Linguistic autobiographies and critical friend conversations as reflective tools in pre-service teacher education

ABSTRACT This paper is an extension of our 2021 research into pre-service teachers’ linguistic autobiographies in a culturally diverse South African university. The paper, which is presented as conversations, examines what we learned about ourselves and our students through their reflective writing, our reflective writing, and our ensuing conversations. For the previous research, the participants, all pre-service teachers of English, wrote their linguistic autobiographies. Prior to reading what students had revealed, we individually reflected on what we thought we would learn from these writings and wrote our linguistic autobiographies. Thereafter we engaged in conversations about our reflections. The findings were surprising as our conversations revealed as much about ourselves as about our students’ linguistic journeys. We learned about our shortcomings and strengths and realised the value of critical friend conversations. We now know that these conversations should continue because lecturers and students benefit from such reflections and conversations.