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

Language learning and achievement are related to the skills teachers practice and the presence of expert capability such as teachers’ reflectivity. The objective of the present study was to search the extent to which EFL teachers are involved in reflective instruction and test the level of growing teachers’ awareness of reflective teaching which leads to students’ language achievement. Data were collected by the following instruments: a) a TOEFL test administered to 350 Iranian EFL students, b) reflective journals written by 120 Iranian EFL teachers, and c) a 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. After completing the treatment, a reflective teaching inventory as a post-test was given to the two groups to test the impact of the treatment. The results of the t-test indicated that the experimental group outdid the control group in taking advantage of reflective teaching components. This finding raises provocative questions regarding reflective teaching and teaching skills.