Exploring Malaysian ESL Students’ Unguided Written Reflections of an Online Poetry Engagement Activity

Self-reflection has become a popular practice in teaching and learning as it provides a space for self-assessment with numerous benefits to both learners and educators. As part of their Creative Writing course requirement, a group of Malaysian ESL students participated in an online poetry engagement activity. While a traditional instructor observation method was employed for grading students’ performances, little is known about the utilisation and integration of professional and positive attitudes toward this task from students’ perspectives. The purpose of this case study was to utilise unguided written reflections to shed light on matters of concern and importance from the students’ perspective and describe experiences related to the tasks’ intended learning outcomes. Purposive sampling was used to recruit study participants who met the sampling criteria. This approach can enhance the depth and richness of the data collected, as it ensures that the gathered are particularly relevant to the research questions. They were invited to write and submit an unguided self-reflection of the online poetry engagement activity. Inductive thematic analysis was then used to organise and elicit meaning from the collected data. Results indicate that the unguided reflections emulated academic writing convention with introductory statements at the beginning, descriptions and explanations of experiences as the body of writing, and ended with gratifications. The findings also indicated the participants’ achievements of the ethics and professional learning outcome. The findings suggest the inclusion of reflective writing for course tutors and programme administrators to improve assessment quality and reliability, especially for learning outcomes that focus on applying and developing generic skills.