THE USE OF EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE IN EFL TEACHERS’ REFLECTIVE JOURNAL WRITING: A CORPUS BASED STUDY

Abstract

This article presents a computer-assisted discourse analysis of the main topics and evaluative parameters used by student teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in their reflective journals. By applying Bednarek’s parameter-based approach to the study of evaluation, 329 reflective journals (aprox. 90,000 words) were analyzed by using the UAM Corpus Tool. The correlation of three sources of data – topic analysis, evaluative parameters and keywords – allowed to uncover the most typical evaluative language choices made by EFL student teachers in their reflective journals and their overall evaluation of their training process during their prácticum studies. Results show that most journal entries pivot around the figure of the secondary student of EFL and that student teachers feel confident enough as to explicitly assess products, performances, and human behavior along the emotivity and the expectedness parameters. Findings are discussed in relation to the development of the EFL student teachers’ professional teaching identity and on the contextual factors that promote it or hinder it.