Assessing teaching practicum reflections: Distinguishing discourse features of the “high” and “low” grade reports

Using reflective journals to promote learning has been a common practice in the teaching profession. How learners present reflections in what are judged to be high-quality reflective writing remains under-researched. This paper explores the discourse features of teaching practicum reflective reports written by six pre-service student teachers of English in Hong Kong. An analysis of the discourse features of the high- and low-grade reports reveals interesting differences in the structure of the reflections and the utilization of linguistic resources to present the reflections. These differences not only reveal how the student teachers approached the task of writing reflections, but also what the assessors valued most as effective reflective discourse. The findings suggest a potential embryonic form of a reflective genre endorsed by expert members of the professional community. They also suggest the need for professional preparation programs to socialize novice practitioners into a form of disciplinary discourse of reflections that would not only enable them to present evidence of reflections more effectively, but may also enhance their reflective ability in the process of discursive construction of reflections.