The teacher quality gap is even more severe for English language learners than it is for low-income students and students of color, because a "highly qualified" teacher of ELLs must have special skills and abilities, write Gándara and Santibañez in this article. The authors examine how well prepared today's teachers are to provide…

This article reports on an exploratory study of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and professional knowledge about teaching EFL (TEFL) in a preschool setting in China. The investigation is structured on a two-dimensional grid based on Calderhead's (1996) categorisation of teachers' attitudes and beliefs and…

This paper explores the professional development of 11 newly qualified foreign language teachers. It draws on a qualitative longitudinal study conducted at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland between 2002 and 2009. The paper concentrates on the personal side of teacher development by analysing participants' discourses concerning language…

Since the language used by people has the potential to signal a membership in a discourse community, it is significant that prospective teachers speak the appropriate social language to be able to claim a strong membership in the community of teachers. This qualitative study explores a group of pre-service teachers' professional language use and…

The study reported in this article is part of a research project which intended to attain a more comprehensive understanding of the growth and transformations of the professional identity and knowledge of a group of four future language teachers, as they expanded their awareness about plurilingualism and intercomprehension. Based on a central…

This paper examines a language teacher education professional development programme in New Zealand that draws on the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum. At the heart of the Learning Languages area in the curriculum is communicative competence, with the understanding that communication involves "language knowledge" and "cultural…

This article reports a study of the discourse of shared lesson planning sessions in the early stages of a pre-service TESOL certificate course. The study focuses on "lesson planning conferences" (LPCs), in which a teacher educator and a group of student teachers worked on one student teacher's lesson plan. It describes the discursive practices…

The purpose of this study was to collect and analyze data from practicing mainstream K-12 teachers currently enrolled in graduate courses at a large, urban, Midwest university regarding four categories of their attitudes toward English language learners: (a) inclusion of ELLs, (b) the second language acquisition process/language and language…

As a result of a growing immigrant population in the United States, many adult education programs are working with new populations of adult learners who need to learn English. There is a need for a strong workforce of trained and knowledgeable practitioners who can work effectively with adults learning English and facilitate transitions to…

This paper attempts to identify the distinctive qualities of successful veteran teachers, referred to as "expert teachers", which separates them not only from novice teachers but more importantly from experienced non-expert teachers. Based on earlier case studies, this paper maintains that the critical differences between expert and…

A veteran language teacher expresses views on the development of language teachers, suggesting there are two professional development routes language teachers take: from method to methodology or methodology to method. (Author/VWL)

The California Foreign Language Project (CFLP), established in 1988, is a voluntary professional development program designed to improve and expand elementary, secondary, and postsecondary foreign language teaching in California. CFLP consists of nine regional sites that work in conjunction with a central office to increase professional…

This volume seeks to identify the changes in teaching and learning foreign languages that are likely to be encountered in the next century and to describe the role that teachers, students, and administrators play in controlling such change. This volume seeks to respond to these questions in a unified and insightful manner and provide perspective…

"Adults Learning Languages" is aimed at those responsible for teaching languages across AE, FE and HE. In the much-changed world of post-19 languages, new funding and inspection regimes with revised needs for quality assurance are challenging practitioners to adapt and review approaches. This book offers teachers of languages to adults tools to…

Discusses specific topics that second-language teachers should be familiar with, organized under the following headings: teachers' background, community/parent expectations, children/students expectations, knowing the students, classroom management, motivation, planning, theories of second-language acquisition, language skills, culture, media…