Diário Reflexivo “Caminhos para o Bem-Estar”: percurso para professores de línguas em formação inicial

Abstract

This study aimed to design a Reflective Diary, focused on the wellbeing of future language teachers. Throughout my undergraduation in English Language and Literature, I experienced several challenges which negatively affected my wellbeing. I managed to overcome these difficulties by using reflective and self-organization tools. Thus, I sought to contribute with other language students, proposing a resource that could help them support their own wellbeing throughout undergraduation. From this assumption, this research presents an Educational Product proposal entitled “Reflective Diary Pathways to Wellbeing”. The development of the resources in the Diary were grounded on the four stages of critical reflection proposed by Smyth (1992): describe, inform, confront and reconstruct. The resources aim to encourage self reflection and self-knowledge through the recognition of aspects which affect positive and negatively their wellbeing, enabling the participants to recognize and develop strategies to protect it. The Diary was designed in a physical format, in order to provide a space for reflection distant from digital tools, favoring a moment of reflective pause to the students and a better connection with themselves. The theoretical framework of this study is anchored on the works of Mercer and Gregersen (2020), Liberali (1999), Seligman (2011), Soares et al. (2020), among others. The methodology adopted was qualitative applied research. The participants were twelve undergraduation students from the courses of English, French, German and Spanish Language of the Faculty of Modern Foreign Languages (FALEM), enrolled in the elective course “Wellbeing in Language Teacher Education”, context where the Reflective Diary was applied for an academic semester. The data collection instruments used were a questionnaire for the evaluation of the Product by the pre-service teachers, along with another one answered by the specialist professors, in order to obtain their evaluations regarding the Diary. The data analysis indicated improvements in the participants’ wellbeing, as they reported changes in their habits to better protect their wellbeing after using the Product. The evaluation by the specialist professors showed the Product is well structured and adequate to its target audience, highlighting the coherence in its proposal, objectives and needs of the public whom the product is destined for. Therefore, the Reflective Diary represents a contribution to the field of language learning and teaching, favoring self-reflection and self-care processes related to the students’ wellbeing in higher education. We hope the use of this Diary can be expanded to other educational contexts, in order to promote the wellbeing of other language students.