ABSTRACT
This chapter will provide a brief introduction to some definitions of reflection and reflective learning and then consider how these relate to the way in which learners write reflectively in learning journals. Some considerations that underpin this chapter relate to the experiences of teachers who choose to use journals with their students: that some students have difficulty in starting with reflective writing and that when they do get started and can write in a reflective ‘kind of’ way, the nature of the reflective writing of most learners is superficial and descriptive and probably does not lead to deep or comprehensive learning (Lyons, 1999; Samuals and Betts, 2005). Development work has been done on this issue since the first edition of this book and this chapter details the new ideas. Some of this chapter is close to material in Moon (2004a).
