Scholars have questioned the effectiveness of reflective practice for gaining professional awareness or attaining professional development. In addition, the prevalence of inadequate comprehensive framework for pre-service teachers' reflective practice and insufficient support of teacher educators have been noted in the literature. Against these…

Despite the widely recognized significance of critical incidents (CIs) in teachers' professional learning, little research has investigated the role of CIs in language teacher identity development. This study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the contributions of a Telegram-based professional development course--framed around CI storying--to…

Although there are many disagreements about its definition and how it should be applied, reflection is an important professional development tool in teacher education. If in-service teachers think in-depth about critical incidents and reflect on them, they can develop new understandings of the teaching and learning process. The study investigated…

Symbolic competence is integral to intercultural teaching and learning, but limited research and teaching guidance exist in foreign language classrooms. This paper explores the use of critical incidents in developing the symbolic competence of advanced-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners at a Chinese university. Mixed methods…

This study explored the effects of teachers' individual reflection (IR) and group reflection (GR) on critical incidents (CIs). A group of preservice teachers (N = 7) were presented with real instances of CIs to consider during 12 teacher training sessions. In each session, the trainees read the first part of a CI, describing what happened, when it…

This narrative inquiry investigates an English as a Foreign Language teacher's storied experience of 30-year extensive reading (ER) implementation, with the aim of exploring the formation of language teacher identity (LTI) of this individual teacher. Two narrative interviews were conducted, respectively focusing on the holistic story and detailed…

Purpose: Despite the growth of theory and research on young English learners and the widely-recognized importance of critical incidents (CIs) in teachers' professional development (PD), little research has examined young-learner teachers' CIs. This study investigated the impacts of a PD course structured around CIs sharing/discussing on 14 L2…

Faculty who do not speak the language of instruction in their universities as their first language face additional challenges in teaching. This study aimed to investigate a non-native speaker faculty member, Eisuke Saito, who had attempted to manage and overcome language challenges in teaching. Through an autobiographical self-study of teacher…

This study aims at exploring the professional identities of six ELT students through the lens of critical incidents. For the sake of this aim, six ELT students took part in this research at an Anatolian High School in 2018-2019 spring semester. The teaching practicum process was conducted from April to mid of May 2019, once a week over six-week…

Believing teachers as agents who actively make meaning about their professional identities, we depict the construction of our identity as three mid-career female English language teachers. Anchored by collaborative autoethnography (CAE) and arts-based educational research (ABER) approaches, we explored and reflected on our lived critical…

Experiential learning activities have been largely used in education including English language teaching. Study abroad programs offer unique opportunities for learning from experience. Maximising learning from the sojourn experiences should be a major objective of higher education institutions with study abroad programs and designing post-sojourn…

Investigating critical incidents is one way to assist prospective teachers in expressing any developmental stage when accomplishing the teaching practice program. It is a significant component of reflective teaching in an educational framework related to continuing professional development (CPD), particularly self-directed learning. This study…

Despite the recognition of the importance of teachers' professional development, the exploration of teachers' Critical Incidents (CIs) as a type of professional development initiative has received insufficient attention in L2 teaching contexts. Motivated by the dearth of research in this area and building on complexity theory as its conceptual…

This research investigated the dynamic state of three Thai EFL pre-service teachers' self-efficacy through the critical incidents found during the early period of their teaching practicum. The data were collected from the participants' teaching diaries and through follow up semi-structured interviews. Critical incidents were identified from the…

While research on teachers' Critical Incidents (CIs) has grown exponentially, little research has been done on teachers' assessment-related CIs, much less examining the contributions of such CIs to their identity sense-making. This study aimed to fill some of this gap by exploring assessment-related CIs of 13 Iranian L2 teachers and the associated…