Purpose: Reflective practice can greatly improve teachers' professional development, and various studies have demonstrated that teachers' knowledge sharing has a positive impact on their reflection. Accordingly, the present study was conducted to examine the effect of knowledge sharing in a popular online forum -- WhatsApp -- on English as foreign…

This paper introduces an innovative practice: post tagging as a way to enhance the use of ePortfolios in foreign language teacher education programs. The ePortfolio system is a WordPress multi-author blog, and a student-teacher's ePortfolio is a page comprised of the posts they have written. Tags are keywords for a post. In this innovation,…

The guiding research question of this essay is: What are the perceived benefits of participating in a transient professional community? The author used an ethnographic approach to collect data. The data analysis shows that one benefit of participating in a transient professional community is the feeling of belonging that partners described and…

Reflective practice has long gained more spotlight from researchers in the education realm, particularly for promoting teachers' professional development (TPD). Generally speaking, the reflective practice provides abundant merit for teachers, namely, evaluating teachers' teaching quality, enhancing teachers' professional skills, and guiding…

This qualitative case study examines language teachers' reflective practice mediated by WhatsApp application and addresses the topics mostly reflected in the eight topics of classroom practice and the problems faced. A total of 537 entries of chats written, the most common topic of reflection entries is about general teaching approaches. Time…

The article presents research findings on the professional growth of three in-service EFL teachers from Germany who took part in a teacher education programme centred on technology-mediated plurilingual education. The study investigated how the programme influenced the development of the teachers' pedagogical and digital skills in creating and…

This study explores the process of Community of Practice (CoP) building for language teachers' professional development through the support of a WeChat group. WeChat is an instant messenger app that provides a multimodal platform for one-on-one and group interactions through text, audio and video. In order to support the implementation of flipped…

During the course of pre-and in-service teacher education programmes, reflection can happen in a number of ways, for example: reflective journals, personal stories and pair/group co-operative discussions, professional development portfolios, and blogs and electronic portfolios. The aim of this paper is to examine various technologies such as…

Reflective learning, a practice carrying relatively high educational value, has been with us for some time. Its popularity has grown to the extent that it is often adopted unquestioningly by educational practitioners. However, there are some important questions to be asked in relation to reflective practice. In reality, its impact on improved and…

This article presents some of the results of a qualitative research project about the influences of the pedagogic strategies used by a mediator (graduate student in applied linguistics) in the supervision process of a Teletandem partner (undergraduate student in languages) on her pedagogical practice. It was done within the project…

Reflection is a commonly accepted practice and considered advantageous in teacher education programs. Teachers are encouraged to think critically about their beliefs and teaching styles with the intended goal of fostering greater professional and personal development. Nonetheless, researchers have noted the challenges inherent in encouraging…

Continuing professional development as it is pursued through the interacting paradigms of reflective practice and action research can be facilitated through the disciplined use of non-judgemental discourse. A framework for such purposeful interaction, "cooperative development", has been established for face-to-face use among TESOL professionals…

In this self-study of a secondary teacher education course, the authors investigated whether there was evidence of critically reflective problem solving on the part of prospective teachers who participated in a peer-led online discussion of a teaching case about English-language learners. They also examined what approaches to multicultural…

This paper considers ways in which a detailed understanding of classroom discourse can be achieved through the use of reflective practices and professional dialogue. For the teacher, understanding classroom communication, being able to "shape" learner contributions and making strategic decisions in the moment-by-moment unfolding of a lesson are…

An expatriate second language teacher working in Japan describes and discusses his use of a reflective dialogue journal, written with a colleague using electronic mail (e-mail) and using a collaborative approach to professional development. Four topic areas discussed in the collaborative journal are examined: features of doing cooperative…