Student Teachers’ Use of Language: Discourse Functions in Teaching-Based Reflective Writing

Abstract

The value of reflective writing in teacher education is widely accepted and research has focused increasingly on investigating the quality of students’ reflective texts by assessing their reflective depth or breadth. Studies on student teachers’ professional vision have looked at processes of noticing relevant classroom events and reasoning about them, emphasizingthat thinking about teaching and learning is a strongly knowledge-guided process. While much empirical attention has been given to assessing students’ writing, little insight has been gained into how reflective thinking actually unfolds. The aim of this study is to examine student teachers’ discursive practices as they engage in reflective writing in the context of a teaching practicum. Data consists of reflective essays which were analysed using linguistically based qualitative coding in order to identify discourse functions in students’ texts. Findings allow a detailed description of verbal actions carried out in guided reflective writing. They also indicate that due to the situated nature of their writing, student teachers engage in affective appraisal and reasoning processes which are verbalized by using everyday as well as academic language depending on students’ zone of proximal development and their developing pedagogical content knowledge.