Foreign language

Statement of the Problem

The existence of RP-oriented online discussion forums has led to several studies in teacher education. However, findings from these studies present contradictions or provide mixed negative and positive results regarding the effective use of online discussions in reflective practices. For instance, Jones and Ryan (2014) conducted a study on pre-service teachers to improve their practicum experience with the help of reflection by applying blogs and discussion forums and comparedthe content analysis of reflective practices on these platforms. They found that these candidate teachers rarely engaged in high-level of reflectivity. The results also revealed that participants preferred blogs and found them more suitable for

reflections, however, they also allocated time to daily life conversations rather than actively engaging in reflections.Tsang (2011) who conducted a small study on the use of online discussion forums for reflective practices suggested that these asynchronous forums might contribute to the development of critical reflective skills. Yet,with more a elaborate finding, Abodeeb-Gentile, Courtney and Pedro‟s (2012) study on online discussions with written reflective summaries proposed that online discussion forums and their collaborative feature promote pre-service teachers‟ professional development.

Apart from researching the utilization of online RP-oriented discussions, few studies have investigated teachers‟ beliefs and the effective use of these asynchronous platforms as a component of teacher education. The results from existing studies revealed some contradictions as well. Some studies put forward that online discussions contributed to a change in teachers‟ beliefs about their teaching and learning (Hernandez & Ramos, 2004; Yang, 2009) whereas others claim that
they did not reshape teachers‟ teaching and learning (Bean & Stevens, 2002; McDuffie &Slavit, 2002). One common aspect of these studies is that the majority of them have been conducted in pre-service teacher education settings, especially in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) and provided inconsistent results both in their effective utilization and contribution to teachers‟ reshaping their teaching and learning. However, systematic content analysis of the application of these asynchronous online reflective discussions, particularly with in-service ELT teachers, has not been conducted. Such studies could document its effectiveness and
to see how this practice might contribute to changing teachers‟ teaching and learning.

While studies on reflective practices have been carried out in Turkey as well (Gün, 2011; Erginel-ġanal, 2006), the utilization of online discussions to promote reflective practice is a relatively new concept. Recently, at a foundation university‟s

master‟s program in teaching English as a foreign language department, online reflective practices have started to be used with experienced teachers in their methodology course. Students have engaged in writing asynchronous reflective papers and taking part in follow-up discussion on an online platform.Since there is not enough evidence of the quality of these papers and the discussions in terms of utilizing reflective practices, a content analysis might provide further ideas for these practices‟ better operation. Therefore, this study aims to investigate EFL teachers‟ participation in reflective practice oriented (RP-oriented) online discussion forums, more specifically; it aims to explore the reflection types (reflection-in, on and for- action) they engage in.