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29JOURNAL WRITING AS A TEACHING TOOL TO PROMOTE
REFLECTION Toshmatova N.A.
Toshmatova Nazokat Akramovna - Teacher,
TEACHING LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT, MANAGEMENT IN PRODUCTION FACULTY, FERGANA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, FERGANA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article under discussion describes how students reflect about lessons by showing the essence of motivation in the teaching process and how teachers can apply reflection journals in teaching students to self-assessment.
Keywords: journal writing, self-assessment, reflect, forms, freely, expression, grade, critical thinking, articulate, prompt.
Journal writing is the process of recording personal insights, reflections and questions on assigned or personal topics. Journal projects assigned in class may include your thoughts about daily experiences, reading assignments, current events or science experiments. Journal entries are a form of reflective writing, in that you can use them to consider and respond to something you have read or learned.
However, journal entries should not merely summarize what you have read, nor should they focus only on your feelings. Instead, they should demonstrate your ability to conduct a critical inquiry. The term, critical inquiry, refers to the steps involved in collecting and analyzing ideas or information.
Because journal writing allows you to examine different ideas and writing strategies, it's also a form of exploratory writing. Keep in mind that a class journal is not the same thing as a private diary, in that the writing maybe a little bit more formal, although not as formal as an essay. And while a personal diary is private, your teacher may have access to your class journal or require you to share portions with other students.
Self-assessment occurs when students assess their own work, either finished or in-progress. This process can benefit teachers by saving them time (since self-assessments are not graded), and it can benefit students as well. Through self-assessment, students improve editing, writing, and critical thinking skills. However, achieving these benefits depends upon self-assessment that is rooted in reflection. In other words, students need to go beyond assigning themselves a grade or a rating. They need to be able to reflect upon and articulate the strengths and weaknesses in their writing and the writing habits that work best to achieve the results they want. While for some, reflection comes naturally, most students must learn to reflect[1, p.p.38-40].
One of the tools of the reflection is writing reflection journals, which could be successfully applied with the pupils. These reflection journals are plain notebooks where each pupil writes down his or her thoughts. The pupils are given a short period of time to sit quietly in class once a week and reflect on their learning during the previous week. When I say, reflect , I mean to think about what she or he did in class and how she or he feels about this. The students might relate to their behavior and how it affected their learning or they might reflect on a grade they got and why it was high or low. Their reflection must be a look inward at themselves and how they functioned in any aspect of the learning process.
Journal writing is closest to natural speech, and writing can flow without self-consciousness or inhibition. It reveals thought processes and mental habits, it aids memory, and it provides a context for healing and growth. Journals are a safe place to practice writing daily without the restrictions of form, audience, and evaluation , one reason for their popularity in basic education/English as a second language. They are a less formal, less threatening way for learners to approach writing in a course, to "talk" in a way they might not in class.
Journal writing in the classroom can take many forms. Some teachers use journal writing to meet specific goals; others use journals for more fluid purposes.
Some teachers allow students to write freely about any topic; others provide writing prompts for students to respond to.
• Some teachers read every entry in their students' journals; others read only student-selected excerpts; still others use journaling as an opportunity for free expression.
• Some teachers check and correct journal entries and work on polishing students' writing skills; others use journals as the one "uncorrected" form of writing that students produce [2, p.p. 67-71].
To begin journal writing you can give the students certain prompts to get them going. For instance, the first entry has to be a short paragraph about the pupil's responsibility . The second week each pupil has to reflect on the lessons during the previous week and relate to four different aspects of the lessons. They are asked to write about one positive thing, one negative thing, one interesting thing and one thing she or he had learned. By encouraging the pupils to relate to four specific issues you can feel you are enabling them to focus better. Other issues is to focus on is how their behavior affected their learning and how the study skills they use to prepare for an exam may help them . For example, "How did you study for the exam and was this useful ? Did studying this way help you know the material? " . Using such guided questions as : "Think back over the week and write down what you most strongly remember doing in class. How did this make you feel? Did you like it, or not? Why? " is helpful in journal writing. Another guided question might be: "What did you learn this week and how can you apply what you learned in class to other areas of your life, either in school or at home ?" These questions are used to be asked each week at the end of the week from the students to reflect in their journals. By reflecting each week on different aspects of the lessons, students' behaviour, their successes or failures they will grow from within as critical thinkers and begin to understand the role they should play in the classroom. The experience of writing about how they feel, how they have progressed or not, will permit them to learn to assess themselves and make changes where they feel they are needed. The idea behind learning to self-assess oneself is to be able to understand where changes need to be made (in themselves) in order to continue learning and progressing.
It is important to note here that you do not grade their writing. You don't check spelling , grammar or word order. You can simply comment with a few words such as "nice thoughts", "that's interesting." etc... I do however; tell my pupils that writing something in the reflection journal is a class requirement. Even the few rebels in the beginning eventually began to write and even expressed their enjoyment [3, p.p. 4-12].
In conclusion, reflection journals are a tool which can be used by both pupils and teachers. Reflecting on what we have learned, how we have learned it and how we can use it to progress and learn in the future is crucial to healthy development in all learners. I believe that teachers should use this process too. Teachers can also use reflection journals to figure out how they feel about a certain lesson which went well and analyze why or to analyze the way they handled a specific problem in class.
References
1. Grennan K.F. The Journal in the Classroom. Equity and excellence. 24. № 3 (Fall 1989).
Cambridge. P.p. 38-40.
2. SommerR.F. Teaching writing to adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989. P.p. 67-71.
3. Schneider P. The writer as an artist. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 1994. P.p. 4-12.
