In-Service English Teacher’s Perceptions of Reflective Teacher Diary to Promote Professional Development

Abstract

To be a professional, teacher as a learner must continuously increase the experiences and knowledge with aiming at earning or maintaining the academic quality. Automatically, a teacher needs to apply particular technique or strategy and utilize a certain tool to meet the standards of excellence in teaching. Thus, reflection is considerable as one of the indispensable strategies that can be applied to lead teacher’s practice becomes more qualified. Reflection in teaching essentially refers the opportunity of educators to think back critically after teaching students. Several previous studies have been conducted to examine the effectiveness of teacher journal in the education field. However, only a few studies investigated teacher’s perceptions toward the use of teacher’s journal. Correspondingly, this study was set in Indonesia and involved an English teacher of Junior High to fulfill the gap. It aimed at determining the components reflected from teacher diary. In order to investigate the research questions, the researcher made open-ended questionnaire related to teacher’s experiences in utilizing teacher journal, then continued by in depth-interview to confirm and explore further the teacher’s answer. Thus, this study used qualitative method since it was considered as the proper design to conduct this research. Ultimately, Interactive Model was used to analyze the data. The researcher concluded that teacher’s diary or teacher’s journal has a valuable contribution for English teacher to be more skilled and professional to help students in mastering English skills and more well-prepared for the next English teaching.