Reflective Teaching and Practice Skills: Correlation between EFL Teachers’ Reflection and Students’ Practice

The objective of the present study was to search the extent to which EFL teachers are involved in reflective instruction. For this purpose, the needed data were collected through the following instruments: a) a TOEFL test administered to 350 Iranian EFL students, b) reflective journals written by 120 Iranian EFL teachers, and c) Reflective Teaching Inventory. For the qualitative stage, 120 male and female EFL teachers from two language institutes in Kerman, the center of Iran, were selected through convenient sampling and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Then, a five-week treatment of syllabus preparation and reflective journal writing started. After the treatment, a reflective teaching inventory was given as a post-test to the two groups to test the impact of the treatment. The results of statistical analysis of the elicited data indicated that the experimental group outdid the control group in taking advantage of reflective teaching components. This finding raises provocative questions regarding the relationship between reflective teaching and teaching skills.