Practices and Challenges on Reflective Teaching: an Investigation of Second Cycle Primary Schools (5-8) EFL Teachers’ in South West Cluster Zones of Oromiya Regional State

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the practices and challenges of reflective teaching in helping EFL teachers to become more efficient practitioners’ in second cycle primary schools (5-8) of the selected Zones. To realize the study successfully, a descriptive survey design was employed in the study. From the three zones in the study area 12 schools were selected using purposive sampling. From those sample schools 84EFL teachers were selected as the key informants of the study. Questionnaire, interview, observation and focus group discussions were used to gather the required data. The frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used in the analysis of quantitative data while qualitative data were described in narrative way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Corresponding author.International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research (IJSBAR)(2017) Volume 33, No 2, pp 225-247 226 To this end, the result of the study indicated that teachers understanding the concept and use of reflection as a teaching strategy is below the expected standard. Thus, it would help them little to ensure that the importance of reflective in preparing their students to become reflective learners, and it blocks the learners to practice in their own way of reflection and less model as well. This could be emanated from different barriers of reflective teaching, such as inadequacy of free expression and less perception of the usefulness of reflective teaching and lack of prior experience and having less time for reflection are the major causes of the challenging towards reflective teaching. It was observed that teachers were unable to succeed in achieving: Cognitive strategies, which enable learners to understand and produce new language, and Meta cognitive strategies, which allow learners to control their own learning through organizing, planning, and evaluating, and affective strategies, which help learners gain control over their emotions, attitudes, motivations, and values. Therefore, in order to maximize the EFL teachers’ approaches and strategies of reflective teaching so as to help their students to reflect on their teaching, teachers should increase their awareness of reflective teaching, they should design specific tasks for the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self directed, and more transferable to new situations, provide feedback on both the content and process of the learners own reflective practice and able to provide an environment that encourages reflective practice, minimize if not avoided the barriers of reflective teaching by having a clear understanding of reflective teaching and its implementation, avoiding personal negative factors and using the positive opportunities of the culture, environment, and other pressures.