Reflective teaching: Voices from Vietnamese pre-service EFL teachers

Reflective teaching (RT) is widely encouraged for pre-service teachers (PSTs) as a facilitating tool in learning to teach. Despite a large body of literature on RT, little language (EFL) teacher education context in Vietnam. This study, thus, aims to examine challenges. A mixed-method approach was adopted to collect data from thirty-two PSTs through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that most of the teacher participants were aware of RT's aims, activities, and form of practice; however, most of them were not able to identify the process and tools for performing RT. In addition, most of the PSTs perceived that RT brought them numerous benefits in enhancing their teaching competence and personal development; meanwhile, a few challenges in RT were also reported related to their inadequate knowledge of RT and language teaching, and insufficient skills in critically evaluating their teaching and selfstudying. Accordingly, several pedagogical implications are proposed to enhance PSTs' knowledge and skills of RT and to optimise the effectiveness of training and self-training English language teachers through RT.