This chapter aims to provide an overview of research into the use of video in language teacher education, with a particular focus on its value as a tool facilitating reflective practice. The first part of this chapter discusses the reasons for, practices and practicalities of video use in language teacher education. One reason for using video is that it allows for a repeated viewing of the same teaching event, with the possibility of focusing on diverse aspects. Video also allows a number of (student) teachers and teacher educators to view the same (parts of a) lesson and so creates possibilities for dialogic reflection.

The second part of this chapter will provide an overview of the research into teacher learning and reflection related to the use of video resources and thus to the development of ‘professional vision’ (Goodwin, 1994), i.e. the capacity to notice and reflect on practices observed, as a key mechanism in reflective teacher learning. There is now a growing body of research addressing language teacher learning (e.g., Baecher, 2011; Eröz-Tuğa, 2013; Wipperfürth, 2015). In addition to highlighting the effects of video on reflection, a focus on classroom language use emerges, specifically the effective control of teachers’ use of the target language in class. This chapter ends by presenting data from an ongoing project into dialogic reflections of in-service language teachers in order to highlight some of the affordances of video use outlined in the preceding research overview.