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Analysis of a language teacher’s journalof classroom practice as reflectivepracticeChin-Wen Chien aa National Hsinchu University of Education, Hsinchu City, TaiwanPublished online: 22 Oct 2012.

To cite this article: Chin-Wen Chien (2013) Analysis of a language teacher’s journal of classroompractice as reflective practice, Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives,14:1, 131-143, DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2012.732951

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Analysis of a language teacher’s journal of classroom practice asreflective practice

Chin-Wen Chien*

National Hsinchu University of Education, Hsinchu City, Taiwan

This study focuses on the keeping of a journal of classroom practice as a reflec-tive practice by an elementary school English teacher for her professionalgrowth and development. A total of 485 entries for 206 classes were written inone semester, and the most common issue on the journal entry was about stu-dents’ behavior. Two of the biggest challenges in writing a journal were timeconstraints and the lack the analysis of journal entries for better classroom prac-tice. Three suggestions are made for effectively keeping a journal: constantlykeeping a journal of classroom practice as reflective practice for professionalgrowth; setting a clear focus and objectives; and, spending time with colleaguesto analyze journal entries and make suggestions for professional growth.

Keywords: reflective practice; journal entry; classroom practice; languageteacher; journal writing

Introduction

Reflective practice can be an effective professional development option if educationalpractitioners and educational programs are willing to invest the time and resources intraining and make a sustained commitment. Freeman (2002) suggests that reflectivepractice must become a central pillar in teacher education. Reflective practice pro-vides different opportunities for teachers to reflect on a range of different activities,build in some ground rules for the process and into each activity, make provision fordifferent kinds of time, and receive external input for enriched reflection (Curtis &Szestay, 2005; Farrell, 1998; Fiszer, 2004; Florez, 2001; Kabilan, 2007).

This case study aims to focus on an elementary school English as a foreign lan-guage (EFL) teacher’s journal of classroom practice as reflective practice. The studymade the following findings. First, of the total of 485 entries for 206 classes writtenin one semester, the most common issue in the journal entries was about students’behavior. Second, the two biggest challenges in writing a journal as reflective practicewere time constraints and the lack of the analysis in journal entries about better class-room practice. Suggestions for how to keep the journal of classroom practice as areflective practice for language teachers’ professional development will be provided.

Literature review

The concept of “reflection” originates from John Dewey, and the process of reflec-tion on experience is described as follows: “thinking includes all of the steps: the

*Email: chinwenc@ms24.hinet.net

Reflective PracticeVol. 14, No. 1, February 2013, 131–143

ISSN 1462-3943 print/ISSN 1470-1103 online� 2013 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2012.732951http://www.tandfonline.com

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sense of a problem, the observation of conditions, the formation and rational elabo-ration of a suggested conclusion, and the active experimental testing” (Dewey,1916, p. 151). Based on such concepts, scholars define “reflection” differently. Inteaching, reflection generally refers to teachers learning to subject their own beliefsabout teaching and learning to a critical analysis, and as a result, take more respon-sibility for their actions in the classroom (Korthagen, 1993). “Craft reflection”coined by Henderson (2001) is defined as “a teacher’s thinking during the recurringcycles of instructional study, application, observation, and reflection. A teacher’scraft reflections occur in a context of continuous study on the ‘how-tos of teaching”(p. 17). Bullock and Muschamp’s (2004) model of teachers’ reflection mirrors “thepractice of thinking analytically about an experience or an activity” (p. 32). Davis(2005) claims that reflection is a conscious practice to open teachers’ thinking to allpossibilities, so they “step outside of their own definitions of the world and seenew perspectives” (p. 18). Newell (1996) points out that the essence of reflection isthe interaction of experiences with the analysis of beliefs about those experiencesthat occurs in a collegial environment, encouraging social responsibility, flexibility,consciousness, and efficacy (p. 568). Therefore, reflection involves teachers’thinking analytically about their past and current teaching beliefs, experience, andpractice.

Farrell (1998) summarizes five approaches to reflective practice, as shown inTable 1. The first type of reflection, technical rationality, concerns the examinationof teaching behaviors and skills after a class. This type of reflection focuses on theeffective application of skills and technical knowledge in the classroom (VanManen, 1977), and on the cognitive aspects of teaching (Schulman, 1987). Manybeginning teachers examine their skills through this type of reflection and receiveimmediate feedback from teacher educators (Fuller, 1970). The second and thirdnotions are reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Schön (1987) makes a dis-tinction between two types of reflection: reflection-in-action which refers to reflec-tion that occurs simultaneously with the act of teaching; and reflection-on-action,which refers to reflection that occurs after the lesson. The fourth type is reflection-for-action, implying that “teachers undertake reflection, not so much to revisit thepast or to become aware of the metacognitive process one is experiencing but toguide future action toward the more practical purpose” (Killon & Todnew, 1991,p. 15). The fifth type is action research, defined by Carr and Kemmis (1986) as “aform of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants (teachers, or principals,

Table 1. Different approaches to reflective practice.

Reflection types and scholars content

technical rationality (Schulman,1987; Van Mannen, 1977)

Examining one’s use of skills and immediate behaviorin teaching with an established research/theory base

reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987) Dealing with on-the-spot professional problems as theyoccur. Thinking can be recalled and then shared later.

reflection-on-action (Schon, 1987) Recalling one’s teaching after the class. Teaching givesreasons for his/her action behaviors in class.

reflection-for-action (Killon &Todnew, 1991)

Proactive thinking in order to guide future action

action research (Carr & Kemmis,1986)

Self-reflective enquiry by participants in social settingsto improve practice

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for example) in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of(a) their own social or educational practices, (b) their understanding of these prac-tices, and (c) the situations (and institutions) in which these practices are carriedout” (p. 178).

In the field of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL),Pennington (1992) proposes a reflective orientation as “a means of (1) improvingclassroom processes and outcomes, and (2) developing confident, self-motivatedteachers and learners” (p. 51). Farrell (2007) proposes two forms of reflection: aweak form and a strong form. In the weak form, teachers informally evaluate vari-ous aspects of their professional expertise (Wallace, 1991, p. 292). Farrell (2007)claims, “this type of informal reflection does not necessarily lead to improvedteaching, but to more unpleasant emotions without suggesting any way forward”(p. 13). On the other hand, under the strong form of reflection, teachers systemati-cally reflect on their own teaching and take responsibility for their actions in theclassroom. Farrell’s strong version and Schön’s reflection-on-action are explored inthis article, as forms of reflection which involve teachers systematically reflectingon their classroom practice after the lesson.

Reflective practice can be an effective professional development option if Eng-lish as a second language (ESL) practitioners and programs are willing to investtime and resources in initial training and make a sustained commitment. Freeman(2002) suggests that reflective practice must become a central pillar in teacher edu-cation. Reflective practice provides different opportunities for teachers to reflect ona range of different activities, build in some ground rules for the process into eachactivity, make provision for different kinds of time, receive external input forenriched reflection, and assists in dealing with low affective states (Curtis & Szestay2005; Farrell, 1998; Fiszer, 2004; Florez, 2001; Kabilan, 2007).

Reflective practice can be conducted in different forms such as action research,diaries and journals, or teacher development group (Borg, 2001; Farrell, 2008b).Reflective writing in diaries and journals plays an important role in teachers’ profes-sional growth, not only for initial teacher preparation but also for teachers who arein service (Borg, 2001). Farrell (2007) suggests a number of steps in writing a jour-nal. First, the teacher reflects on a recent teaching practice or experience in theclassroom, either positive or negative, and asks the following questions related tothe experience: “What happened before this incident? What happened after it? Whywas this incident important? What does this incident tell me about myself as a tea-cher?” Next, the teacher writes this up in a journal and continues to write about it.The teacher keeps writing about the chosen topic for at least a month, reviewingentries each week and looking for emerging patterns.

Kabilan’s (2007) study of 18 pre-service teachers and in-service teachers whowere pursuing their first degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages(TESOL), found that writing and reading reflections enabled the participants toobtain immediate “feedback from the audience” and develop their strengths whilecorrecting their weaknesses. Teachers have an awareness of meaningful and effec-tive classroom practices; they also have greatly enhanced linguistic capabilities andskills related to language learning. However, when it comes to writing for reflection,Burton (2009) states that a lot of teaching knowledge is lost to the professionalcommunity due to the fact that teachers rarely write down their insights and manyteachers do not appear to enjoy the process of writing. Through the reflectivepractice in an ESL methods class in a Midwest university, experienced teachers

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critiqued, questioned, and analyzed their own classroom instruction. By doing so,they became reflective practitioners, changing their beliefs and practices about effec-tive language pedagogy (Sharpe, 2006).

In Curtis and Szestay’s study (2004) a total of 129 teachers were included in 17inquiry groups in the Teacher Knowledge Project. The benefits of the TeacherKnowledge Project were found to include renewed enthusiasm for teaching, an abil-ity to look at teaching with “fresh eyes,” shifts in the understanding of teaching, amore reflective approach and greater awareness as teachers, an enhanced quality ofstudent learning, and the building of professional communities. ESL teachers inO’Brien’s (2004) study could share ESL instructional methods, experiences, chal-lenges, and their stories of professional practice. The inquiry seminars in Freemanand Johnson’s (2005) study provided a teacher with time to talk about her teachingand hear about the teaching of others, and this in itself became confidence inducing.

Writing stories about their practice provides teachers with an opportunity tofocus on particular instances of teaching and to examine them more deeply thanthey are able to during the business of their classroom work (Labosky & Laboskey,2002). Narrative inquiry is a way of thinking about and studying experience(Connelly & Clandinin, 2006). Commonplaces of temporality, sociality and placeserve as a conceptual framework. First, Connelly and Clandinin (2006) claim thatevents under study are in temporal transition. Narrative inquiry attends to the tem-porality of their own lives and those of participants, as well as to the temporality ofplaces, things, and events (p. 479). Second, in terms of sociality, narrative inquirersattend to both personal conditions and social conditions. While personal conditionsrefers to “the feelings, hopes, desires, aesthetic reactions, and moral dispositions” ofthe inquirer and participants, social conditions refer to “the milieu, the conditionsunder which people’s experiences and events are unfolding” (p. 480). These socialconditions include cultural, social, institutional, and linguistic narratives. Finally, “aplace” is defined as “the specific concrete, physical and topological boundaries ofplace or sequences of places where the inquiry and events take place” (p. 480). Xuand Liu’s (2009) study used Connelly and Clandinin’s (2006) three strands of narra-tive inquiry to analyze a college English teacher’s assessment of knowledge andpractice. They concluded that this teacher’s prior assessment experience affected hercurrent practices and future plans for assessment (temporality); that power relation-ships in her workplace greatly influenced her assessment of decision-making (soci-ality); and the specific contexts in which assessment took place also affected hersense of security, and therefore the effectiveness of the assessment (place).

Writing a journal as part of a narrative process can help teachers learn aboutteaching and construct knowledge (as in Figure 1) so that they can furnish themeans and the incentive for changing and developing that knowledge. The abovestudies on reflective practice mainly focus on language teachers in master’s pro-grams (Burton, 2009; Kabilan, 2007), but not on those who are in-service elemen-tary school EFL teachers. This case study focuses on the keeping of a journal ofclassroom practice by an EFL teacher, as a reflective practice to generate and shareher insights and theories about elementary school English teaching.

Methods

This is a qualitative case study. Qualitative research allows researchers to obtaingreater depth and detail and to address the “how and why” questions (Yin, 2009),

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because the researchers have already spent sufficient time and resources on exten-sive data collection in the field and on the detailed data analysis of text information(Creswell, 2009). This study aims to consider the three following issues. First, howoften did the language teacher keep a journal? Second, what topics and issues(classroom management, teaching strategies, students’ behavior, students’ perfor-mance, students with special needs, instructional content) did the language teacherwrite about in the journal? Were the journal entries mostly only records of incidentsor were there suggestions for improvements in classroom practice? Third, whatproblems and challenges did the teacher face when keeping the journal as a reflec-tive practice?

Research setting and participant

The major participant in this study is Kathy, an elementary school English teacher.Kathy taught fourth through to sixth grades in an elementary school in a rural townin the northwest of Taiwan. She taught twenty-four classes every week, includingtwo regular English classes and two “activation” classes.

Data collection and analysis

The data in this study included (1) journal entries of classroom practice, (2) recordsof interviews, and (3) observation field notes. Kathy kept a journal of classroompractice that took place in both English and activation classes in the fall semester of2011 academic year. A semi-structured interview protocol was designed to interviewKathy and record her opinions on keeping a journal of her classroom practice asreflective practice. In order to see how and when Kathy kept a journal, theresearcher observed Kathy twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of thefall semester of the 2011 academic year.

The researcher built the patterns, categories, and themes by organizing the datainto more abstract units of information (Creswell, 2009; Hatch 2006; LeCompte &Schensul, 1999; Marshall & Rossman, 2006).

Analysis

A total of 485 entries for 206 classes were written in the fall semester. The averagewas 2.35 entries per class, with a maximum of five entries and the minimum of oneentry per class. The most commonly reported issue in the journal entries was stu-dents’ behavior (162), followed by students’ performance (155), and teaching strate-gies (107). The least reported issues were students with special needs (3) and

reflection-on-action Classroom: practice, beliefs, assumptions, attitudes

narrative inquiry

Writing journal

Figure 1. Journal as a reflective practice.

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classroom management (8). However, the classification of classroom practice intoneat categories is problematic (Farrell, 2008a), because some of the journal entrieswere related to more than one category. For example, the entry in Example 1 wasrelated to both students’ performance (students’ shyness in presentation) and teach-ing strategies (acting out to review phonics).

Journal entry, example 1: I used actions to review phonics. I asked each team to per-form on the stage. Students were a little bit shy.

Students’ behavior

About 90% of the entries on students’ behavior were about students’ misbehavior,and only a very few entries were about students’ especially good behavior. Theexamples of misbehavior included not behaving well (Example 2 and 3), not con-centrating in class, being too talkative or hyperactive (Example 4), asking a ques-tion on issues that had just been discussed a few seconds earlier (Example 5), aswell as other behaviors (Example 6).

Example 2: Tim is quite a handful. He couldn’t control himself but kept on talking inclass. He also liked to talk back. I asked him to stay after class.

Example 3: Martin locked the door when the bell rang. Some students could not getinto the classroom. They banged at the door. I asked Martin and other students toapologize to the whole class for their bad behaviors.

Example 4: Kevin and Luke were not on the task when students worked on groupprojects. They were assigned to a task by their group members, but they were notresponsible. I went to stop their behavior and asked them to be on task.

Example 5: Today Cindy tried to get my attention. She asked me questions immedi-ately after I explained the rules or assignments. A boy stopped her action by saying,“The teacher just explained it.”

Example 6: I came back from bathroom during the recess. A girl approached me andsaid, “Teacher, I am sorry. I took one color paper from your desk.” I replied, “Thankyou for telling me. Thank you for being honest. I forgive you.” She smiled.

Students’ performance

Entries on students’ performance included both bad (Example 1, 7, and 8) and good(Example 9) performances. The students in Example 1 were shy about performingin public. Kathy’s next step was to give students more chance to perform in public,so they would get used to it.

Students in Example 7 could not accurately and fluently write letters of thealphabet after learning English for five years, so Kathy provided them with remedialeducation on alphabet letters.

Example 7: I gave the fifth graders a quiz on the six words we learned from the lastclass and I also asked them to write A to Z. I was surprised that a few students stillhad difficulty in writing A to Z accurately and fluently.

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The girl in Example 8 felt frustrated and sad because of the attitude of her teammembers towards learning English. Kathy encouraged her by asking her to play therole of a little teacher for her team members.

Example 8: Today I asked students to work in groups and they had to interview otherteachers. A girl came back and cried, “Ms. D did not want to sign our worksheets,because X and X were not serious in practicing speaking English. It was their fault.”

The girl, Joyce, in this example was placed in the “resource class” where the spe-cial education teacher provided her with additional instruction on Mandarin Chineseand math. Joyce fell behind most of her classmates in all subjects. Kathy encour-aged her again and again. Kathy also counseled her homeroom teacher for help.Joyce was extremely joyful after passing the quiz on alphabet letters (Example 9).

Example 9: Finally Joyce passed the quiz on the alphabet letters. She could write andreceive 26 alphabet letters fluently and accurately. I hugged her. She ran to her home-room teacher and told her this good news during the recess.

Teaching strategies

Kathy tried different teaching strategies in class such as clock partnering, differenti-ated instruction choices (Example 10), setting tasks, Question Author Relationship(QAR) discussion, Venn diagrams, Gallery Walk (Example 11), flexible grouping,and charades (Example 12).

Example 10: Today was the first time for me to implement differentiated instructionon vocabulary. I was surprised because it went smoothly. By the end, I asked studentsto compliment their partners. Tracy said, “Bill did a great job because he read eachword fluently.” She followed my sentence pattern “___ is good, because__.”

Example 11: Today I tried Gallery Walk. The group leaders sat next to their projects.The rest of the class wrote their comments on post-it-notes and attached them to theproject. It went well.

Example 12: I used charades to review the vocabulary words of Unit 2. Studentsworked in pairs. One acted and the other guessed. Later, students worked in teams.They really liked this activity. During the recess, they kept on playing this game.

Instructional content

The instructional content covered in this class included holidays (Example 13),sports (Example 14), clothes, transportation, and food.

Example 13: Today I used mind-mapping to ask students to brainstorm anythingrelated to Mid-Autumn Festival. Some students mentioned Gang Wu. A few studentsasked, “Who is Gang Wu?” Some students volunteered to explain who Gang Wu is. Ialso wrote Armstrong on the blackboard. Students asked, “Who is Armstrong?” Iexplained to them, “Armstrong is the first person to walk on the moon.” Students said,“I have never heard of him.”

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Example 14: Today’s topic was sports. I tried to integrate math into my English clas-ses. I asked students to interview their classmates by saying, “Do you like to play bas-ketball?” “Yes, I do.” or “No, I don’t.” I asked them to turn the data into a figure andused two sentences (e.g., John and Bill like to play basketball.) to describe the figures.I asked students to use Excel to make figures. Students told me that they did not knowhow to use Excel. So I asked students to draw a figure by hand.

Classroom management

Journal entries on classroom management were related to seating arrangements(Example 15) or class rules (Example 16).

Example 15: Today I rearranged the seats. I hoped kids would concentrate more inclass without talking to their neighbors.

Example 16: I announced a new rule. If a student’s name is called twice because ofmisbehavior, they will be punished by doing extra homework. The kids behaved welltoday because they did not want to have extra homework.

Students with special needs

Some students have special needs, because they have autism (Example 17), emo-tional disorders, are mentally handicapped, and so on. In Example 17, Kathydescribed her frustration about dealing with a student with special needs, Felicia.

Example 17: Today in the second class period, Felicia did not come back to class ontime. I asked two girls to look for her. After five minutes, none of them came back. Ibecame anxious. I called the homeroom teacher and finally these three girls cameback. I felt sad because I forgot how I should handle a special kid like Felicia.

Problems on keeping journal entries

Kathy faced two big problems when keeping a journal of classroom practice. First,she taught twenty-four classes per week and there were only ten to fifteen minutes’break time. It was difficult for her to write down immediately what had occurred inthe class. She had to grade the assignments, contact homeroom teachers, deal withstudents’ behavioral issues, and provide remedial instruction to students who fellbehind the schedule. Moreover, if she did not write the journal entries down imme-diately, she had difficulties in recalling the details of the classroom practice andincidents.

Secondly, she kept a journal of classroom practice. However, there were only afew occasions that she commented on the classroom practice and made suggestionsfor revisions.

Discussion and implications

Based on analysis of the data above, keeping a journal effectively as part of reflec-tive practice is next discussed in terms of its importance, goals and objectives, aswell as the benefits in terms of analysis and sharing.

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Importance of journal writing for reflective practice

Kathy’s journal entries were used to study the “temporality” of her teachinglives and the events that occurred in the classroom, a “place” where narrativestories occurred. Keeping a journal helped Kathy reflect regularly on her class-room practice. The reflective practice through journal writing helped her exam-ine her assumptions and beliefs as well as construct knowledge and improveher skills in terms of English teaching instructional strategies, classroom man-agement issues, and students’ English learning and performance, as shown inFigure 1.

With limited time, she had to teach twenty-four classes per week, prepare les-sons, and grade homework. She still kept the journal for every lesson, becausereflective writing in journals played an important role in her professional growth(Borg, 2001). She tried to keep detailed descriptions including who was involved,the time when things took place, and the incidents that happened, as recommendedby Farrell (2008a) and Goodell (2006). Richards and Lockhart (1994) advocate thestrong version of reflection, because they think teachers should “collect data abouttheir teaching, examine their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, and teaching practices,and use the information obtained as a basis for critical reflection about teaching”(p. 1). The journal entries written in narrative became a way for Kathy to collectdata about her teaching practice and examine her beliefs and assumptions.Language teachers can record their reflections in the audio format rather than writ-ing a journal.

Although she only included “what I could have done differently” in a fewjournal entries, she came up with solutions for problems that occurred in class toimprove her classroom practice for the next class. Writing, sharing, and reflectionon teachers’ classroom practice seem to be an effective mechanism for exploringthe situations and the intricate process of acquiring expertise. Journals are a pow-erful way for individuals to give accounts of their experience. Narrative is thebest way of representing and understanding experience. Narrative thinking is akey form of experience and a key way of writing and thinking about it(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Writing regularly in a journal is highly recom-mended because it can help teachers clarify their own teaching, explore their ownbeliefs and practice, and monitor their own practice (Farrell, 2007; Orland-Barak& Yinon, 2005).

Setting clear focus and objectives

In this study, Kathy wrote down the classroom practice for each class. The journalentries were related to students’ behaviors, students’ performance, instructional con-tent, classroom management, or teaching strategies. Kathy did not set specific goalsin the areas that she wanted to improve. However, according to England (1998) andEun (2006), effective professional development for teachers should involve definedgoals and competences. Therefore, in order to grow professionally through keepinga journal of classroom practice as a reflective practice, language teachers shouldfocus on one specific competence or area. So language teachers should write abouta chosen topic and look for emerging patterns (Farrell, 2008b; Labosky &Laboskey, 2002), because the process of journal writing can help teachers reflect ontheir practice (Richards & Farrell, 2005).

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Analyzing journal entries and making suggestions for professional growth

Elementary school teachers in Taiwan are required to meet other teachers who teachthe same subjects or grades in order to discuss the curriculum. However, mostteachers seldom set up goals and objectives for such instructional conversations.After writing the journal entries, teachers should critically examine the entries abouttheir teaching experience in order to develop a deeper and more complex under-standing of their own behavior, teaching practice, and assumptions (Osterman &Kottkamp, 2004). As Farrell (2007) suggested, teachers can ask questions such as,“Why was this incident important? What does this incident tell me about myself asa teacher?”

In addition to journal writing for reflective practice, language teachers shouldspend time with other colleagues to analyze journal entries and provide suggestionsfor improving their classroom practice (Farrell, 2008a, b; Goodell, 2006; Kennedy,1999). They can include revisions and colleague’s suggestions in their journal entryas shown in the example in Table 2. Language teachers benefit from writing along-side their peers because they can obtain different perspectives on their teachingthrough peers’ challenging and supporting their thinking (Brock, Yu, & Wong,1992; Farrell, 2008b).

Within the context of such ongoing professional growth, language teachers haveopportunities to think, talk, read, and write about their daily work in planned andintentional ways (Cochram-Smith & Lytle, 2003; Grossman, Wineburg, & Wool-worth, 2000; Hardy, 2003). Hence, they can make their knowledge visible andquestion their classroom practice (Cochram-Smith & Lytle, 2003; DuFour & Eaker,1998; Westheimer, 1999). Therefore, the writing of the narratives by teachers isonly the first step in the learning process: reading and reflecting on them is thenext. Language teachers should be focused beyond the classroom on the social andpolitical contexts (Scollon, 1995; Toohey, 1995; Watson-Gegeo, 1988). Languageteaching and teachers are shaped and focused by their surrounding sociopoliticalcontext. So, teaching learning and narrative practice should be socially and contex-tually situated, as is shown in Figure 2. Narrative practices are usually collaborative

Table 2. Sample of journal entry.

Teaching procedures Reflections Revisions Colleagues’ suggestions

Classroom: practice, beliefs, assumptions,

reflection-on-action

narrative inquiry

Writing journal

peers’ suggestions analysis

school

objectives

Figure 2. Suggestions onj as a reflective practice.

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situations in which individuals with a relationship interact with each other, withmaterials, and with representational systems to construct knowledge (Labosky &Laboskey, 2002). The condition of narrative moves from a language teacher’s per-sonal condition to “school,” a social and institutional condition. To sum up, lan-guage teachers should set their goals, talk about the narratives with colleagues, andanalyze the events, so that they can make new insights, ask new questions, and gaina new sense of shared work and professional responsibility.

Conclusion

This study focuses on the keeping of a journal of classroom practice as a reflectivepractice by a language teacher for her professional growth and development. A totalof 485 entries for 206 classes were written in one semester, and the most commonissue on the journal entry was about students’ behavior. Two of the biggest chal-lenges in writing a journal were time constraints and the lack the analysis of journalentries for better classroom practice. Three suggestions are made for effectivelykeeping a journal: constantly keeping a journal of classroom practice as reflectivepractice for professional growth; setting a clear focus and objectives; and, spendingtime with colleagues to analyze journal entries and make suggestions for profes-sional growth.

This is a case study of one EFL teacher’s experience in keeping a journal ofclassroom practice as reflective practice. The findings cannot be generalized to lar-ger EFL teacher populations; however, the analysis of this case study and sugges-tions for keeping a journal of classroom practice do have practical implicationsfor EFL teachers’ reflective practice. Few EFL teachers form a teacher learningcommunity and set up a time to discuss their journal entries of classroom prac-tice. A further case study could usefully focus on the professional learning andgrowth of a group of EFL teachers writing journals and analyzing their classroompractice.

Notes on contributorChin-Wen Chien received her Doctor of Education degree from the University ofWashington (Seattle, USA). She is an assistant professor in the Department of EnglishInstruction of National Hsinchu University of Education in Taiwan. Her research interestsinclude language education, language teacher education, and curriculum and instruction.

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