Pre-Service Teachers' Reflections in a Virtual Learning Community: A Praxeological Study

Conceptual Framework

Reflective Practice

Reflective practice is a current well-known activity in teacher training programs: it improves teaching by making pre-service teachers aware of what they are doing in the teaching practice, so they can identify strategies, activities, methods, etc. that contribute to students' learning. In the same way, Farrell (2013; 2018) suggested that reflective practice examines what pre-service teachers are doing in the classroom and why they are doing it, as well as how teaching beliefs are evident during the practice. Reflective practice should be a daily activity for pre-service teachers, since in every class they face situations that require analysis in terms of appropriateness and coherence with their beliefs and students' needs.

In addition, reflective practice engages pre-service teachers in exploring "their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciation" (Walsh & Mann, 2015, p. 352), which suggests they are able to create their own knowledge and re-construct their beliefs about language teaching based on what they have experienced previously, thus improving the teaching conditions to guarantee students' learning. However, one of the difficulties pre-service teachers face when they reflect on their own beliefs and actions during practice is that their reflection is rarely conscious and systematic, as they just look for immediate solutions to the problems presented. Accordingly, Farrell (2013) recommended that when implementing reflective practice, pre-service teachers should consciously and critically analyze their beliefs, become responsible for their actions, systematically collect evidence to improve their teaching, and make more aware decisions.

One model to promote reflective practice was proposed by Schön (1987). In this model, reflection takes place in two moments of the teaching practice: in action and on action. Reflection in action takes place during the class and its purpose is to reflect immediately on technical issues, in order to restructure a situation in the classroom to solve or face it successfully. As this reflection occurs while pre-service teachers are teaching, they must quickly assess the situation, and then use their knowledge, beliefs, and experience to make the best decision. On the other hand, reflection on action refers to reflection taking place after the class. Here, pre-service teachers might think deeply about and critically analyze the actions and problems they faced during the class. This helps them understand why situations happen and re-structure their beliefs and future actions. However, this reflection requires autonomy and self-regulation by the pre-service teachers, many of whom are not used to reflecting in this way, at least unless they are guided by a teacher trainer.

To supplement these two moments of reflection, Farrell (2015) proposed a third moment: for action. This reflection happens before the class and its purpose is to plan future actions, using what was learned during and after the class. It could be said that reflection for action happens while pre-service teachers are planning, but they bear in mind the knowledge and experiences they acquired in the previous reflective moments. Figure 1 summarizes the three moments of reflective practice.

Figure 1: Reflective practice moments

Note: The three reflective moments were implemented in the VLC

As can it be seen, these three moments of reflection prompt pre-service teachers to construct and reconstruct their beliefs and knowledge about language teaching methodology all the time, and to be more conscious of their actions. However, as Farrell (2018) and Walsh and Mann (2015) have claimed, the difficulty with most reflection models and activities is that they are typically done individually, and they focus on problems regarding classroom management and the usefulness of activities presented in the class rather than on professional or institutional concerns.

Virtual Learning Communities

In order to introduce the concept of virtual learning communities, it is necessary to explain initially what virtual communities are. Gairin (2006) stated that these communities exist thanks to technological advances and the different kinds of interaction (information and communication technologies-ICT) that the internet provides. In this sense, they can be understood as "spaces for interaction, communication, exchange of information or meetings associated with the possibilities offered by ICT to create a virtual environment-from the e-mail to the most complex content management systems based on internet-" (Coll et al, 2008, p. 308). Members of these communities only get in touch through the virtual environment they have created to interact and communicate.

According to Coll et al. (2008), virtual communities-depending on their objectives- can be classified into three different levels: virtual interest communities, virtual participation communities, and virtual learning communities. Virtual interest communities allow the participants to obtain information about any topic of interest, no matter the place or time. Additionally, people in these communities demonstrate an interest in interacting with others to communicate, ask for help or support, keep updated, share opinions about certain topics-even if they do not have the same point of view-, or just to have a shared space related to the same interests and preferences (Coll et al, 2008; Gairin, 2006). Virtual participation communities aim at making members get involved in the community and participate actively in its development through the different opportunities provided to exchange information. Furthermore, these communities are also created to generate solutions to a specific situation, taking into account the participants' contributions.

Finally, virtual learning communities are defined by Gairin (2006) as "a set of people or institutions connected through the network that have as their target a determined content or learning task" (p. 56). Similarly, Coll et al. (2008) stated that members of these communities develop different activities, strategies, plans, and roles in order to achieve the main objective-in this case, learning. In fact, virtual learning communities are not only created to exchange information about common interests or to communicate with others, but they take advantage of the resources offered by the virtuality to promote learning. In this type of community, one person is in charge of guiding the learning process and has the responsibility to help the rest of the members achieve the learning goals proposed. This person is known as a teacher, tutor, or coordinator (Coll et al, 2008).

Gairin (2006) pointed out that when constructing virtual learning communities, it is necessary to consider at least three elements: the model of the educational intervention chosen, the type of virtual learning community, and the characteristics of the learning environment. The author further asserted that a virtual learning community needs to be part of a project which has a purpose to impact society or the specific context where it was developed, and that its proposed topics and contents need to be appropriate for the members and their needs (Gairin, 2006).

Praxeology phases

In the following lines, we will describe the activities carried out in each of the praxeology phases. Beginning with the see phase, the autobiographical narratives written by pre-service teachers before and after their first teaching practice were analyzed. Initially, they were asked to write about their experiences as language learners, and their visions about learning and teaching. Once they finished their practice, they wrote their narratives again, this time about the experiences they had had as teachers, and, once again, about their views regarding learning and teaching. Some of the questions that guided two autobiographical narratives are summarized in table 2.

Table 2: Questions for the autobiographical narratives

Source: Own Creation

The examination of those documents showed that some of the beliefs and conceptions they had about language teaching and learning were not evidenced in their practice. Likewise, even though they remembered some aspects about language teaching methodology theories, but they did not apply them in their practice, and most of the decisions they make and the activities they develope are based on their experiences as language learners (Gamboa et al, 2018). This was corroborated by some previous studies (Hennissen et al, 2017; Tilson et ai, 2017), in which the teachers' trainers identify that pre-service teachers had the same problem in their practice.

The findings emerging from the see-phase were "judged" to find why pre-service teachers had the difficulties mentioned previously. Historical and relevant causes were identified. Regarding the historical ones, positive and negative experiences as language learners are the basis of the pre-service teachers' system of beliefs, and the first source they use when planning and developing classes, leaving aside most of the theory learned in their training. In relation to the relevant causes, the researchers perceived a lack of reflection about the language teaching methodologies, techniques, and strategies pre-service teachers implement in their practice.

To solve such problems, in the act-phase a VLC was designed. The main objectives of the VLC were to promote reflection on their own practice, especially about the language teaching methodology they implement, and to enrich their knowledge and practice based on the analysis and discussion with other colleagues.

In the VLC the three reflective moments mentioned previously (in-action, on-action, and for-action) were applied in three scenarios. In the first one, based on a hypothetical situation, participants analyzed and reflected on theories and practice. The objective was to introduce and prepare pre-service teachers to the three moments of reflective practice, as well as to explore their knowledge and beliefs about language teaching methodologies. Some questions prompted students to collaboratively identify and contrast some concepts, then to reflect on the actions taken by the teacher in that case and the actions they would take in the three moments of reflection, and finally to discuss them with other participants of the VLC . Table 3 shows the questions asked for the reflective moments.

Table 3: Questions asked for each reflective moment in the first scenario of the VLC

Source: Own Creation

The second scenario centered on pre-service teachers' reflecting on their own beliefs and practice. With this in mind, each participant analyzed, reflected and contrasted a lesson plan and a video recording from a class he or she had taught. In this way, they could contrast their beliefs with their practice, as well as reflect on their actions in the three moments of the reflection. The questions asked for each reflective moment are shown in table 4.

Table 4: Questions asked for each reflective moment In the second scenario of the VLC

Source: Own Creation

The last scenario invited pre-service teachers to analyze, reflect, dialogue, and contribute to another pre-service teacher's practice through analyzing the lesson plans and classes recorded. As in the previous scenario, pre-service teachers were asked to identify some key issues in their classmates' lesson plans and videos about language teaching methodology, and to use the three moments of reflection to contribute to their classmates' practice. The questions for each reflective moment were the same as in scenario 2.

To complete the praxeology prospective-stage, a focus group with six pre-service teachers was assembled after they completed their participation in the VLC. The questions focused on assessing their participation and contributions to the VLC, and recognizing what they learned from their own reflection and others' practices in terms of language teaching methodology. Some of the questions asked in the focus group are shown in table 5.

Table 5: Questions Asked In the Focus Group

Source: Own Creation

Participants

The participants involved in this project were chosen on a voluntary basis. They were 25 pre-service teachers from an undergraduate program in English Language Teaching at a private university in Bogotá, Colombia. This bachelor program has nine semesters and offers four areas for teaching formation: Pedagogy, Linguistics, Languages, and Didactics and Methodology. During the seventh semester, students have the possibility to start their teaching practice in public or private institutions where they have to complete 64 hours of teaching during the semester.

To complement their teaching formation process, the participants attend a face-to-face class called Practicum 1. In this class, they discuss classroom management issues, share experiences about critical incidents, revise syllabi, and design material. Their English level varied between B1+ and B2. All the participants had knowledge about the different methods and approaches to teach English, because they had taken classes on theoretical approaches, didactics, and teaching methodology in previous semesters.

Data Analysis

In general terms, the answers given by the pre-service teachers in each of the scenarios of the VLC and the ones given in the focus group were analyzed using the stages suggested by Johnson and Christensen (2008): segmenting, coding, and developing categories. It is worth mentioning that the codes and categories emerged from the raw data. Initially, the questions regarding the three reflective moments in each scenario were organized in an Excel sheet. Then, color coding was used in order to identify inductive codes, which can be defined as

"codes that are generated by the researcher by directlyexamining the data during the coding process" (Johnson and Christensen, 2008, p. 775).

Finally, the findings were organized into four main categories which are summarized in the figure below.

Figure 3: Pre-service teachers' reflections about language teaching methodology

Source: Own creation

Once the information was categorized, the recording from the focus group was transcribed and analyzed using ATLAS-U. There, codes related to the previously established categories were identified and finally added to each category in the Excel sheet.

Teaching Tasks to Engage Students in Language Learning

One of the most recurrent issues pre-service teachers reflected on was the type of activities they used to support students' learning, since they considered that interesting and attractive activities might help students acquire the knowledge taught and get involved in the class. In this sense, the selection of the topic and type of activity was the key to success, as Student 6 wrote: "I would like to make a reading, but with the current social context or something that is particular and funny to read; for example, The Simpsons are a good way to introduce students because they are something that they usually like".

This reflection displays pre-service teachers' concern about motivating and engaging students in learning. It means that reflections tend to focus on finding the best teaching tasks and materials that guarantee students' success.

Regarding the type of activities, the pre-service teachers concluded that activities must be catchy and known by the students in order to get their attention and interest. This was the case with Student 2, who wrote in his reflection in-action: "I could apply a poem that they enjoy to engage them more with the class. Poetry related to the age of the students and based on that teach them what poetry is and its characteristics"

This reflection evidences they are mainly worried about improving their own teaching performance to guarantee students' learning. To achieve this, they are aware the teaching tasks should include students' preferences and not their own. However, the changes pre-service teachers propose to the teaching tasks are mainly based on their own questioning; they do not try to explore other's opinions or theories to find solutions to their concerns.

Another important issue that pre-service teachers reflected on was the appropriateness of the activities for each stage of the class. In some cases, they realized that they should have changed the activity or presented it in a different way, since they felt it did not work as they expected. One of the stages they were the most concerned about was the warm-up, especially if they felt it did not fulfill the objective of engaging the students in the class. This is evident in the following extracts from their reflections:

I think that my warm-up activity could have been a little bit more interactive because I feel that it is cool for students, but it does not allow them to have a moment of interaction. Additionally, I feel that this activity fosters the use of Spanish in the class if you don't control it properly. (Student 3)

For the next lesson, I would improve the activities for the warm-up, I noticed that during this stage my students show interest and they work well in the rest of the class. I need to catch their attention from the beginning. (Student 4)

These reflections reveal how pre-service teachers are worried about involving students in a comfortable and communicative atmosphere from the beginning of the class. Although this reflects preservice teachers' worries for motivating students, it also shows they tend to focus their reflection on problems they have on their own teaching performance: it means they tended to reflect on technical issues regarding language teaching

Knowing and applying professional knowledge

Two tendencies were identified in the methodologies participants use, or think they should use, to enhance students' language learning: the communicative approach and traditional methodologies, such as the audiolingual method or Total Physical Response. Regarding the first trend, some pre-service teachers pointed out in their reflections that communication must be the key aspect when selecting an approach or methodology, since they believe language is functional and learning should be promoted through real and meaningful communicative activities (Richards and Rogers, 2014).

This was especially evident in the third scenario, when pre-service teachers were asked to reflect on their classmates' practices. After reading and observing some classmates' lesson plans and classes, Student 3 concluded that his classmate could have implemented a different approach which enhanced interaction and communication, since the activities used focused more on repetition and memorization of words. Participants like Student 3 usually "recommended" applying communicative approaches, such as experiential learning and/or task-based learning:

If I were my partner, I would probably rethink the way the class was proposed. I personally prefer a more interactive and more communicative approach in which students interact more between them. So, in the part where the teacher asked students for their pets, I would ask them to ask their partners, in order to make a Student-Student activity and not a Te a cher-Student activity.

The reflections based on other pre-service teachers' practices show that it is easier to reflect on professional knowledge based on other's experiences rather than on their own. They tend to be more critical to others' practices in terms of how the knowledge is applied in the teaching tasks.

In this sense, the pre-service teachers perceive the importance of enhancing communication in the classroom and are aware of some principles of the communicative approach. Nevertheless, when they reflected on their own practice or on the hypothetical case, they concluded that traditional methodologies are considered a good alternative to guarantee students' learning. This reveals that pre-service teachers have a functional view of language (Richards y Rodgers, 2014) because they believe language classes should focus on teaching vocabulary and forms. Moreover, it is evident that in spite of the fact that pre-service teachers possess professional knowledge about language teaching, they have some difficulties applying that knowledge in their own planning and in the decisions they make in the classroom.

Even among pre-service teachers who have studied different methodologies and approaches, and who have had the chance to design classes using communicative approaches (especially task-based approaches) during their training, and recognize the aim of classes should be promoting communication, there is still a tendency to believe that memorization and teaching grammar are the main components of language classes. This might be the result of being exposed to this type of teaching in different learning contexts for a long time, which can make students believe this is the best way to teach and learn (Gamboa et al, 2018), and make that trend a fundamental part of their teaching knowledge.

Dynamics to Promote an Appropriate Cfassroom Atmosphere

When teachers want to preserve a suitable atmosphere in the classroom, they think about classroom management strategies to organize students, time, materials, and space (Sieberer-Nagler, 2016). In the case of these pre-service teachers, during their first teaching experiences they reflected on maintaining an appropriate classroom atmosphere, bearing in mind two main aspects: time and discipline.

On one hand, they were mainly concerned about the time spent in each activity, keeping in mind that a given activity sometimes took up more time than it was planned. This might be the result of difficulties presented with the devices needed, teachers talk, discipline, or the level of the activity. Students 1 and 14 highlighted this concern:

If I had been the teacher, I would have followed the instructions in my lesson plan. It will probably be necessary to take time to present the topic, but the purpose should be to organize the time so that each activity can be developed without wasting time or the structure of the class. (Student 1)

I would plan the lesson with activities that do not spend a lot of time during the development of each step of the class, the time will be sufficient for all the activities that I have in mind. (Student 14)

These two reflections indicate that they think carefully about time during their planning, and that in their classes they try to avoid wasting time talking about "useless issues", since the most important thing to them is covering the activities presented. Pre-service teachers also indicated that sometimes they pay little attention to the way students are developing the activity, in terms of difficulty and clearness.

On the other hand, not many pre-service teachers thought about discipline, considering this is not an aspect they should reflect on at the beginning of the teaching practicum. Pre-service teachers have some difficulties seeing themselves as an authority in the classroom, and lack problem-solving skills.

However, when pre-service teachers reflected on discipline, they became aware of the need to find strategies and could develop their problem-solving skills to deal with conflict situations. The following is an example of this type of reflection:

I think that it is so difficult to plan everything perfectly because the issues in a class are unpredictable especially when there are more than 15 students. For example the indiscipline, the classroom management depends on the schedule of the class if the class is at the first-hour students are more receptive but if the class is at the last hour students are tired,[...] So, what I would do or I do is to have a second plan such as flashcards of the topic to replace the video, or a control drill activity about the topic to practice speaking about the topic and to control indiscipline I have a monitor who can do a dictation of the topic while I talk with students who don't pay attention. (Student 14)

Although some participants were aware of controlling discipline and others of timing to guarantee all the activities are carried out, their reflections show little evidence of analysis of discipline problems and lack of problem-solving skills that help them deal with classroom management difficulties. Instead, the reflections showed that they are more worried about completely developing the activities proposed in the lesson plan. There is a lack of consciousness of recognizing themselves as authority in the classroom to preserve a suitable atmosphere which promotes effective language learning.

Selecting Techniques for Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary

Given that most of the participants were taking the Didactics course at the same time they were doing their first practice, they were keenly aware of the techniques for teaching the language components, especially grammar and vocabulary. Regarding the reflections about grammar, the implementation of inductive and deductive techniques was questioned. They mainly thought about the way other pre-service teachers did it.

Approximately half of the pre-service teachers reflected on the need to explain grammar inductively, since with this technique, students develop higher thinking skills when they discover the rule by themselves. However, their reflections on their own practice did not evidence any thoughts about the way they presented this language component. On this matter, Student 13 reflected:

Teaching with the inductive method can be complicated, students are used to learning with the deductive method, however, you have to create activities that provide these examples. A text can be a good option, so in this case, it is better for students to extract the examples of the text provided, it is necessary to fill them with examples not only with reading, it is necessary to provide images, videos, and a good game. (Student 13)

Contrary to this idea, other participants considered mandatory to explain the rules explicitly, believing that students need to be completely aware of the rules to be able to complete exercises. Student 14 said so directly: "I would plan the proposed lesson, starting with the deductive method where the students get to know the rules of the subject."

Based on this reflection, it is evident that some pre-service teachers still design their classes by thinking of the way to introduce each form, without considering any meaningful context, an approach, or even other techniques to present grammar such as through texts, stories, songs, and situations (Thornbury and Harmer, 2012).

This evidence shows that even the Didactic and Methodology classes emphasize on making pre-service teachers aware of the communicative function of language, they still tend to design their classes based on grammar structures. This reflects that the knowledge they are constructing and applying about teaching is primarily based on empirical learning that results from the interactions with other teachers and learners, and as a consequence the theoretical learning becomes decontextualized and irrelevant at the moment of planning and teaching.

For the theoretical knowledge being used during the practicum, Johnson and Golombek (2011) suggest mediation as a strategy to promote reorganization and reconceptualization between what pre-service teachers have learnt from the social interaction and theory.

Moving on to the pre-service teachers' reflections on techniques to teach vocabulary, they primarily reflected on the use of images or flashcards as a way to introduce vocabulary. This was mainly evidenced in the hypothetical case presented in the first scenario of the VLC. They questioned the application of the matching activity, because pre-service teachers tended to use images or flashcards instead of other techniques proposed by Thornbury and Harmer (2013), such as realia, webs, games, and so on. With this in mind, Student 6 wrote:

To introduce the vocabulary, I would like to try something with images like flashcards, to provide them the drawing and how it is named. With this, they will make a relationship between the draw and the vocabulary and this vocabulary will be easier to remember that a matching activity at the beginning. (Student 6)

It is also evident in this extract that pre-service teachers centered their attention on how to present the vocabulary, not on how to practice it. This means they were inclined just to present the words, but they did incorporate a few activities that allow students to practice the vocabulary in context. Additionally, just as happened with the techniques for teaching grammar, in the other two scenarios of the VLC, there was little reflection on the way they and their classmates presented or practiced vocabulary in their classes, since they worried about preparing activities instead of joining and connecting them.