What’s the point of asking teachers to reflect?

As a student teacher, I was often asked to reflect on my teaching, and now, as a teacher trainer, I find myself asking my own student teachers to do the same. However, it wasn’t until recently that I really started to think more deeply about the reflection process and the rationale behind it. In particular, I wondered what student teachers reflect upon, whether what they reflect on changes over the course of their practicum, and more generally whether student teachers, particularly weaker student teachers, are given enough guidance on reflection in order to go beyond superficial surface-level reflections. With reference to a group of Malaysian student teachers who undertook a 12-week practicum in the final year of their B.Ed. TESL programme, and who were expected to do a great deal of reflection during the practicum, this paper addresses the issues raised above, and highlights, among other things, the need for greater levels of guidance before and during the reflection process, and for the process itself to be clearly structured.