Reflecting on the paradoxes of foreign language teacher education: a critical system analysis

Abstract

In the United States, Foreign Language Education is reshaped at a time when 75% of language teachers have retired, leaving an unprecedented vacuum. It is handicapped by paradoxes that prevent it from furthering its mission. Conjugating priority and neglect is a major challenge. Methods are often taught without epistemology, students tend to communicate without contents. Teaching of cultures is generally sanitized and stereotyped. Teacher educators professionalize student teachers who rarely understand their own cultural identity, potential foreignness and otherness. The student teachers' reflection is enforced and their autonomy paradoxically guided. The way to deal with these contradictions is to articulate new priorities and reconceptualize the field as the inescapable branch of learning for world peace and social justice.