Expanding normative ways of reflective thinking and enthusiastic behaviors towards teaching profession

Abstract

Performing reflective procedures is among the attempts to improve the quality of professional development in teacher training process. Reflective procedures are assumed to be functional for increasing normative ways of thinking and for encouraging student teachers to develop more enthusiastic attitudes towards teaching profession. Action research, among such procedures, is used to employ numerous teaching drills and to reflect on the teaching practice. Therefore, this study discusses the importance of action research in teacher training process for developing reflective thinking skills of student teachers and for fostering their enthusiastic attitudes towards professional development. In the study, action research was designed with the participation of the student teachers attending English Language Teaching Department at a Turkish university. The results of this small scaled study demonstrated that action research reasonably contributed to professional innovation and renovation of the student teachers, helped them reflect on their inner thoughts about the process, and increased their enthusiastic behaviors towards teaching practices.