Second Language Teacher Education: A Reality Check

Abstract

This introductory chapter is a state-of-the-art (SOA — of sorts) on second language teacher education (SLTE). However, it is not the usual type of SOA review (for a recent excellent review see Wright, 2010) one would normally read because I maintain that second language teacher education is in a state (i.e., a negative state) and so this chapter is more of a reality check for second language educators that we need to be doing something different. Part of the reason for the state we may be in is that we may have lost sight of whose needs teacher educators are addressing when preparing second language teachers: their own or their teacher learners’ needs? This is not an easy question to answer because there are many stakeholders involved within second language teacher education and each can have a different agenda than the other, but as you will see in this chapter I agree with Faez and Vaelo (2012) when they suggest that teacher preparation programmes should reconsider how programme content needs could be aligned more closely with the needs of novice teachers. As such, I also talk about what some teacher educators are attempting in order to prepare their teacher learners for the reality of what they will face in the classroom in their first year(s). Thus I also discuss the art in terms of self-initiated innovations that various teacher educators in different contexts have attempted to implement in order to compensate for the state we seem to be in.