Abstract:

Dialogue journal writing (DJW) is considered a reflective tool in teacher education and can provide teacher educators with a clearer understanding of their students thinking and thus can become a powerful tool in providing a context for important discussions paving the way for authentic transformations in the future teachers. Dialogue journals have been employed in a number of ways recently. They have been employed to teach a variety of language skills to various ESOL populations (Peyton & Staton, 2000). The present study sought to investigate reflection resulting in teacher development. The study focused on dialogue journals written by six in-service teachers at a language center in Tehran over a five month period. The analysis of data revealed that keeping a dialogue journal seems to develop critical reflection among teachers but the level of development is not the same among all teachers. Moreover, it was revealed that reflective thinking doesn’t take care of itself; it seems that it does not develop on its own, it should be guided (Moon, 1999).
These dialogue journals had different effects on different teachers and many themes emerged out of these journals such as self evaluation, management, etc. It was also revealed that the process of reflection was not the same for all teachers. Some of the teachers started with a problem, reflected upon it, and then took actions and finally reviewed their actions. But there were teachers who never reached the final stage of John Dewey’s model; they just mentioned the problems, reflected upon it but never came up with a solution.

Keywords:

Reflection, dialogue journal, critical.