method you choose. Soon after class, while you still remember the details, ask yourself and take notes:

• Which activity gave students the most speaking practice?
• Where did students hesitate or repeat the same error?
• Did students understand my instructions the first time?
• What will I change the next time I teach this lesson?

What are the challenges of reflective teaching?

Reflective teaching can be hard to keep up, especially when your schedule is full. Most teachers face similar challenges, and small, practical changes can help with each one.

Busy schedules leave little time for reflection

Lesson planning and grading already fill most of a teacher’s week, so many teachers skip reflection. Keep your reflection short and connect it to a routine you already have. For example, spend five minutes after your last class of the day answering one or two questions about your lessons. This will give you more useful information than an unfinished long reflection.

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Some teachers focus only on what went wrong

Reflection asks you to look closely at your own teaching, and some teachers end up listing only their mistakes. A long list of problems makes it hard to decide what to work on first. Note at least one thing that worked in each lesson so you can use it again. Then choose one specific change to try in your next class.

Teachers who work alone get less feedback

Independent teachers and teachers at small schools often have no mentor or colleague to observe their lessons. You can easily miss patterns in your own teaching without outside feedback. Record a lesson with your students’ permission, and swap recordings with another teacher. Give each other feedback on one agreed focus, such as instructions or error correction.

Reflective teaching helps you learn from the lessons you already teach. It shows you which activities support your students’ learning and which parts of your lessons need more work. You can use those insights to improve your lesson plans and choose which skills to develop next in your career.

Every teacher has lessons that don’t go as planned, so don’t judge yourself too harshly after a difficult class. Think critically about what happened and decide what to change next time. Regular reflection helps you keep improving your students’ learning experiences and continue growing in your profession.

Want to learn more about reflective teaching and other best practices in TEFL? Take a look at the IDELTOnline™, Bridge’s graduate-level qualification for teachers who are ready to take their TEFL practice to the highest level.