The Importance Of Reflective Teaching

Reflective teaching is a process of self- assessment and self- observation. Through reflective teaching, the teachers can explore and discover their own ideas and practices, which can make the teachers more proficient and skilled in teaching. Teaching is an intricate and highly accomplished process, and teachers must implement self evaluation (reflection) to make learning effective. The paper highlights the importance of reflective teaching and its impact on pedagogical process as well as language learners. It focuses on the teacher’s ideas; classroom practices to make teaching more refine and acquire a rich experience by amending the drawbacks. The paper further explores the underlying principles of a reflective teacher and endeavouring best

John Dewey, an early-20th century educational philosopher, was one of the first theorists in the United States to see teachers as reflective practitioners who could reform education (Zeichner & Liston, 1996). For Dewey, the underlying principle of reflective teaching is to reorganize and modify teachers’ instructional practices in the classroom.

Dewey 's Attitudes Promoting Reflection

Dewey (1933) states that the function of reflection is "to transform a situation in which there is experienced obscurity, doubt, conflict, disturbance of some sort, into a situation that is clear, coherent, settled [and] harmonious (p. 100-101). He introduces three attitudes that delineate reflection teaching:

• Open-mindedness:- It relates to having an open mind to different types of ideas, approaches and implementations. It leads to multiple solutions with a broader perspective.

• Responsibility: - Dewey opines that responsible teachers bring changes in the students by their experimentation .Reflecting one’s principles to enhance teaching as well as an active yearning to listen more, to pay attention to alternative possibility. Reflective teachers are constantly questioning themselves with questions

It was considered as a heterogeneous approach which involves deliberation of ideas and collaborative effort. It is quite motivating to ponder over that this emerging trend, reflection teaching has gained stimulant over the years in ELT and has immensely contributed in the field of education. In this connection Farrell (2004) states:

Teachers can become more empowered decision makers, engaging in systematic reflections of their work by thinking, writing, and talking about their teaching; observing the acts of their own and others’ teaching; and by gauging the impact of their teaching on their students’ learning. In these ways, teachers can begin to locate themselves within their profession and start to take more responsibility for shaping their practice. This I call reflective teaching (pp.