The Curriculum of Second Language Teacher Education

Abstract

The second language teacher education (SLTE) curriculum is an interdependent, situated set of educational processes and tools whose aim is teacher learning. Studies of curriculum in SLTE have focused on analyses of the kinds of courses or activities that make up an educational program for teachers (e.g., Zhang 1990) or, more recently, on the knowledge base of teaching that underlies teacher education and the kinds of instructional practices that help teachers acquire it (e.g., Freeman and Johnson 1998; Richards 1998; Roberts 1998; see also Johnson, Chapter 2). This chapter will build on these analyses of the knowledge base of language teaching – what effective language teaching involves / what teachers know and are able to do to teach languages effectively – from the perspective of curriculum, that is, considerations for designing programs that enable teachers to acquire the knowledge base.