Developing teachers’ reflective practices through a virtual exchange program

This qualitative case study aimed at investigating the extent to which EFL teachers’ reflective practices can be developed based on a six-week virtual exchange program (VEP) through reflective journals. Also, the potential contribution of this virtual exchange program to teachers’ professional development and possible affordances to reflective practices were investigated through semi-structured interviews. Data obtained from reflective journals were analyzed based on the reflection scale. Moreover, content analysis was employed to analyze the interview data. The findings revealed that virtual exchange programs developed teachers’ reflective practices. In particular, VEP was seen to open up opportunities for teachers to develop new professional partnerships, collaborative academic initiatives, and collaboration skills, also to introduce more innovative approaches in their current teaching practice.