EFL Teacher Education: Exploring Professional Growth through the Integration of Padlet and Reflection

This paper explores the impact of integrating the digital platform Padlet and reflective practices in a Master’s in TESOL course on student teachers’ professional growth. Conducted with 14 students from a South Vietnamese university, the study utilized reflective journal entries, evolving teaching philosophy statements, an end-of-course survey, and individual structured interviews. Results revealed positive correlations between technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), as perceived by student teachers, and the course structure and content. Two overarching themes emerged around Padlet integration. The first, enhanced learning experiences, emphasized inclusive, motivational, and real-world-connected practices. The second, technology integration, highlighted advantages and disadvantages of the Padlet platform, yet promoted a collaborative spirit within the community of student teachers. Reflectivity played a pivotal role, yielding themes of innovation and student-centered teaching, challenges and strategies for language instruction, and the construction of teacher identity. These themes collectively underscored the cultivation of TPACK, teacher effectiveness, and lifelong learning commitment. Pedagogical implications for integrating technology (e.g., Padlet) and reflection in teacher preparation courses to enhance transformative potential in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education are discussed, alongside limitations and directions for future research to explore the interplay of TPACK, instructional efficacy, and reflection in education's evolving context.