A Journey Through the Landscapes of Language Education

Abstract

This chapter shows how our understanding of (foreign) language teaching and teacher education has changed over the past few decades, and what the current beliefs and practices in relation to this issue are. To this end, the metaphor of “a journey through a landscape” of language teaching and teacher education is used. Our “guided tour” begins with the description of the landscape’s main “geographical” features: (a) clouds of academic ideas, representing the conceptual and empirical bases of foreign language teaching/learning and the relevance of academic research to language teachers; (b) the English Language Teaching world, including the shift from the traditional view of language teaching methods to the postmethod condition; and (c) language teacher education, reflecting a marked shift in teacher preparation programs from teacher training (teaching as a finite skill) to teacher education (teaching as a constantly evolving process of growth and change). Because all three features of the landscape are closely interrelated, they accentuate and benefit from each other. Through the analysis of these three features, we trace the evolution of (foreign) language teaching and teacher education as a field that is constantly in a state of change.