Reflective Practice in the context of teaching ESOL

Reflective practice engages practitioners in a continuous cycle of self-observation and self-evaluation in order to understand their own actions and the reactions they prompt in themselves and in learners (Brookfield, 1995; Thiel, 1999). Reflective practice is considered as an evolving concept which views learning as “an active process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice.” (Reid, B 1993 cited in Garfat, T. 2005).

In my opinion, implementing reflective practice approach to professional development in order to expand our knowledge is a challenge. This challenge involves teacher’s ability to “reflect on
Having concluded what, upon reflection, would have been the way to address the situation I can produce an action plan for the next time the same situation arises. By applying this reflective practice cycle to similar situations the outcome should be steady, gradual improvement, associated with stimulating personal and professional growth, and closing the gap between theory and practice. DESCRIPTION
My reflection below describes a critical incident involving my 17 year old, Entry 1 ESOL student from Somalia with undifferentiated Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). In undifferentiated ADD, the primary and most significant characteristic is inattentiveness but hyperactivity is not present. The student manifests problems with organization and distractibility, even though he may seem quite and passive. The symptoms I noticed in the classroom environment included: * a short attention span, * occasionally impulsive behaviour, * difficulty sitting still, * a tendency to express the wrong answer, * inconsistent levels of task-attentiveness, * a tendency to appear forgetful as the consequence of inadequate access to actually well-stored information, * inconsistent levels of task-completeness, often losing things necessary for tasks * an appearance of being forgetful, when in fact the information was never really received or processed, * compromised summarization/paraphrasing competencies. FEELINGS
I have found