This paper describes the value of ‘professional dialogue’ as a process that could enhance reflection leading to professional development of academic staff. It draws on a reflection process that Foundation programme practitioners at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) engaged in to show the relationship between the method and learning. The paper discusses the approach, as a means to capture practitioners’ conceptions of their practice and how it sensitised them on what was involved in the teaching and learning of their subjects. Lessons were recorded on video and were later on played back to stimulate professional dialogue between a practitioner and myself. This involved conscious self-evaluation in order to gain understanding and improve students’ learning. The research process highlights the challenges and benefits involved in employing this method especially in helping practitioners to interrogate the theory that underpins their everyday practice. The paper concludes by stating that, to experience the relationship between reflection and learning the reflection process should allow an in depth engagement with practice.

Keywords: Professional dialogue, Reflection, Professional development