August 2025 – Volume 29, Number 2
https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.29114s7
Atsuko Watanabe
Bunkyo University, Japan
<atsuko-w
bunkyo.ac.jp>
Yuko Iwata
Meiji University, Japan
<yukoiwatayukogmail.com>
Abstract
This paper is based on a study conducted ten years ago at one university in Japan aiming at collaborative development through reflection among a teacher educator, two in-service teachers, and four pre-service graduate students. Collaborative reflection involved methods, such as the graduate students’ observation of the in-service teachers’ English language lessons and the joint journal entries among the three parties. Though the teacher educator and in-service teachers had attempted to facilitate the graduate students’ engagement in reflection, the research seemed to have finished with a sense of incompleteness. The present study, through taking the autoethnographic and duoethnographic approaches between an in-service teacher and the teacher educator from the past study, reexamined the past data for continuing professional development. The research question posed is how we develop as teachers/researchers through dialogues with the past self and the past research partners (graduate students and the other in-service teacher), and collaborative dialogues with the current co-researcher. The intricate interplays of the self, the co-researcher, and the past students across time brought forth multidimensional arenas for reflection. The study suggests the benefits of reflection on previous data for continuing professional development as reflective practice is a collaborative and iterative learning endeavor.
Keywords: Autoethnography, Collaborative reflection, Duoethnography, Researcher professional development, Researcher reflexivity, Self-reflective data
A decade ago, we conducted research aiming for mutual professional development of the three parties: a teacher trainer, in-service teachers, and pre-service teachers (graduate students) through collaboration from September 2015 to February 2016 over two semesters.
In the research, the teacher educator taught the concept of reflective practice to the graduate students (pre-service teachers) enrolled in the methodology course and the in-service teachers observed the methodology course to help the graduate students learn the concept of reflective practice. Then, the graduate students observed in-service teachers’ English language lessons in the undergraduate program. After the observation, the graduate students and the in-service teachers held a post-observation session to share ideas on improving the lessons. The students made journal entries after the post-lesson meeting and the in-service teachers responded to their comments. The students further discussed the class observation in the graduate course to connect what they observed with theories they learned in the course. During the process, the teacher educator and the in-service teachers tried to help the students engage in reflective practice.
However, we felt uncomfortable with the research and that something was wrong. We taught the concept of reflective practice to the students and encouraged them to engage in reflective practice by observing English language lessons. However, their journal entries and follow-up discussions indicated that the graduate students paid more attention to relatively minor issues, such as some problematic students who played with a smartphone in class or who spoke Japanese in an English-only-policy class. They seemed not to pay attention to the philosophy and principles of English language teaching, lesson planning, teacher feedback, and methodology. It appeared that the students were not conducting holistic observations. They seemed to be not engaged in the reflective practice as we expected. We tried to help them engage in the reflective practice, but it did not work.
We started the research with the aim of mutual professional development, but we felt we had ended the research with dissatisfaction and unfinishedness. What is worse, we could not realize the reason for our incomplete ending.
In order to investigate the reason for this research, we studied the concepts and practice of reflective practice again. Dewey (1933) encouraged teachers to suspend their immediate judgment and engage systematically in reflective inquiry. He suggested that we return to any of the previous stages and go through the reflective inquiry process again until the problem is solved. The process is iterative in nature. Dewey also wrote that the participants may move back and forth through any of the stages depending on their needs to solve the problem at hand.
Therefore, taking Dewey’s statement as relevant to return to a past study, we, the two authors of the present paper, decided to return to the previous study, hoping to discover why the reflective inquiry in the previous study was unsatisfactory. Thus, the present study aims to enhance professional development by reflecting on data from previous study. The research question is how we develop as a teacher/researcher through dialogues with the past self and the past research partners (graduate students and the other in-service teacher), and collaborative dialogues with the current co-researcher. In response to the research question, we take the autoethnographic and duoethnographic approaches and engage in the cyclic process of reflective practice. We reread journal entries we, as well as our research partners (a colleague and four graduate students who participated in the previous study), wrote ten years ago and had a dialogue with the past selves and students.
Literature Review
Reflective practice has established itself as one dominant approach for professional development for teachers. Prevalence has seemed to have conveyed the message that reflective practice is an easy activity where one just needs to think about one’s lesson after teaching it. Farrell (2023b) pointed out that “reflection” and “reflective practice” are a bit different. Reflection “in its everyday connotation can be considered fleeting or reflection in passing based on our hunches, or intuition” (p. 123). On the other hand, he described reflective practice as the following:
Engaging in reflective practice is a more systematic analysis of gathering evidence about what has actually happened in your lessons and also examining who you are as a person, what you do in the classroom, why you do it, and what the result is. It includes not only examining our teaching plans before class, our teaching actions during the class, and what we think we achieved in each class after the lesson, but also who we are as a human being, because I believe the person you are cannot be separated from the teacher you are and the act of teaching (Farrell, 2023b, p. 123).
As Farrell’s explication showed, engaging in reflective practice is a holistic personal endeavor which involves individuals to look into oneself as well as inside and outside of one’s teaching practice.
One recent movement in the study of reflective practice is researchers’ exploration of their own reflection taking methodology such as autoethnography. By quoting writer Joan Didion’s words, “We tell stories in order to live” (Didion, 1979, p. 11), Adams et al. (2015) claimed that “the stories we tell enable us to live and to live better; stories allow us to lead more reflective, more meaningful, and more just lives” (p. 1). The autoethnographic stories are stories of /about the self told through the lens of culture. With autoethnography, we use our experience to engage ourselves, others, culture(s), politics, and social research.
According to Adams et al. (2022), autoethnography consists of “three characteristics or activities: the “auto,” or self; the “ethno,” or culture; and the “graphy,” or representation/writing/story” (p. 3). “The “auto” of autoethnography foregrounds the author’s personal experience and reflections” (p. 3). Researchers who employ autoethnography (autoethnographers) engage in “memory work” (p.3). They use meaningful artifacts such as diaries, photographs, videos, objects, formative and challenging life experiences, and interviews with others to reflect on, record, and report their experiences living through time, space, and circumstance. They “use their experience to describe, and sometimes critique, cultural beliefs, values, practices, and identities that’s the “ethno” element” of their work. In addition to the auto and the ethno, they “take the craft of representation-the “graphy”- seriously” (Adams et al., 2022).
The engagement in autoethnography has evolved into researchers’ collaborative involvement in reflection, which is duoethnography. Lawrence and Lowe (2020) defined duoethnography as “a qualitative research methodology in which two researchers utilize dialogue to juxtapose their individual life histories in order to come to a new understanding of the world” (p. 2). The presence of a collaborator is underscored as they offer alternative perspectives through “a new and destabilising lens” (Sawyer & Norris, 2016, p. 3) in examining beliefs and practices (Lawrence & Lowe, 2020). Making meaning through different perspectives generates new understandings of one’s interpretation and teaching (Mann & Walsh, 2017).
The discussion of reflective practice, especially where researchers are engaged as participants, poses the necessity to touch upon the concept of reflexivity. Reflexivity is a concept pertinent to a phase of reflection and a researcher’s methodological practice (Berry & Clair, 2011). Goodall (2000) defined reflexivity as “the process of personally and academically reflecting on lived experiences in ways that reveal the deep connections between the writer and her or his subject” (p. 137). Berry (2022) described reflexivity to be the core of autoethnographical research and illustrates it to be introspective (Ellis, 1991) and autobiographical (Ellis et al., 2011) as those who engage in it (autoethnographers) reflect on their lived experiences and tell stories which are informed through their experiences and themselves. Yet, reflexivity comprises “a communicative process” (Berry, 2022, p. 31), as stories are not monodirectional but directed and presented toward others. As a phase of reflection, reflexivity goes beyond “mere reflection” (Olesen, 2018, p. 160,). Farrell’s (2018) framework of reflective practice embraces the concept of reflexivity as it signifies reflection on one’s lived experiences comprising philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice, which is not only exploring and examining one’s practice but also one’s background, assumptions, beliefs and beyond practice.
As a methodological practice, researcher’s reflexivity was defined by Finlay (2012) as “being thoughtfully and critically self-aware of personal/relational dynamics in the research and how these affect the research” (p. 318). Referring to Gorelick (1991) and Scheper-Huges (1983), Olesen (2018) illustrated that being reflexive requires “steady, uncomfortable assessment about the interpersonal and interstitial knowledge-producing dynamics of qualitative research, in particular, acute awareness as to what unrecognized elements in the researchers’ background contribute” (p. 160). The awareness of and sensitivity toward researcher’s reflexivity has come to be a crucial aspect in conducting qualitative studies, especially in those such as reflective practice, where a researcher is an integral part of the research.
As described above, reflective practice involves individuals in delving into themselves, that is, not only looking into one’s teaching practice but also examining philosophy and beliefs, which may pose challenges for teachers in various phases of their teaching careers. Due to the lack of teaching experiences, pre-service teachers may find reflective practice to be intimidating and also try to conform to their perceived expectations from the teacher and the assignments in the courses. In-service teachers often experience difficulties in finding time to reflect during their busy schedules. Teacher educators, in introducing reflective practice in teacher development courses, may face time pressures and institutional requirements which lead them and the students to produce “contrived and ritualistic” (Mann & Walsh, 2017, p. 47) reflection. Moreover, teachers in any career phase may find engagement in reflection to be challenging as philosophy and beliefs can be tacit, and its exploration may pose congruence to their practice.
Farrell (2023c) examined the principles and practices of one novice English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher, Oscar (a pseudonym), teaching at a prominent English language school in Central America. The research question for this case study was about what one novice EFL teacher’s reflections were as expressed through his philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. Transcribed semi-structured and follow-up interviews, written reflection tasks, and virtual classroom observations aligned with the reflective framework (5-step framework) (Farrell, 2015) were collected as data. Farrell concluded that this type of evidence-based reflective practice research is valuable for pre-service and in-service EFL teachers. It is also crucial for teacher trainers to better prepare teachers for the real world of teaching throughout their careers.
Miyahara and Fukao (2022) conducted a study with a collaborative autoethnographic-oriented approach in which they reflected on their previous research data. Their research methods involved a reiterative process comprising individual reflections on the diaries entered in the past study and face-to-face discussions of the pre- and post-dialogue of their reflective writings. The collaborative dialogues allowed them to gain “a more objective level of awareness concerning one’s own experience, and to a conceptual level of understanding which may not be achieved through solo reflection” (p. 7). They pointed out that methods in the research process became venues for collaboration such as individual writings, which were entered with the understanding that they would be read and discussed with the partner, so the writing, even though entered in one’s solitude, becomes “more of a collaborative dialogue on paper” (p. 7). In all, the cyclic research process promoted reflexivity and better understanding of themselves.
In the present study, through taking the autoethnographic and duoethnographic approaches, the authors reexamined the past data of the study they conducted for continuing professional development. The research question posed in the study is how we develop as teachers/researchers through dialogues with the past self and the past research partners, and collaborative dialogues with the co-researcher.
Methodology
As the current study involved the authors’ reflection on past selves in the past study in which we participated as co-researchers, we employed autoethonographic and duoethnographic approaches. This section explicates two studies, the past study from 2015 to 2016 and the present study in 2024.
The Past Study
The study upon which we reflected was aimed at mutual professional development of a teacher trainer, in-service teachers, and graduate students through collaboration. The study was conducted from September 2015 to February 2016 over two semesters and was followed up for the subsequent two years to explore the changes and development of the three parties.
The research site. The research was conducted at a TESOL graduate program of University A. The university is renowned as one of the leading institutions with its bilingual policy of Japanese and English, and its English language education in the undergraduate curriculum. In the curriculum, all the students are required to enroll in an intensive English language program where the instruction of the language is English. Its aim is to prepare students to be equipped with academic skills necessary in their undergraduate study. The graduate school of University A offers an MA program in language education, including English language education. An English language methodology course was offered as one of the courses in the program.
The participants. Yuko Iwata, one of the authors, was the teacher trainer teaching courses at the graduate school. Two teachers from the English language program of the university also participated in the study, one of whom was Atsuko Watanabe, the other author. The other teacher was Ms. Mori (pseudonym). Four graduate students participated in the study. As our reflection on the past study involved reading their data; we present a brief overview of the information about the participants.
Atsuko Watanabe. At the time the past study was conducted in 2015, I (Atsuko) was a full-time instructor at University A and taught at the English language program. I had taught in the program over 15 years and in 2017, I relocated to a different institution, University B, to take up a post of teaching teacher certificate courses for English language teachers. University B is known to be a university that focuses on pre-service teacher education and sends substantial number of graduates as teachers at pre-tertiary institutions. Upon embarking upon the post, it was my first time teaching teacher certificate courses.
Yuko Iwata. When the past study was conducted in 2015, I was a full-time professor at University A and the director of the English language program where Atsuko Watanabe taught full-time. In addition, I taught the methodology of an English language teaching course at the graduate school. When four graduate students who participated in this study took this course, it was my second year of teaching this methodology course, and I was not used to teaching graduate students yet. In 2023, I relocated to a different institution, University C. I teach sociolinguistics to graduate students and intercultural communication and understanding to undergraduate students there. I also supervise the MA thesis and the doctoral study.
Ms. Mori (pseudonym). At the time when the past study was conducted in 2025, she was also a full-time instructor at University A.
Sara (pseudonym). Sara obtained her B.A. from a department known for its English medium instruction for all the courses in a well-established university in Japan. She aspired to be an English language teacher in public junior high school.
Kyoko (pseudonym). Kyoko obtained her B.A. from the undergraduate of University A. She, thus, had taken the English language program of the university as an undergraduate student. She had obtained a teacher certificate for teaching Japanese in her undergraduate program. When participating in the study, she was teaching Japanese at a Chinese school in Tokyo as a part-time teacher.
Ai (pseudonym). Ai was another alumna of University A, who also took the undergraduate English language program of the university. As she had obtained a teacher license in her undergraduate program, she was teaching part-time at a public high school when participating in the study.
Yoko (pseudonym). Yoko received her B.A. from a university overseas. She returned to Japan for her pursuit of an M.A. in TESOL.
The procedure. In an attempt to foster mutual professional development of the three parties, we designed a series of activities from which each party can obtain various perspectives (See Table 1): the graduate students learned the concept of reflective practice in a graduate school course taught by the teacher educator (1), the in-service teachers observed the graduate course to learn the content of the course (2), the students, from the perspective of pre-service teachers, observed in-service teachers’ English language lessons in the undergraduate program (3), the students and the teachers, as “colleagues,” held a post-observation session to share ideas to improve the lessons (4), the students, as “colleagues,” made journal entries after the post-lesson meeting (5), the in-service teachers responded to the comments (6), and the students further discussed the class observation in the graduate course to connect what they observed with theories they learned in the course (1). This cyclic procedure was repeated during the semesters. After the two semesters, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted to learn the perspectives and follow up on the experiences of the graduate students.
Table 1. Procedure of the Study Conducted from 2015 to 2016
| Activities | Perspectives | ||
| 1 | GSs attend TE’s lesson. | GS: student / TE: teacher educator | |
| 2 | ISTs observe TE’s lesson. | IST: colleague | |
| 3 | GSs participate in IST’s lesson. | GS: pre-service teacher, colleague / IST: teacher | |
| 4 | GSs and IST have a post-lesson meeting. | GS: student, pre-service teacher, colleague IST: teacher, teacher educator, colleague, researcher |
|
| 5 | GSs make entries on online journal. | GS: student, colleague, and researcher | |
| 6 | TE and ISTs write comments on GSs entries. | TE: teacher educator, researcher, colleague IST: teacher, teacher educator , researcher |
|
Note: GS (graduate students), TE (teacher educator), IST (in-service teacher)
The Present Study
The aim of the present study, conducted from May to October 2024, was to enhance professional development through reflecting on our past data from the previous study. In an attempt to respond to the research question, how we develop as a teacher/researcher through dialogues with the past self and the past research partners, and collaborative dialogues with the co-researcher, taking the autoethnographic and duoethnographic approaches, we, the two authors of the present paper, engaged in the cyclic process as described in Table 2.
For this study, the authors used autoethnography as a research approach because we believe that we could make meanings, name, and interpret our personal and cultural experiences as teacher educators by telling our own stories. As shown in Table 2, each of us reflected on our past self and our relationships with our past students by rereading journal entries we and the students wrote (1). We each had a dialogue with our past selves and students and wrote new journals individually (2). In other words, we engaged in autoethnography individually. In this process, we critically analyzed our past selves and relationships with our past students and discovered our teacher beliefs, values, practices, and identities as teachers and teacher educators.
This reflective practice through autoethnography was not easy but gave us insightful accounts of our personal experiences. After doing autoethnography individually, we shared our reflections by reading the co-researcher’s journal (3), and had online discussions (4), thus engaged in duoethnography. We shared intimate and vulnerable experiences that sometimes brought shame, regrets, or sorrow. Discussion in each meeting was recorded as a memo and some meetings were audio recorded. In total, we had 12 meetings.
Table 2. Procedure of the study conducted in 2024
| Activities | Approaches | Dimension of reflection | |
| 1 | Authors reread the past journal entries. | autoethnography | dialogue with past self and students |
| 2 | Authors entered reflection after the rereading. | autoethnography | dialogue with past self and present self |
| 3 | Authors read each other’s reflection. | duoethnography | dialogue with past and present co-researcher |
| 4 | Authors discussed reflection in an online meeting. | duoethnography | dialogue with present co-researcher |
Analysis. The research question of the current study involved the analysis of our reflection on dialogues with the past selves and the research partners, and dialogues with the present selves and the co-researcher. The analysis process, both in the approaches of autoethnography and duoethnography, took place concurrently with the cyclic research process described in the present study (See Table 2). The four activities were repeated three times from May to October in 2024. Then, the four dimensions of reflection were identified: dialogues between the present and the past selves through rereading the past journal entries, dialogues between the present selves and the past students through rereading the past journals, dialogues with the past and the present co-researcher through reading her reflection on the past journal entries, and dialogues with the co-researcher through the online discussion. After the identification of four dimensions, each of us selected a critical incident from the past journal in the previous study which illustrates the four dimensions.
Findings
As mentioned in the methodology section, four dimensions of reflection emerged from the data. The dimensions of reflection are intricate as they encompass interplays of dialogues with multiple individuals (self, co-researcher, other researcher, and graduate students) across time (present and past). In the findings section, each author illustrates the four dimensions of reflection through particular incidents mentioned in the past journal entries.
Incident A (Atsuko): A Student Looking at the Smartphone
In her third-week journal, Sara wrote about a student with whom she had been concerned. Her entry about this particular student prompted active discussion via journal and class discussion among the graduate students:
Just as last week, one student caught my attention. Last week, he came to class late in a casual manner and took a seat sipping orange juice. This week, he was on time, however all through the lesson, he was looking at his smartphone. I talked about this at the meeting and learned that Ms Watanabe and Ai were also concerned with the student. Ms Watanabe said that she was still debating on how to approach him…If I were the teacher, I would reprimand him with a stern look. I was amazed at Ms Watanabe’s patience and leniency. Would the differences between us be caused by the differences in teaching experiences?
Sara’s puzzlement was over my approach to the student rather than the student’s behavior, that is, I (Atsuko) was debating what to do with the student without scolding the students. I responded to Sara’s entry:
With me, it is not about “patience and leniency,” but I am still in the phase of wondering “what is happening with this student.” … I am interested in students who are not very motivated. I am interested in why he is playing with the smartphone in class. During a tutorial with him, I learned that he was not very good at English … He might feel uncomfortable participating in the language program where the language of the instruction and the participation are designated to be English. And I am wondering how I could approach him in tutorials and in class. I feel I need to do something about his playing with the smartphone … If you were the teacher, what would you do?
My reason for not scolding him was that I am interested in such unmotivated students and am pondering the approach to the student. I also shared extra information about the students’ insecurity in his English proficiency. Then, I asked a question to Sara what she would do. Then, Ai made an entry stating that at her school quite a few students play with the phone during lessons. She tells them not to look at the phones, but after a while, some look at them again. Then, she does not bother to tell them to stop. She asked other students what they would do.
After some written interactions with Ai, I made another entry explaining my approach to the student:
There have been discussions about one student’s behavior during a lesson. I think teachers have their own views, policies, and philosophy in terms of what to say to such students, which is informed by the interplay of a particular student, the class, experience as a learner and a teacher, and learning from theories and research. I do not have a particular policy about how to approach students playing with a smartphone. It is a matter of how I, Atsuko Watanabe, interacts with this particular student.
Reading my entry, Ai asked me to share my philosophy of teacher beliefs with them, to which I did not respond.
In week 4, Sara wrote about gaining a different perspective after having an opportunity to talk with the student:
I was placed in the same group as this student. I think he is a good student as he listens to others during discussion and peer review. He responds to a question, too. I felt that we needed to get to know students before giving them a reprimand.
In week 5, Sara wrote about teacher’s beliefs which she learned in the graduate school course and connected the concept with her experience with the student.
We learned the importance of delving into and becoming aware of our teacher’s beliefs. We can, then, deeply reflect on our teaching, and based on this, we can think of ways to improve our lessons. I think delving into teacher’s beliefs makes teaching easy. However, teaching is actually quite complicated. For example, I did not say anything to the student who came in late, took a sip of the drink, and played with the smartphone. I myself was a good student and was brought up in an environment where having a drink and using smartphones are prohibited; thus, I have a particular way of thinking (Teacher’s beliefs). I later learned that this student was more serious than I had thought, and I was relieved that I did not say anything, but is that OK?
In the entry, she was trying to make sense of what she felt with the student using the concept of teacher’s beliefs, but then she was further questioning if it was acceptable not to have said (or not to say) anything to the student.
In week 6, Sara made an entry about being firm with the students where she made the following comment:
Ms. Watanabe’s ‘leniency,’ which I think is to be understanding of the students, allows the students to study comfortably, but unfortunately there are some students who take advantage of the ‘leniency’ and skip the lessons.
After the discussion about being firm with the students in the journal, I made an entry:
We had a discussion about how to approach students’ misbehavior during a lesson. I have been thinking about it through educational benefits; which can be both short-term and long-term; thus, giving reprimand is not straightforward.
I wrapped up the discussion stating that giving reprimands is challenging and not straightforward. Using the episode above, which is how to give reprimands to misbehaved students, the four dimensions of reflection are delineated in the following section.
The first dimension: Dialogue between the present and the past self through the past journal entries. I learned that I possess different positionalities at the moment. After gaining more experience in teaching pre-service teachers, I can now see that I did not know how to interact with the graduate students which might have led me to avoiding the discussion of pedagogical issues.
I am bewildered as to why I did not say anything toward the student who was playing with the smartphone. At present, when I witness such a student, I approach the student and say, “Is everything ok?” or “What are you looking at?” to give the message to the student and the class that they should not be looking at smartphones during lessons. By shifting the focus from class management to pedagogical aspects in the journal, I wonder if I was trying to enhance the graduate students’ reflection, feeling insecure as I did not know what to do with the particular student, or trying to impress the students by trying to appear ‘academic’.
The second dimension: Dialogue with graduate students through past journal entries. I found that in the previous study, I was not able to discern that the different focus of the interests between the graduate students and me derived from my lack of knowledge about their contexts, and to notice that they were trying to reflect on their experiences through the concept of teacher’s beliefs which they learned in the graduate course.
I noticed that I was not aware of the interests of the graduate students due to my lack of knowledge about their contexts. I was wondering why they were preoccupied with the student looking at the smart phone. In our paper published after the previous study, we entered that novice teachers are concerned with tangible aspects in teaching, such as giving reprimand and that such examples can be students playing with smartphones, sleeping during lessons, or coming late to lessons (Watanabe et al., 2019). It is true that there is a propensity among novice teachers to be overly concerned with tangible aspects of lessons, however, at the time I did not realize that class management is important or what is expected at pre-tertiary institutions. Teaching pre-service teachers at my current university, I keep this aspect in mind and try to be firm with the students, which do not particularly align with my style of teaching. However, as the workplace of the students may require them to have certain attributes such as being on time and well-organized, I feel it is my responsibility to foster students to have such attributes regardless of my preference in interacting with the students. Sara wanted to be a junior high school teacher and Ai and Kyoko were teaching at pre-tertiary institutions. It is natural for their immediate interests of class observation to be class management, which I was not aware of at the time.
The rereading of the past journals brought me to find that the graduate students were trying to explore their beliefs and also my beliefs through the class observation. Ai asked me about my teacher’s beliefs, which I did not respond. I wonder if I was not very certain about my teacher’s belief. Sara wrote, “If I were the teacher, I would reprimand him with a stern look, so I was amazed at Ms Watanabe’s patience and leniency. Would the difference between us be caused by the differences in teaching experiences?” She acknowledged the differences between us and was interested in exploring it further. I thought that their interest was focused on the immediate aspects of teaching, and I did not care to probe the differences. Sara entered, “Ms Watanabe’s ‘leniency,’ which I think is to be understanding of the students, allows the students to study comfortably, but unfortunately, there are some students who take advantage of the ‘leniency’ and skip the lessons.” Sara learned the importance of knowing the students and understood my reluctance to give reprimands to the student, yet, she went further and questioned if it was acceptable not to say anything to the students.
The third dimension: Dialogue with the past and the present co-researcher through her reflection on the past journal entries. The journal of the co-researcher was embodiment of my internal thoughts which validated my feelings. Through the entries, I became aware of my thoughts and was able to make meanings of my feelings and experiences.
Yuko made the entries in terms of how to interact with the graduate students: “It seems that I did not know how to pose questions in the journal, or I did not know how to enhance students’ reflection” (First journal), “I did not ask questions to students’ comments. I might have been rather hesitant” (First journal), “I was dissatisfied as the graduate students didn’t seem interested in Atsuko’s teaching. Yet, I didn’t know what advice to give or how to enhance reflection. I was still in a phase of exploration including my positionality” (Second journal), and “I was hesitant in terms of how much I should intervene” (Third journal).
Yuko’s entries verbalized and validated my feelings. Insecurity, which I felt in the past study, can be attributed to my positionality, that is, lack of experience in teaching graduate students, in teaching pre-service teachers, and in teaching at pre-tertiary institutions. In addition, I was hesitant in terms of how much to intervene. I felt that I had to facilitate students’ reflection and that I should not influence their ideas though my comments. Yet, I did not know how to bring out students’ reflection. Reading the co-researcher’s comments helped me to acknowledge feelings of insecurity and validate lack of confidence, which brought me to be comfortable in expressing my views and feelings in the journal and the discussion in the current research.
The fourth dimension: Dialogue with the co-researcher through online discussion. The discussion with the co-researcher helped me to connect my past issue with my present issue. Yuko’s reflection on her teacher’s beliefs brought me to focus on and explore my challenges.
In the online discussion, Yuko often referred to teacher’s beliefs, which was one topic emphasized in the graduate course. She shared that she became aware of her own teacher’s beliefs. In the past study, Yuko felt dissatisfied with the graduate students’ discussion about class observation where they perceived the lessons based on their experience as undergraduate students.
However, Yuko expressed that she became aware that her perception towards current students is influenced by her own experiences as a student. She shared her view about some of her graduate students, who do not seem to try hard. She said that she felt frustrated about their attitude as she tried to face and solve challenges when she was a student. She expressed that her belief of what students should be is based on her own experience as a student.
Her revelation about her perspective about her students rooted in her belief led me to think about my own challenges which I had with my current students:
there are some students who regard teachers who do not reprimand the students to be easy and soft teachers. I do not mean to be such a soft teacher, but I want the students to learn on their own rather than my telling them what to do and what not to do. However, some students think that ‘Ms Watanabe is lenient as she does not reprimand students.’ … Some of my students change their attitudes and behaviors depending on the teacher they are interacting with … Some students cut the class telling me that they are ill, which is not always the case.
The discussion with the co-researcher led me to disclose the recent difficult incident and also brought me to become aware of my belief and of my challenge in teaching. The disclosure of the recent incident was relieving as I was bothered with the interaction with some students. It also helped me identify my belief: I want the students to learn what to do and what not to do by themselves, which I might have probably felt interacting with the student with a smartphone in the past. The discussion also brought me to become aware of my enduring challenge: wanting to foster autonomy in students but not quite knowing the way to do it.
Summary of the findings. Through my engagement in the current study, I was able to become aware of various aspects of myself and my teaching. Dialogue between the past selves through rereading the past journal brought me to notice that my positionalities are different from the time I engaged in the past study. Dialogue with the past students through rereading the past journal led me to become aware of what I did not realize at the time. The students’ interests were informed by their phases of being pre-service teachers and the focus of the courses of their graduate course, which was on teacher belief. Dialogue with the past and the present co-researcher allowed me to become aware of my challenges and also to validate my insecurities I experienced in the past study. Dialogue with the present co-researcher helped me to identify my continuing challenges as a teacher; the struggle of wishing to foster autonomy but not knowing how.
Incident B (Yuko): Students Speaking Japanese in the English Class
Kyoko wrote in the journal that quite a few students were talking in Japanese in the English class she participated in and observed as a student helper.
Journal entries written by Kyoko in week 6.
I observed Ms Mori’s class on Friday … I noticed that quite a few students were talking in Japanese in this class. They were not only chatting with their classmates in Japanese but also, they were speaking Japanese when they were engaged in discussion on class materials. In addition, they were not trying to hide themselves from Ms Mori or myself when speaking in Japanese … After the class, I talked with Ms Mori about this issue. She said she had told them not to speak Japanese in class several times, but they would not stop it. Did the students gain the habit of speaking Japanese in the Spring term? Or are they influenced by some classmate who speaks Japanese? Speaking Japanese in class is the norm. Even though Ms Mori told them not to speak Japanese, they would not stop it. Are there any ideas about this problem?
Ms Mori’s comments on Kyoko’s journal entry.
I have this kind of class at least once every year. First, I tell them not to speak Japanese many times. If the situation is not getting better, I ask them to discuss why they are expected to speak in English in class. Sometimes, I spend the whole period discussing this issue with my students. I have not had time to do this work for this class yet. My experience indicates that having a discussion would improve the situation. I would prefer to ask them to discuss why I am asking them to speak in English rather than telling them not to speak Japanese. I am considering having students discuss this issue on the final class day.
Journal entries written by Kyoko in week 7: Discussion with Ms. Mori.
I talked with Ms. Mori about two observations I made. I will write about what we talked about. First, I was asked how I felt about the whole class. I told Ms. Mori that I was concerned about the tendency for many students to speak Japanese in class instead of English, which I had written about in this journal before. Ms. Mori said that she reminded the students of the policy of speaking English in class today (the final day of this term) and asked them to discuss two topics related to this issue. One is why they tended to speak in Japanese in class, and the other is the significance of speaking English in class. The students realized they were speaking Japanese and felt it was not good. They spoke Japanese because they could not express their ideas or thoughts well in English, even though they had ideas in Japanese. I quite understood this reason because I felt the same way when I speak in English. However, I noticed that even a student with good English proficiency was speaking Japanese in group discussions and mentioned this student to Ms. Mori. She asked this student individually about the reason for speaking Japanese, and the student said that he/she was afraid of being outstanding in class if he/she spoke fluently in English by himself/herself.
The first dimension: Dialogue between the present and the past self through past journal entries. I (Yuko) remember this incident (speaking Japanese in English classes) when I reread journal entries for this study. Kyoko and Ai discussed this issue more than once in my graduate course. Both of them took the same English classes when they were first-year students at this university. They said they had tried speaking only English when they were enrolled. They blamed the students who were speaking Japanese when they observed the class. They were very critical of the students who were speaking Japanese. However, I did not make any comments to them at that time.
Since I asked them to do reflective practice, I could have asked them to engage in reflective practice on this incident. However, I did not do anything. I may not know how to help them engage in reflective practice on this issue.
As this incident showed, I did not know how to encourage graduate students to engage in reflective practice. I remember I was frustrated with them at that time because I thought they were only criticizing relatively minor issues, such as the student looking at the smartphone in class or the students speaking Japanese in English classes. I expected them to try to observe English class from a more holistic point of view.
The second dimension: Dialogue with graduate students through past journal entries. When I reread the journal entries about students speaking Japanese in the English class, I remembered that Kyoko and Ai talked a lot about this incident in my graduate course. I recalled that I had critically listened to their complaints because I thought they were criticizing the students based on their beliefs, even though I did not mention anything to them then.
I remember that I was frustrated with them at that time because I thought they were only criticizing relatively minor issues, such as the student who was looking at the smartphone in class or the students who were speaking Japanese in English classes without trying to observe English class from a more holistic point of view, such as paying attention to the philosophy and the principles of the curriculum.
I am also aware that I assessed graduate students’ reflective practice based on my teacher’s beliefs. I believed that it was the student’s responsibility to make efforts to satisfy the requirements. Since I taught them about reflective practice in my graduate course, I expected them to make an effort and engage in reflective practice. However, they were not engaging in reflective practice as profoundly as I expected. Therefore, I was very frustrated and disappointed with them.
I reread the journal entries written by Ms Mori and learned that she had discussed the issue of speaking Japanese in class with the students in the final class, which made them wonder why she wanted the students to speak only English in class. I was ashamed of my past self because I was making negative assessments about the students speaking Japanese in class, and the graduate students who criticized them based on my beliefs. That is, students are supposed to do what they are expected to do.
I also recalled that when I observed another teacher’s English class around the same time we had sessions with the graduate students, I noticed that some students spoke Japanese in group discussions. Since I was observing the class, I did not mention anything to the students who were speaking Japanese without making an effort to speak in English. However, I thought it was the student’s fault for not speaking English because they knew that speaking entirely in English during the class was a rule. I negatively assessed the students’ behaviors based on my teacher’s beliefs, even though I did not say anything directly to the students who spoke Japanese. Since they knew that this class was taught in English before they entered the university, I believed that it was the students’ responsibility to try speaking in English.
I realize that I have kept this belief even now. I believe that it is the student’s responsibility to make an effort. For example, I teach graduate seminars now, and I believe that it is a graduate student’s responsibility to make an effort.
When I recalled the past, I did not know how to help graduate students engage in reflective practice, even though I noticed they were not engaging. Now, I realize that Kyoko and Ai were first-year graduate students and that it was not easy for them to engage in reflective practice without my assistance, which I overlooked then. I knew they were pre-service teachers, but I did not realize how novice they were. My past self could have provided more support to help the graduate student to engage in reflective practice. However, I did not know what to do to help them. Rereading the journal allows me to realize my past self.
I also realize that I may have forced the graduate students to engage in reflective practice. Since they were planning to pursue a career in teaching after graduation, I thought that they would benefit from learning reflective practice in my course. They seemed to enjoy reflective practice. However, by recalling the past self and the students, I cannot deny compulsory elements that I did not realize then. Farrell (2023a) writes that “the serious pedagogical concern for many teachers in training, teacher educators and experienced teachers on in-service development course is the near compulsory element attached to the reverence of reflective practice which requires all to reflect” (p. 13).
Moreover, I was supposed to assess their reflective practice at the end of the term. Farrell (2023a) further points out that “this reflection is then assessed, but we still do not know how to adequately assess reflective practice” (p. 13). In addition, Hobbs (2007) says, “reflection and assessment are simply incompatible” (p. 413). Farrell (2023a) goes on to say that “the problem in pre-service education is that such required reflection tends to be superficial and devoid of any critical self-reflection because learner teachers may feel required to give the teacher educators what they want” (p. 13). I tried to create an open and relaxed atmosphere and build rapport and relationships with the students so that students could engage in reflective practice without trying to satisfy my requirements. I committed to acting as a teacher educator and motivator, not an authority figure. However, I cannot deny the influence of the power structure between myself and the students.
The third dimension: Dialogue with the past and the present co-researcher through her reflection on the past journal entries. By reading my co-researcher’s journal entries for this study, I made me realize she had the same reflections on her past self and students. She writes that she did not know how to encourage graduate students to engage in reflective practice ten years ago. She also writes that she should have talked more with graduate students when they asked her to give her ideas/opinions on the issue (a student playing with the smartphone in class).
I was relieved that my co-researcher had the same reflections on the past journals. In addition, I realize that encouraging novice pre-service teachers (graduate students) to engage in reflective practice is not easy. I also learned that my co-researcher and I are going through a long-term, reoccurring learning practice (reflective practice).
The fourth dimension: Dialogue with the co-researcher through online discussion. While talking with my co-researcher about the incident of a student playing on a smartphone during her class, my co-researcher talked about her teacher’s beliefs. I read her journal entries in the third dimension and listened to her reflection in the final dimension. Going through her reflection with her helped me to reflect on myself, past self, and my students. I noticed that I also had teacher beliefs.
I also talked about my reflection with her. She accepted and supported my reflection. Reflective practice sometimes brings emotions such as shame, regret, or sorrow. My co-researcher’s acknowledgments and encouragement decreased emotional tensions. Partnerships between researchers encouraged reflective practice.
Summary of the findings. Rereading journal entries written by us and the graduate students ten years ago, having a dialogue with my past self and past students, and having discussions with a co-researcher allowed me to rediscover to rediscover myself as a teacher. I remember that I had been frustrated with the graduate students then since they were not engaging in reflective practice as profoundly as I expected from my viewpoint. However, I should have realized that they were novice pre-service teachers and needed my assistance. Instead of encouraging them to engage in reflective practice, I was disappointed with them because I thought that they were paying attention to relatively minor issues in class.
There are several reasons why I did not provide enough support to the graduate students. First, I did not have enough experience teaching graduate students then. In addition, I did not know how to help them to engage in reflective practice. Third, I did not fully understand the concept of reflective practice then. Fourthly, I have had strong teacher beliefs that it was the student’s responsibility to make an effort.
In summary, engaging in reflective practice is not easy. To be ‘reflexive’ means to turn back on my self and the lens through which we are interpreting the world (Berry & Clair, 2011). Reflexivity is an introspective (Ellis, 1991) and autobiographical (Ellis et al., 2011) process of reflecting on the cultural experiences and selves we, who do autoethnography, have lived and performed. Practices of reflexivity are particular and personal. In this sense, reflecting on my past self and the students and having a dialogue with them individually in the analysis’s first and second dimensions helped me reveal the deep connections between myself and the past self, as well as the past self and the students. However, reflexivity is also a communicative process that is directed toward others. Therefore, having a dialogue with my co-researcher helped me to engage in reflective practice. I discovered that collaboration could encourage reflective practice.
I learned that reflective practice is a long-term, reiterative learning process. Rereading past journal entries and having a dialogue with my co-researcher helped me to engage in reflective practice.
Discussion
As the findings indicate, in the current study, we developed as researchers and teachers through dialogues with the past self and the students and with the co-researcher. That is to say, we gained reflexivity of ourselves and practice through our engagement in reflection. Unexpectedly, our desire to explore reasons for incompleteness in the past study brought us to face our present selves. We witnessed our development and rediscovered ourselves as teachers and researchers. We became aware of our beliefs which tenaciously underlie our past and present practice. We also became aware of our persisting challenges and insecurities. What is noteworthy is that we were able to face past selves and be open about our feelings. Interestingly, facing ourselves and being open about our feelings was not intimidating or embarrassing, rather, it was relieving and we almost found it healing as it was conducive to making meaning for some potential reasons for the incompleteness we felt in the past study.
Numerous aspects of this current study contributed to the enhancement of reflection and reflexivity. Firstly, the methodology we employed in the study, autoethnography and duoethnography, provided us with multilateral dialogues, one with self and one with the co-researcher. Through our “memory work” (Adams et al., 2022) of the past journals, autoethnography engaged us in the critical analysis of the connections between our past and present selves as well as the past selves and the students. It also brought us to discover our teacher’s beliefs, values, practices, and identities as teachers and teacher educators. By duoethnography, through the co-researcher’s perspectives, we came to gain new interpretations of our experiences.
The employment of various research methods provided different venues for reflection and reflexivity. As Table 2 illustrates, reading the past journal opened an arena for a dialogue with the past self and others. Entering reflection after the reading provided a space for dialogue with the past self and present selves. Reading the co-researcher’s journal presented a dialogue opportunity with the past and present co-researchers. As Miyahara and Fukao (2022) noted, in research with a co-researcher, research methods with solitary orientations become an arena for communicating with a co-researcher. Finally, discussions with the co-researcher brought us to make meanings of what we found through the three dimensions.
Having various others as our objects of reflection, that is, the past self, the past student, the past co-researcher, the present co-researcher, and present self, brought us to adopt different perspectives to examine experiences, which enabled us to enhance reflexive outlooks. Reflexivity is enhanced through reflecting on different entities from us which provide various venues to examine ourselves. Various objects of reflection allowed us to gain numerous avenues and perspectives to objectify ourselves.
The cyclic analysis process was also conducive to fostering reflexive perspectives, especially in terms of allowing us to express our feelings. The recurring phases of the research methods (See Table 1) brought us to be accustomed to verbalizing and also sharing our feelings and emotions with the co-researcher, including our insecurities, doubts, embarrassment, and anxiety. It helped us to face a “steady, uncomfortable assessment” (Olesen, 2018, p. 160) about ourselves. The process prompted and made us feel entitled to engage in self-disclosure with each other, and consequently, with the readers of this current paper.
As we acknowledged that our positionalities have changed from the time we had engaged in the past study, we reflected on the past data and confronted ourselves with relative ease. Both of us have gained more experience and expertise as teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. We both relocated to different universities and teach different types of courses. Yuko currently teaches sociolinguistics and intercultural communication and understanding, and not TESOL courses. Atsuko teaches teacher certificate and not English language courses. Had we taught the same courses at University A, we might have felt reluctant to be honest and forthright about our observations and feelings. Our detachment from the past study and our different positionality allowed us to be open about our challenges.
Close distance with the co-researcher is another crucial aspect in self-disclosure. We were engaged in the same research as researchers for approximately four years. In addition, our past common context helped us to become open to one another. We taught at an integrated English language program which required the teachers’ close collaboration and communication. Moreover, the authors worked as an administrative team in the program. Our affinity and the comfortable distance have allowed us to be open in sharing the challenges and difficulties.
As described above, numerous aspects in the study, methodologies, numerous targets for reflection, the numerous research methods, the analysis process, different positionalities, and our relationship all were conducive to the enhancement of reflection and reflexivity and self-disclosure.
Conclusion
Posing the research question, how we, the authors, develop through dialogues with the past self, the past research partners, and the present co-researcher, this study sought professional development through reflecting on the data from a previous study. We delved into ourselves through the four dimensions of reflection: a dialogue with the past selves through rereading past journal entries, a dialogue with the past students through rereading past journals, a dialogue with the past and the present co-researcher through reading her current journal, and a dialogue with the co-researcher through online discussion. Through the recursive engagement in the four dimensions of reflection involving interplays of dialogues across time (past and present), with others (past self, co-researcher, Ms Mori, and graduate students), and through solo and duo reflection (autoethnography and duoethnography), we enhanced reflexivity as well as reflection. We became aware of our beliefs and challenges which remain persistent across time. We also learned the reasons for incomplete or unfinished feelings we had of the past study.
Through the engagement in the current study, we found reflecting on the past data to be beneficial for professional development as it posits researchers to explore oneself through different angles and positionality. Deployment of methodology such as autoethnography and duoethnography, employment of various research methods, cyclic engagement in reflection, and close distance with the co-researcher are deemed important in bringing about constructive outcomes. Through reflecting on the past data in the present study, we also learned that reflection is a lifelong endeavor which involves reiterating engagement.
About the Authors
Atsuko Watanabe is a professor in the Faculty of Language and Literature at Bunkyo University in Japan. Her research focuses on professional development of pre-service and in-service language teachers through reflective practice, as well as researchers’ positionality and reflexivity in qualitative research. She has published in academic journals and edited volumes on those topics. ORCID ID: 0009-0004-1241-585X
Yuko Iwata Yuko Iwata is a visiting researcher at Meiji University and a research fellow at Japan Women’s University in Japan. She had held positions as a full-time professor at International Christian University and Meiji University in Tokyo. Her research interests include reflective practice, bilingual socialization, language and gender, and improvement of pragmatic competence. She has published articles in academic journals and edited volumes on these topics. ORCID ID: 0009-0005-8839-5549
To Cite this Article
Watanabe, A., & Iwata. Y. (2025). Dialogues with the past self and the past research partners: Reflection and reflexivity across time. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 29(2). https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.29114s8
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