ESL Teachers’ Awareness of Reflective Practice in Basic Education Writing Lessons in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined Basic Education English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers’ awareness of reflective practice in writing instruction in primary schools. The study adopted an ex post facto research design. The population comprised 1,300 teachers from 260 primary schools. Most of the teachers were not specialists in ESL but taught English studies as part of their general teaching responsibilities. A sample of 120 teachers was selected using a purposive random sampling technique. Data were collected using the Reflective Practice Questionnaire (RPQ). Three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that a greater proportion of ESL teachers at the Basic Education level were unaware of reflective practice. The results further showed that teachers with more than ten years of teaching experience recorded higher awareness mean scores than those with less than ten years and less than five years of experience. Similarly, teachers with higher academic qualifications obtained higher mean awareness scores than those with the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE). The findings indicated that the first hypothesis was rejected, whereas the second hypothesis was retained. Based on these findings, the study recommended the integration of reflective practice into the College of Education curriculum and the provision of formal professional development opportunities, such as workshops and seminars, to enhance teachers’ effectiveness in writing instruction.