language teacher, it is not the aim of this review to indicate that this is the only issue .... Japanese native speaker who has acquired English as a second language .... interactions between knowledge and context in effective teaching practice.
Language teachers’ professional knowledge and standards for language teaching: A review of the literature Anthony J. Liddicoat
Introduction Before addressing literature relevant to understanding standards for language teachers, it is important to highlight a key terminological problem relating to the concepts of ‘quality teachers’ and ‘quality teaching’. These two terms are not the same. ‘Quality teachers’ refers to issues relevant to teachers’ knowledge and practices in language teaching and discussion of quality teachers often assumes that quality teaching is solely dependent on the levels of attainment of individual teachers. ‘Quality teaching’, however, sees that effective teaching relies on many factors of which the knowledge base of the teacher is only one. Highly skilled teachers may be prevented from offering quality teaching by the situations in which they find themselves working – their teaching conditions, the fragmented nature of their employment, the restrictions placed on their language programs by timetabling, resourcing, etc. Boyer (1990) argues that it is necessary to redefine teaching because it “is often viewed as a routine function, tacked on, something almost anyone can do” (p. 23); instead the scholarship of teaching should be understood as the bridge between students’ understanding and teachers’ knowledge. Good teaching and research into teaching is perhaps the best way to face the pressures of academia. According to Stein-Parbury (1999), the values embedded in good teaching are a passion for learning that reflects the value of interest in and inquiry about one’s own discipline but also the world in general and an effort to arouse the imagination and engage learners actively, reflecting a concern and compassion for students’ experiences as learners. Stein-Parbury (1999) identifies teaching methods and practices that embody these values as both reflective and reflexive. They are reflective in the sense that the relationship with students is seen in terms of quality of learning and approaches to teaching result from thought about the nature and needs of learning. Reflexive teaching means that the interaction between students and teachers is based on shared control of learning, which is focused on enabling students to learn, rather than demonstrating how much the teacher knows. Reflexive teaching also takes into account students’ prior learning and implies that the teacher attempts to see the world through the eyes of students before attempting to extend or alter their conceptions. While the discussion below will focus very much on describing the accomplished language teacher, it is not the aim of this review to indicate that this is the only issue relevant to quality teaching, but rather that in guiding teachers as professionals, issues relating to developing and maintaining teachers’ knowledge are a central to individual teacher’s professional standards and can assist teachers in seeing how they can further their own professional development.
Teachers’ knowledge One useful way to examine teachers’ knowledge is Woods’ (1996) distinction between ‘content knowledge’ (the content dimensions of teaching) and ‘procedural
knowledge’ (the enactment of content in the classroom). A similar, but more elaborated breakdown has been proposed by Day and Conklin (1992), who argue that the knowledge base of second language teachers consists of four types of knowledge: Content knowledge: knowledge of the subject matter; Pedagogic knowledge: knowledge of generic teaching strategies, beliefs and practices, regardless of the focus of the subject matter; e.g., classroom management, motivation, decision making; Pedagogic content knowledge: the specialized knowledge of how to represent content knowledge in diverse ways that students can understand; the knowledge of how students come to understand the subject matter, what difficulties they are likely to encounter when learning it, what misconceptions interfere with learning, and how to overcome these problems; and Support knowledge: the knowledge of the various disciplines that inform our approach to the teaching and learning of languages; e.g., psycholinguistics, linguistics, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, research methods. Day and Conklin’s model is similar to that of Woods, with elaboration of procedural knowledge into a range of different possibilities. It is important to note that Woods (1996) indicates that the division between the two is potentially problematic as the language itself is fundamentally involved in both the ‘what’ of language teaching (content knowledge) and the how of teaching (procedural knowledge) when the target language is used as the instructional medium. Moreover, foreign language classrooms in Australia are multilingual (or at least bilingual) environments where multiple languages can potentially be relevant to aspects of content and pedagogical practice. Nonetheless, the distinction between content knowledge and various types of other knowledges is a useful way to begin to think about what it is that an accomplished language teacher knows.
Content knowledge The key element of content knowledge for language teaching would appear to be a knowledge of the language being taught. While this idea seems quite straightforward, understandings of what a ‘proficient’ teacher needs to know are various and contested. Briguglio and Kirkpatrick (1996) found that the definition of ‘language teacher proficiency’ held by those in the field was broad and went beyond simple questions of linguistic competence to include attributes of a competent language teacher. However, they go on to state that in interviewing people from the field of language teaching: After the initial definition was elicited … the comments of interviewees then tended to refer only to linguistic proficiency, indicating that this was the chief area of concern (Briguglio & Kirkpatrick, 1996: 34) Briguglio and Kirkpatrick’s results suggest that the question of linguistic proficiency is key, but that the nature of this proficiency is contestable. While it may be possible to use the conflation of linguistic proficiency and other teacher knowledges to question the ways in which the teaching profession constructs the issue of language proficiency, as does Simpson Norris (1999), such a stance avoids a key issue relating to language teacher proficiency – the highly contexted nature of language use in language teaching. That is, language proficiency for language teachers is not a simple question of their measurement on a scale of proficiency, but rather their ability to use
their language to enact language pedagogy. Language proficiency therefore cannot be fully understood outside the teaching context in which that proficiency is used. Chastain (1989) argues that as the dominant methodologies of language teaching have moved from a language-based curriculum to a communication-based curriculum, linguistic accuracy is only one component of proficiency and the assumption that there exists a unitary proficiency is a fundamentally flawed understanding of the nature of linguistic competence: The fundamental flaw is the assumption that there exists a single proficiency (which can, of course, be rated). Proficiency is person-specific and context specific. (Chastain, 1989: 49) Chastain’s observations indicate that a certain level of sophistication is needed in addressing issues of language proficiency for language teachers, which needs to go beyond simple tests of global proficiency. Wright and Bolitho (1997) deal with issue of the nature of language knowledge by identifying two aspects of the content knowledge of language teachers: to be proficient users and to be skilled analysts of the language. By proficient user they refer to the teacher’s ability to use the language competently for communication, while a skilled analyst has a linguistic metaknowledge of the phonology, syntax, lexicon, pragmatics, genres and other conventions of the language. The content knowledge of a language teacher is then more than a simple question of proficiency – the knowledge required by a general language user – and includes additional knowledge about the language which is not necessarily regularly available to speakers of the language, either as a first or second language. The analytic knowledge of the language teacher is concerned with the mediation of language knowledge to those who do not know the language. Wright and Bolitho’s proposal, therefore, has a dimension of complexity not found in a simple proficiency construction of teachers’ language knowledge, but there appears to still be a lack of nuance in the consideration of what it means to be a proficient user. This lack comes from a decontextualised understanding of what is meant by being a proficient user. The question remains of being a proficient user in which context and for what purpose. It is important to note that being a proficient user does not equate with native-speaker (or native-like) proficiency in the language as the dual dimensions of language knowledge proposed by Wright and Bolitho (1997) go beyond the ordinary knowledge of a native speaker, and moreover, the language demands placed on language teachers are not identical with those of native speakers. This means that teacher quality is not simply a measure of language proficiency and there is no inevitable correlation between level of proficiency and ability to teach a language, except at a very gross level. A decontextualised measure of proficiency is therefore not an appropriate measure of language teachers’ language proficiency. Ellis (2003b) argues that simple constructions of content knowledge based on proficiency and analytic ability are inadequate to capture what it is a teacher needs to know in order to be a fully accomplished teacher. She adds to Wright and Bolitho’s (1997) dimensions of language knowledge two additional components:
the teachers’ knowledge/experience of the acquisition of a language in formal contexts; and the teachers’ knowledge of a second language and second language use.
She argues that a language teacher needs to know experientially what is involved in the task of language learning and points to the possibility of language teachers being quite different from other teachers in their path to the content of their subject area, if that content is defined only as language proficiency. Teachers of mathematics or science gain their content knowledge through a process of formal instruction; however, some language teachers may gain their knowledge from their primary socialisation as children in a family which speaks that language. Ellis argues for a differential knowledge of content for those who acquire a language as a first language and those who acquire it as a second. First language learners gain their language knowledge by a different process and therefore do not know how to learn a language as a second language. First language learners are not in a position to have experience of language learning on which they can reflect as part of their overall language competence. This could be seen as a form of lack of the analytic ability in the language highlighted by Wright and Bolitho (1997). Ellis does note, however, that it is knowledge of learning a second language that is the important dimension, not necessarily second language learning of the language being taught. This means that a Japanese native speaker who has acquired English as a second language but teaches Japanese does have access to a form of content knowledge which is relevant to the overall knowledge base of the language teacher. She further notes that:
a non-native-speaker teacher has acquired the same content in the same way as the learner; a native-speaker teacher who has formally studied another language has acquired similar but not identical content in the same way as the learner; and a monolingual native speaker teacher has acquired the same content in a different way from the learner.
For the second dimension of content knowledge, Ellis (2003b) indicates that there is different content knowledge available to a teacher which comes not simply from having undergone the process of learning, but also from the state of knowing and using a second language. A teacher who knows a second language knows experientially what is involved in using a second language for communication and how to communicate using a more limited language proficiency that that available to native speakers (Liddicoat, Crozet, Jansen, & Schmidt, 1997). Moreover, the teacher who has acquired a second language has a dimension of linguistic comparison not available to a monolingual teacher and with this an awareness of the possibilities for linguistic differences between languages. This gives an idea of how the content of language teaching is structured and how it relates to other areas of knowledge (Hogan, 1994). In addition, experience of bilingualism gives insights into the nature of bilingualism and bilingualism is the intended end result of language study (Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000; Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003). All of the discussions of the content of language learning mentioned above focus solely on language as the academic core of language teaching and therefore construct language education as being solely about the transmission of the linguistic code. This misses the enculturated nature of language itself, and the content knowledge of
language teaching needs to be seen as including knowledge about culture as well as language. This dimension of language teaching and learning has been recognised at the policy level (Liddicoat, 2003, 2004a), but is less well integrated into discussions of content knowledge in language teaching. Where language teaching is conceived as contributing to interculturality, whether as intercultural communication, intercultural awareness and/or understanding, language teachers’ content knowledge will involve an intercultural dimension (Skopinskaya, 2003). Descriptions of cultural content knowledge depend on the ways in which the teaching of culture is conceptualised. In an approach to culture teaching where the focus is on covering particular cultural content in a factually oriented, information-based way, this cultural knowledge could be conceived as informational content about the culture, whether conceived as high culture, areas studies or practices (Liddicoat, 2004a, 2004d). However, in an interculturally oriented approach to language teaching, such simplistic notions of cultural knowledge do not seem adequate. Byram and Zarate (1994) have proposed a model of intercultural competence which revolves around four sets of skills, attitudes, and knowledge, which they describe using the French term savoir ‘knowing’. These savoirs are: 1. 2. 3. 4.
savoir ‘knowings’: knowledge of self and other, of interaction: individual and societal; savoir comprendre ‘knowing how to understand’: skills for interpreting and relating information; savoir apprendre/faire ‘knowing how to learn/to do’: skills for discovering new knowledge and for interacting to gain new knowledge; savoir être ‘knowing how to be’: attitudes involved in relativising the self and valuing the other.
To these four, Byram (1997) has added a fifth component: 5.
savoir s’engager ‘knowing how to commit oneself’: education involving the development of critical and political awareness.
These savoirs represent a process oriented understanding of the knowledge base which language teachers would need to control. In more concrete terms, the intercultural competence of language teachers could be described in the following ways (Crozet & Liddicoat, 1999, 2000; Liddicoat, 2002; Liddicoat, Crozet, & Lo Bianco, 1999; Liddicoat et al., 2003):
the ability to use language appropriately to achieve communicative goals. an understanding that cultures are relative; respect for the cultural values of others; the ability to reflect on the difference between one’s own culture and another culture in constructive ways; the ability to learn about a culture through participation in that culture; the ability to mediate meanings across linguistic and cultural boundaries; and the ability to decentre from one’s own cultural position and understand culturally based attitudes, values and behaviours from other perspectives.
The core knowledge in intercultural approaches is not a knowledge of the culture as such, but a knowledge of interculturality: of how to engage with cultural difference as a language user and to mediate between cultural perspectives. This knowledge is different from the knowledge of a culture held by members of that culture as it needs to span multiple cultural positions and deals with issues related to engagement with a culture from outside as well as from inside (Kramsch, 1999). The teacher’s knowledge base is therefore much more characterised by the processes of interculturality than by a repertoire of cultural facts. If this is considered in the light of statements about teachers’ linguistic knowledge base made by Wright and Bolitho (1997) and Ellis (2003b), the cultural knowledge base could be specified as:
being an experienced intercultural user of one’s language repertoire; being an analyst of culture in language; having experience of the process of acquiring intercultural competence; and having knowledge of intercultural language use.
Again, these knowledges have to be considered in highly contextual ways rather than as means of establishing absolute standards of intercultural proficiency.
Procedural knowledges In investigating procedural knowledges for language teaching, the following discussion will adopt Day and Conklin’s (1992) division of procedural knowledge into a number of sub-categories as a more accurate way of capturing some of the complexities involved in language teaching. Pedagogic knowledge The literature on teachers’ knowledge refers to pedagogic knowledge – that is, the general knowledge teaching – in a range of ways: for example, pedagogic knowledge (Day & Conklin, 1992), general pedagogic knowledge (Tsui, 2003), practical knowledge (Elbaz, 1983) and situated knowledge (Leinhardt, 1988). All of these terms, however, refer to the specific knowledge that a teacher requires in the teaching situation. This means that pedagogic knowledge is the specialised, situated knowledge that any teacher requires about the environment in which the activities of teaching and learning take place. This involves knowledge of the general educational documents which apply to the education system and school in which s/he teaches, knowledge of the school – including the immediate and broad sociocultural context – knowledge of the students both in general and as individuals, and knowledge of the various stakeholders. Teaching itself involves particular knowledges which need to be deployed by all teachers in order to establish and maintain productive learning environments. This involves knowledge of classroom management skills and decision-making skills within the context established by content and pedagogic content knowledges. Classroom management is also a dimension of teachers’ pedagogic knowledge and relates to the ways in which teachers promote and maintain an effective and harmonious teaching environment. It is more than behaviour control and relates to the ability to stimulate interest and involvement in purposeful learning. Effective classroom management is not reducible to issues of discipline and control, but rather relates to the teacher’s ability to deploy a range of appropriate strategies for creating an appropriate learning environment. Winzer & Grigg (1992) point out that academic
climate and effective teaching practices promote high task engagement and good attitudes that prevent misbehaviour. However “instructional success is often directly proportional to a teacher’s ability to use appropriate management strategies” (Winzer & Grigg, 1992: 620). Classroom management must, therefore, be viewed as a broad concept, encompassing not just techniques to control behaviour, but also academic climate and effective teaching practices. Therefore it would appear to be more accurate and more productive to think of classroom management as the orchestration of classroom life so that all children can maximize their learning potential (Andrews, Lupart, Bachor, Crealock, Dudley-Marling, Marini, & Piper, 1993). This means that classroom management involves dimensions of classroom organisation and motivating students. Decision-making is central to all forms of the classroom management and teaching and learning activities performed by teachers (Clandinin, 1986), and several factors affect decision-making. The most prominent of these are teachers’ beliefs about the content and student characteristics as well as administrative and collegial factors. The decisions teachers make, especially in relation to the selection of a particular pedagogy and classroom management, are to a great extent influenced by their experiential knowledge and individual beliefs about teaching and learning (Clandinin, 1986). Teachers’ experiences both as learners and as teachers play a role in developing their professional capacities as effective practitioners. Experiences inform teachers’ practice by providing an underlying set of assumptions and values about the nature of teaching and learning and this shapes the ways in which they choose to present teaching and learning in their classrooms (Ellis, 2003a; Holt-Reynolds, 1992). Students’ characteristics, including their perceived educational needs, cultural backgrounds, previous learning experiences, personalities and preferred learning strategies, affect teachers’ decision-making. Knowledge of students is used in deciding about many fundamental issues of teaching practice, such as type and amount of classroom interaction, selection of tasks and materials, sequencing of activities, design of assessment tasks, etc. (Bullough, 1997; Liyanage, 2003; Pointon & Kershner, 2000). Administrative factors, such as time allowed for lesson preparation, number of students in the class and number of classes allocated to the teacher, also contribute significantly to teachers’ decision-making. Pedagogic knowledge is, therefore, complex and multivariate and involves interactions between knowledge and context in effective teaching practice. The core impact of pedagogic knowledge would seem to be on the facilitation of learning within the classroom and is oriented to achieving an appropriate learning environment, with the constraints imposed on the teacher by the situation in which s/he teaches. Moreover, pedagogic knowledge is not isolated from content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge but rather is deployed along with these knowledges (Tsui, 2003). General pedagogic knowledge is therefore also contexted within the discipline-related knowledges the teacher uses in constructing his/her teaching practice. Pedagogic content knowledge Pedagogic content knowledge refers explicitly to the particular knowledges language teachers require in order to teach language, and is typically associated with questions
of language teaching methodology (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Bromme, 1995; Cochran, DeRuiter, & King, 1993; Liddicoat, 2004c). In examining questions of teachers’ language teaching methodology, it is important not to privilege a particular methodology above others and rather to think in terms of teachers’ informed approaches to issues of effective language teaching (Council of Europe, 2001; Kumaravadivelu, 2003). In contemporary approaches to language there is a strong emphasis on what Kumaravadivelu calls ‘particularity’ in the choice of instructional approaches. In particular, Kumaravadivelu (2003) argues that language pedagogy is to be: sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu (Kumaravadivelu, 2003: 538) In this context, pedagogic content knowledge refers to the ability of teachers to adapt their knowledge to the local needs of students and to the objectives of their language teaching. The Council of Europe’s common framework for languages (Council of Europe, 2001) makes this point very strongly and argues that the determinant of choices of method should be the objectives of teaching rather than a pre-established methodological position and that effective teaching is characterised by a rich repertoire of teaching approaches and flexibility in methodological choices. Moreover, questions of method are located within a broader context in which external factors, such as curriculum documents, assessment approaches and overall educational policies, influence the methodological options of language teachers (Liddicoat, 2004b). The pedagogic content knowledge of language teachers includes not only procedural knowledge about language teaching (that is, issues of method) but also procedural knowledge about language learning. This becomes especially important for the teaching of language learning strategies, as knowledge and experience of these strategies is important for developing strategic learning among students with a range of different learning preferences and styles (Oxford, 1990; Wenden & Rubin, 1987). Shulman (1988) argues that a knowledge of learning is fundamentally important in guiding other methodological choices in constructing an overall teaching approach and in determining relevant selections from among the teacher’s repertoire of classroom practices. Knowledge of learning and knowledge of teaching therefore combine as a resource for developing a reflective approach to pedagogy. The central element in language teachers’ pedagogic content knowledge can be considered not as a predefined skill set in language teaching and learning, but rather as a developed level of reflective practice (e.g. Barlett, 1990; Farrell, 1999; Hatton & Smith, 1995; Liddicoat & Jansen, 1998) in which teachers make informed choices about their language teaching in response to the context within which they teach to achieve the objectives of their teaching for diverse groups of students. Support knowledge Support knowledge refers to knowledge of those disciplines which contribute to language teaching. In their discussion of this, Day and Conklin (1992) appear to indicate that this knowledge is developed from the disciplines of linguistics and
applied linguistics: for example, second language acquisition, syntactic analysis, pragmatics, semantics, phonetics and phonology, etc. However, this construction of support knowledge privileges a model of language teaching which is entirely code focused, and contemporary language teaching is much more cross disciplinary than a code focused approach would indicate. Language teachers may also be informed by other disciplines including literary studies, cultural studies, history, psychology, technology, etc. The key issue here appears to be that teachers do not build their procedural knowledge through a narrowly focused language teaching approach but by drawing together knowledge and experience from elements of a range of different disciplines to support their teaching.
Teachers’ knowledge: Concluding comments The discussion above indicates that the knowledge base of language teachers is diverse and complex (Crookes, 1997). It involves:
knowledges of the language; knowledges about the language and about language in general; knowledges of interculturality; knowledges about the aspects of culture of the language being taught; knowledges about teaching in general; knowledges about language teaching; and knowledges derived from other disciplines informing language teaching.
This knowledge base is deployed contextually and responsively to enable effective language learning. Such a view indicates the extent of teacher professionalism and constructs teachers as something much more than deliverers of curriculum or managers of learning (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1987; Shulman, 1987). The language teachers’ knowledge base is more than a set of basic skills, content knowledge and general pedagogical skills, and Shulman (1987) argues that conceptualising teaching in such a way trivialises the nature of teaching as a professional undertaking and that assigning uniform standards for determining teacher quality ignores the highly contexted nature of teaching. Myers (1997) attempts to reflect the complexity of the nature of teachers’ professional knowledge by identifying a number of elements of professional knowledge, which can be used a framework for thinking about the various aspects of knowledge discussed above. He characterises the knowledge base of language teachers in the following ways:
The professional knowledge, skills, and values of teachers are constructed by teachers themselves rather than absorbed from elsewhere. That is, teachers are involved in actively creating their professional knowledge rather than applying prescribed principles rigidly and invariably. Teachers construct and develop their knowledge, skills, and values in the context of how they use that new knowledge and those new skills and values. That is teachers’ professional knowledge is responsive to their teaching context. The value of any set of professional knowledge, skills, and value perspectives is determined by its utility in helping individual teachers teach rather than by its esoteric origin. That is, teachers apply principles to their selection of
teaching approaches, etc. which they perceive to be beneficial to their educational objectives. The places to which teachers turn as sources of knowledge, skills, and values are not all external to themselves and their classrooms. Teachers also generate their own educational theories from their personal teaching, reflection on that teaching and self-analysis. The principles of evolutionary professional development apply to teachers’ learning and to their evolving knowledge, skills and value perspectives. That is, teachers’ knowledge is not and cannot be static but evolves over time. The accomplished teacher is not one who has developed a particular level of teacher competence, but one who has the capacity to expand, change and add to practice over time.
While knowledge is critical for the accomplished teacher, it is not in itself sufficient and this is especially true of knowledge conceived as language proficiency. In addition, the accomplished teacher needs the capacity to be self-aware and self-critical and also needs ethical dispositions and other personal attributes. Moreover, the contemporary language teacher needs the capability to engage with change, since knowledge is dynamic. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that accomplished teachers do not look the same in all classrooms, rather they are diverse. An accomplished language teacher is one who adapts to the contexts in which s/he teaches and there can be no single description or inventory of practices and knowledges which typify a good teacher (Edge & Richards, 1998).
Approaches to teaching standards Mahony and Hextall (2000) have identified two approaches to standards for the teaching profession: a regulatory approach and a developmental approach. Regulatory approaches can be used as a tool for measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of systems, institutions and individuals, while developmental approaches hand opportunities for teachers’ professional learning, aimed at improving the quality of their teaching throughout their careers. Regulatory approaches to standards grow out of the broader context of accountability and transparency within what Power (1997) calls the “audit society”. In the audit society, one role of government in education has come to be seen as the establishment of quality assurance through the control and standardisation of teaching and teachers against measurable criteria (Sachs, 2003). For teaching standards, a regulatory approach to standards seeks to develop a standardised form of practice against which particular teachers can be measured in order to determine whether or not an individual’s practice is good. In such standards, there is typically little room for negotiation or professional judgement in understanding what constitutes quality teaching. Regulatory approaches seek to standardise procedures rather than ensuring the development of knowledge which can be used in a different ways in response to particular contexts (Darling-Hammond, 1999).Regulatory approaches to teaching standards have been criticised on two key dimensions: they undermine trust in teachers as professionals and they reduce the importance of professional judgements in the practice of teaching. Sachs (2000) argues that collegial conversations about practice and ethics are predicated upon trust and that such trust is created through openness to explore and
critique practice. Where practice is codified through standards, critiquing and problematising practice become difficult. Harré (1999) sees rules as ‘surrogates for trust’: they replace trust with compliance. Standardisation promotes celebration of conformist practice rather than openness to experimentation. Moreover, the existence of regulatory standards undermines trust in the teacher as a knowledgeable professional and replaces this with trust in the authority of standards (GroundwaterSmith & Sachs, 2002). Standards which codify practice and seek to impose uniformity on the profession reduce professional practice to the implementation of predetermined ways of acting and in so doing, reduce the importance given to teachers’ decision-making in the enactment of teaching in particular contexts (Sachs, 2003). According to Hoyle and John (1995:77) “as professionals work in uncertain situations in which judgement is more important than routine, it is essential to effective practice that they should be free from bureaucratic and political constraints to act on judgements made in the best interests (as they see them) of the clients”. A regulatory system constructs teacher choices as between good (codified) practice and deviant practice, whereas professional choices in practice are creative, responsive and based on knowledge. Developmental standards are designed with a view that professional standards should allow teachers to become increasingly capable in their professional expertise. The standards that they articulate are not statements of codified practice, but rather reflect the aspirations of teachers as lifelong learners to develop their professional knowledge (Mahony & Hextall, 2000; Sachs, 2003). They view teaching as complex and creative and acknowledge the importance of the context in which teaching occurs. In developmental standards the notion of best practice as something which can be codified and universally applied is challenged as instead sees best practice as the ways in which a particular teacher, teaching a particular subject to a particular group maximises learning (Edge & Richards, 1998). Developmental standards recognise the professionalism of teachers and construct a framework in which teachers can reflect on their practice as a basis for further professional learning and professional growth (Hargreaves, 1994).
Australian approaches to teaching standards at national level Standards for language teaching While national level work in developing teacher standards has not to date focused specifically on languages teaching, a number of reports have discussed issues relating to language teacher standards in other contexts, especially as they relate to questions of teacher supply. The Language at the Crossroads report (Nicholas, Moore, Clyne, & Pauwels, 1993) in its discussion of teacher supply links issues of teacher supply very strongly to the quality of teacher education courses: … attempts to create additional teachers require parallel attempts to define the qualities the preparation courses for those teachers should have. Only those programs which can be assured of providing quality graduates ought to be contemplated in any proposal to increase the supply of language teachers. (Nicholas et al., 1993)
For Nicholas et al. (1993), then, teacher supply is fundamentally linked to the supply of teachers with a particular knowledge base. They further articulate this notion of a knowledge base as including: language competence (both in the target language and in English), sociocultural and other background knowledge, language teaching pedagogy, and cross-cultural and intercultural attitudes. This list includes, therefore, elements of content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge, together with some elements of support knowledge included as ‘other background knowledge’, but does not refer explicitly to general pedagogic knowledge. The report makes some specific recommendations about some of these dimensions of the teacher’s knowledge base:
content knowledge: a post-Year 12 major sequence or equivalent in the language (Nicholas et al., 1993: Recommendation 25) for both primary and secondary schools; and support knowledge: contemporary mass culture, language and children, comparative children’s literature, language varieties and variation, second language acquisition, the specific languages in Australia, pedagogic grammars of specific languages, advanced competence, advanced phonetics and phonology of specific languages and advanced practical grammar of specific languages (Nicholas et al., 1993: Recommendation 41) .
The report Language teachers: the pivot of policy (National Board of Employment Education and Training, 1996) also focuses on issues of teacher preparation and provides requirements “that teacher education programs must fulfil if they are to produce high quality teachers” (p.159). The report argues that nationally agreed minimum vocational competencies are needed as the minimum goals for pre-service language teacher education programs and includes among the competencies which language teachers require:
understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of language teaching (knowledge of how language is learned and the psycholinguistic, psychological and sociolinguistic factors that affect language learning); knowledge of the theory of language (general and theoretical linguistics, phonology and phonetics, sociolinguistics, and the other relevant components of a comprehensive view of the nature of language); specific knowledge of the linguistic system of the target language (including a pedagogical grammar of it); knowledge of the basic principles of language teaching methodology (including curriculum and syllabus design, methods, and assessment); knowledge and understanding of the target culture; cross-cultural attitudes favourable to life and teaching in a culturally and linguistically diverse society and world; practical ability to apply their knowledge to language teaching situations at any school level, whether in the classroom of elsewhere; understanding of the actual and potential role of languages and language education in Australian education and in responding to the needs of individuals and Australian society as a whole; ability to reflect on language teaching and their own teaching activities, to evaluate them, and to assist these reflective processes with their own research; commitment to ongoing professional self-development; and
commitment to their profession and its advancement (which may take a variety of forms, including involvement in relevant professional associations, publications, and conferences).
This report therefore constructs the teacher’s knowledge base in terms of: content knowledge about language competence, cultural knowledge and attitudes, specific knowledge of the target language system and knowledge of the role of languages education; pedagogic content knowledge about language teaching methodology, application of knowledge to school contexts, reflective practice in language teaching; and support knowledge from a diverse range of disciplines mostly in the area of linguistics and applied linguistics. The report constructs its discussion of standards around ideas of minimal competencies for language teaching and this focus is somewhat problematic in developing professionally oriented standards. Minimal competencies indicate a threshold level for entry into an area of work and tend to construct a lower level skill base than would be required by an accomplished teacher. This means that such standards become problematic if the purpose of standards is seen as guiding the development of professional practice. A similar approach was taken in the Minimum competency standards for LOTE teaching report (Commins, 1995). This report aimed at the identification of “minimum proficiency requirements” for teachers of Languages in all sectors, for both “language proficiency and professional practice”. (p. 4). The report seeks to define precisely the competencies required for entry into the profession, and the result is reductionist, giving descriptions of analytic skills and atomistic behaviours which can be observed and measured rather than reflecting the complexity and judgement involved in language teaching in context. In the report, the minimum competencies required for teaching languages are broken down into five areas, derived from the competencies developed for the National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning (1996):
using and developing professional knowledge and values; communicating, interacting and working with students; planning and managing the teaching and learning process; monitoring and assessing student progress and learning outcomes; and reflecting, evaluating, and planning for continuous improvement.
These are further broken down into elements of competence which are seen as descriptions of standards. Cues are given for each element of competence as examples of the sorts of things that it is reasonable to expect a beginning teacher to do to exemplify the defined competence. The most recently prepared national report on language teacher standards is Language teacher proficiency or teacher language proficiency? (Simpson Norris, 1999). This report moves away from the very atomistic approach adopted by the competencybased models above and explores the issue of conflicting interpretations and ambiguity surrounding terms including: language proficiency, teacher quality, quality teaching, language ability, teacher competence, teacher knowledge, and pedagogical competency standards. In its conclusion, the report provides a description of language teacher proficiency as including linguistic knowledge, cultural knowledge and pedagogic knowledge and concludes that a ‘multiple knowledges’ approach is needed
to convey the interrelated components of language teacher proficiency. This report therefore focuses strongly on the content and pedagogic content knowledge of language teachers and sets aside questions of general pedagogic knowledge and support knowledge. It recognises the complexity of knowledge and knowing for language teaching and the importance of a holistic view, but it nonetheless remains within a componential framework for understanding teachers’ professional knowledge and maintains that competencies could be described with future research. All of the reports discussed here focus only on issues of teaching specifically relating to language teaching and do not really deal with language teaching as an example of teaching. As a result, Day and Conklin’s (1992) ‘pedagogic knowledge’ is absent from these descriptions of teacher competence and there is very little, if any, consideration of those aspects of teachers’ professionalism which are general to teaching rather than specific to language teaching. Moreover, most of the reports omit the wider context of ‘support knowledge’ in their constructions of teachers’ knowledges. Much of the concern in these reports is for the content knowledge of language teachers, especially in the form of language proficiency and cultural knowledge, but with less emphasis on the process-oriented dimensions of content knowledge discussed in the sections above. The picture which emerges is of language teaching as a self-contained area of professional work with few links to other areas of knowledge, either general teaching or wider disciplines outside (language) teaching, but still relevant to professional work in this area. General standards for teaching As language teaching is a form of teaching and the professional knowledges of language teachers include the professional knowledge of teachers in general, work on the development of generic standards for teachers have relevance to language teachers. In recent years there have been a number of documents produced which have developed this work. In 1994 the National Working Party on Teaching Competency Standards issued its report: Competency framework for beginning teaching (National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning, 1996). This report reflects an orientation to teachers’ knowledge which incorporates content knowledge, knowledge of pedagogy, knowledge of learners and learning, and pedagogic content knowledge. The Australian Council of Deans of Education engaged with aspects of teacher standards in the context of teacher education programs (Australian Council of Deans of Education, 1998). The resulting report’s goal was to set out standards and guidelines to be used as a national framework for initial teacher education, recognising the diversity of programs, university autonomy and multiple perspectives of various stakeholders. The report identifies the qualities expected of new graduates of initial teacher education programs, including:
an appreciation of entering a profession of rich complexity, which is of profound value to society, and carries great responsibility, challenge and satisfaction; the understanding and commitment to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards;
a coherent sense of themselves as professionals as professionals who act with professional responsibilities; a view of their initial teacher education as the first part of a continuum of professional learning; a critical awareness of how their own background shapes their approach to teaching and the assumptions they will make as teachers; an awareness of their own values and an understanding of the role of values the ability to communicate effectively; an active sense of themselves as part of the education research community; and development of individual talents and interests as they relate to teaching, of critical and reflective capacities, aesthetic sensibilities and creative and physical skill
In addition, further qualities are described in relation to duty of care, health and safety, students and their communities, indigenous education, content studies, curriculum, literacy, numeracy, teaching and learning, relationships with learners and behaviour management, technology, assessment and evaluation, working with others, working in schools and systems. The Australian Council of Educators (ACE) has been working to develop a nationally focused statement on teacher standards, quality and professionalism. This statement differs from other work in developing professional standards in education in that it is being developed within the profession as an insider’s view of what constitutes high quality practice in teaching, rather than as a government initiative. The work of the ACE is particularly focused on affirming the professionalism of teaching rather than responding to a perception of a lack of quality in the profession (Cumming, 2002). The premise this work takes is that teaching is a highly professionalised area of work with established practices and understandings and that the articulation of standards involves documenting teachers’ professionalism rather than establishing employment or other criteria. Moreover, the process acknowledges that teachers’ professionalism is a reflection of a teacher’s experience and that standards cannot be applied in the same way to teachers entering the profession and those who are well established. The ACE’s work has established a set of general standards which characterise the teaching profession:
to be knowledgeable about and skilled in subject matter and pedagogy; to be effective in the care and development of learners; to adhere to professional and ethical standards set by and for the profession; to act as a strong advocate for the profession and the public interest; to contribute to the development of the knowledge base of the profession; and to reflect a strong ethical orientation across all areas of teaching and learning. (Australian Council of Educators, 2003:2)
The most recent document relating to generic teacher standards is A national framework for professional standards for teaching (Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 2003). The MCEETYA document recognises that teachers enter the profession with varying levels of prior learning,
work experience and professional preparation, and work in a range of different contexts and that their positioning in terms of career has an impact on their work as teachers. The frameworks are based on a conceptualisation of teacher quality as an interlocking series of career dimensions and professional elements (see Figure 1). The National framework for professional standards for teaching describes four career dimensions for teachers: graduation; competence; accomplishment; and leadership.
Graduation: At this career point, the essential qualification lies predominantly in study rather than professional practice and a graduate is not yet recognised as a competent and capable practitioner with full professional standing. Competence: This is the career point at which the teacher is professionally competent with formal and full entry to the profession. Professionally competent teachers have demonstrated teaching experience. Accomplishment: This career point refers to teachers who are highly accomplished and highly regarded by their peers. Teachers at this level are highly proficient and successful practitioners and are recognised by other teachers as having in-depth subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise. Leadership: The final career point applies to individuals who have the capacity and the willingness to apply their professionalism in ways that are transformative for their profession. These teachers are knowledgeable about the latest developments in pedagogy and can apply those developments to unique student contexts. They apply critical analysis and problem solving skills to educational matters, and engage in ongoing professional learning and facilitate and support the professional learning needs of others.
Figure 1: Aspects of professional standards (source: Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 2003)
The document also seeks to describe the specific aspects of teachers’ work as a set of attributes which are manifested across the career levels of the teacher.
Professional knowledge: This is made up of the fundamental ideas, principles and structure of the disciplines they teach. This refers to the content knowledge of the teaching area and also to aspects of pedagogic and pedagogic content knowledge as it includes not only the material of the discipline itself, but knowledge of how to transmit this discipline in educational contexts Professional practice: In their professional practice, teachers communicate effectively with their students and establish clear goals for learning. This dimension of teachers’ competence focuses on the management and organisation of learning and the framing here divides practices from knowledge. The implication here seems to be that curriculum delivery is mechanical. Professional values: This refers to teaching as an ethical enterprise and takes two dimensions: ethical conduct and commitment. The commitment discussed is to developing and continually analysing, professional practice. The recognition here is that the professional competence of teachers is located within a context of change with a need to remain up-to-date with developments in the profession. Professional relationships: This refers to abilities to work productively as members of communities of professionals and of school communities.
Subject-specific standards for teaching English as a Second Language The earliest attempt to develop standards for teachers in Australia occurred in the area of ESL teaching. The standards for the ESL profession in Australia are presented as TESOL teacher competencies (Hogan, 1994) which were developed by the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA) and the Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ATESOL). The document sets out to produce a “set of competency descriptions incorporating elements and performance indicators which would define the specialised field of TESOL teaching” (p. 1). The competencies involved were grouped into four basic components:
knowledge; practice; ethics of teaching; and professionalism and professional development.
Each of these groupings contains competency statements which are in turn expressed as a series of elements which comprise the competency being described. These competencies, reflecting the overwhelming nature of the competency movement, are atomistic accounts of knowledges, skills and attitudes rather than indications of holistic performance, or even integrated sets of competencies (Ashworth & Saxton, 1990). More recent approaches to professional standards have sought to develop a more holistic understanding of what is involved in the professionalism of teachers.
The competencies evolved in the context of ESL were not, like other attempts at articulating professional standards in Australia, directed at school-based teachers, but rather were an attempt to address issues in adult education and more especially in feepaying English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) programs, where there were substantive concerns over the quality of teaching and the qualifications of teachers and a need was articulated for processes of accreditation and recognition. ACTA has further developed their standards for accomplished teachers of English to speakers of other languages (Australian Council of TESOL Associations, 2005) are organised around three core dimensions: dispositions towards TESOL; understandings about TESOL and skills in TESOL, each of which has three standards. The first of these groups personal attributes of the TESOL professional and includes valuing of cultural inclusivity and multilingualism, appreciation of the pivotal role of language and culture in learning, teaching and socialisation and commitment to reflective practice and program evaluation. The second dimension refers to familiarity with relevant pedagogical and policy documents, understanding of the factors involved in acquiring English as an additional language and teaching and assessment practices. Skills includes developing education which is responsive to learners experiences and aspirations, selection and sequencing of content and scaffolding students’ learning development through classroom interaction, negotiation, teaching strategies, activities, materials and assessment. The nine standards are further explicated at three levels: educational setting, orientation to learning and teaching and professional practice to further develop the descriptions of professional practice. Mathematics Professional standards for teachers of mathematics were developed by the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers in 2002 (Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, 2002). These standards are described as “standards for excellence” and are identified as having two functions:
providing a basis on which the AAMT can assess teachers of mathematics as Highly Accomplished; and providing a framework for teachers’ career-long professional growth.
The AAMT standards, deal with three specific domains of mathematics teaching:
professional knowledge (comprising knowledge of students, knowledge of mathematics and knowledge of students’ learning of mathematics); professional attributes (comprising personal attributes, personal professional development, community responsibilities); and professional practice (comprising the learning environment, planning for learning, teaching in action and assessment).
The document provides a brief values statement for each of the themes included in the standards which reflect a general characterisation of the professional competence of the mathematics teacher. What is interesting about the AAMT standards is that they do not try to capture the whole professional competence of mathematics teachers, but focus only on some
dimensions of that competence. The standards are restricted to the specialised work of teaching mathematics and explicitly exclude characteristics and attributes of teachers in general. The AAMT standards state that they expect that all teachers of mathematics to:
have qualifications appropriate to the grade level and/or mathematics they teach; behave, and carry out their duties in a responsible and ethical manner; and have a personal philosophy of teaching and learning that is evident in their classroom practice.
The document also states that these are not part of the professional standards produced by the AAMT. English/Literacy The standards for English and literacy were developed in a project which involved a consortium of English and literacy educators’ associations (AATE and ALEA), university researchers and government education bodies, which resulted in the Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia (STELLA) (Australian Association of Teachers of English, 2003). These standards are designed to provide a detailed picture of accomplished English/literacy teaching. STELLA is based on two principles:
that professional standards only have validity when grounded in teachers’ own knowledge, experience, skills and values; and that teachers’ knowledge, experience, skills and values are, in important respects, discipline-specific.
The STELLA website provides three sets of interrelated materials:
the statements themselves, which are intended as a summary of best teaching practice in English/literacy teaching; a set of thirty-three key words identifying attributes to describe accomplished teaching, in which ach key word is accompanied by questions which invite further review, reflection and discussion; and a set of narratives written by teachers and illustrating the standards in action. The narratives are designed to capture the multidimensional and contextualised nature of teaching, the particularities of specific classrooms, school sites, systems or cohorts of students. The narratives are presented as being at the core of STELLA.
The standards themselves are group into three domains:
professional knowledge: teachers know their students, their subject and how students learn to be powerfully literate; professional practice: teachers plan for effective learning; create and maintain a challenging learning environment; and assess and review student learning and plan for future learning; and
professional engagement: teachers demonstrate commitment; continue to learn; and are active members of the professional and wider community.
In addition, the standards express language modes across which teachers’ professional practices are enacted. These are listed as: speaking and listening, reading, writing, and viewing. Science The Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA) has developed a set of professional standards to describe accomplished teachers of science (Australian Science Teachers Association, 2000) These standards are made up of three broad dimensions: 1.
2.
3.
professional knowledge, which is defined as knowledge of science and the science curriculum, knowledge of pedagogy of science and knowledge of students; professional practice, which includes program design, providing a suitable learning environment, promoting student engagement, extending students’ understanding of science, developing students’ confidence and ability and using a range of strategies in teaching practice; and professional attributes, which are made up of reflective practice and working collegially with the school and wider community.
The standards are therefore broadly focused and reflect similar understandings of professional competence as the standards for other disciplines. Music The Australian Society for Music Education standards (Australian Society for Music Education, 2005) are organised around four core dimensions: professional knowledge, professional practice, professional relationships and professional values. Professional knowledge is viewed in terms of knowledge of students, of subject matter and of learning. Professional practice is group around creating a learning environment, planning learning and assessment. Professional relationships are presented in terms of reflective practice, working collegially and recognising and responding to context. The values section, which is not specifically included in other standards documents, has a strong ethical statement about the nature of teaching which is based on respect for culture, following a code of conduct and valuing music education. Computers in education The Australian Council for Computers in Education has not currently developed a standards document but has investigated the question of standards for learning technology. The discussion study (Australian Council for Computers in Education, 2000) frames the issue of standards in terms of competencies, but does not explicitly frame these competencies. The ACCE position is, however, that the standards to be developed should be developmental and see the primary role of a standards document as enhancing teaching practice and envisage a strong link between standards and professional development.
Australian approaches to language teacher standards at state level There has been some work at state and territory level to examine issues related to standards for language teachers, however this work is at very different levels in different states and territories and constructs the issue of standards in a number of different ways. Queensland has introduced a process of language proficiency testing, based on the Australian Second Language Proficiency Rating Scale (ASLPR) (see Ingram & Wylie, 1979). Teachers are employed on the basis of this proficiency assessment and then encouraged to upgrade their language proficiency through professional development (Education Queensland, 2004). The Victorian Department of Education has also investigated the proficiency requirements of language teachers (see for example Elder, 1995; Gearon, 1993), however the proposals which have been made have not currently been formalised and remain as drafts. The approach to language teachers’ proficiency canvassed in Victoria differs from that adopted in Queensland in that, rather than a global measure of proficiency, the Victorian proposals take a more contexted approach by examining the sorts of language skills needed by language teachers in the classroom as an ‘Inventory of Teacher Tasks’ (Elder, 1995). Western Australia has likewise examined issues related to professional standards for language teachers, but as in the case of Victoria, these have not been implemented (Briguglio & Kirkpatrick, 1996). Briguglio and Kirkpatrick argue that language proficiency assessment itself not be considered as the sole issue in language teachers’ professional competency and not be used as the screening factor for determining entrance to the profession. They argue instead that language proficiency assessment should be “implemented in relation to the provision of languages upgrade courses and be used for placement, and for progression and exit from such courses” (Briguglio & Kirkpatrick, 1996:70). The report recognises the difficulties of implementing proficiency assessment in terms of the nature of the proficiency being assessed and the purposes and practices of proficiency assessment. In South Australia, Scarino, Papademetre, & Dellit (2004) have developed a comprehensive document on standards in language teaching which include not only teacher standards but also program standards. They argue that high standards of language learning result from the interoperation of knowledge and conceptualisations of languages and cultures, teacher standards and program standards. The report bases its approach to knowledge and conceptualisation of languages and cultures to work in the area of intercultural language learning, especially Liddicoat et al. (2003). It then develops a detailed overview of standards of language teaching, which it summarises as a holistic standard. Being an ethical and knowing teacher of languages and cultures means having a disposition to ethical knowing and its function in all social spheres of communication and interaction. It means understanding and working with commitment and dedication, engagement and enthusiasm, empathy and respect for learners and learning. It means having a deep understanding of personal responsibility to act upon
one’s own ethical-and-knowing self by mediating this understanding to the learner. It means the teaching of respect, dedication, enthusiasm, engagement, commitment and how they are acted upon by the teacher and learners, interacting with each other and many others across cultural and linguistic borders. It means working with a deep understanding of language-learningand-using within a wide social and cultural reality, and mediating this understanding from multiple perspectives, and in diverse contexts. (Scarino et al., 2004:12) They break this holistic standard down into six areas of knowing:
knowing and self awareness; knowing and using language and culture; knowing learners and second language and culture learning; knowing the languages curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and evaluation; and knowing and connecting beyond the classroom.
The school program standards are divided into three sets of considerations:
system and school culture and policies; curriculum policy, planning and implementation; and timetable and teaching structures.
Scarino et al.’s (2004) work is substantially different from other work on language teacher standards in that it is not concerned with language proficiency as the determiner of teacher standards but rather examines a broad knowledge base of which knowledge of language is only one dimension. It also acknowledges that high quality teaching is not a decontextualised set of ‘best practices’, but rather is contextualised in particular language programs. In the remaining states and territories, there has been little work on language teacher professional standards, although there has been work on general standards for registration of teachers. Most of the work related to professional standards in all states, however, can be seen in terms of the professional development programs which are on offer in state and territory jurisdictions. These invariably concern issues relating to language teaching methodologies and, often to a lesser extent, language proficiency development.
Language teacher standards internationally Professional standards for accomplished language teachers have not been widely developed, although many governments have minimum standards for registration of teachers, including language teachers. In the United States standards for foreign language teaching were developed as standards for teacher education programs and were developed by the Foreign Language Standards Collaborative in conjunction with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) (Foreign Language Teacher Standards Writing Team, 2002). These standards will be submitted to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) for
approval and use in granting national recognition of foreign language teacher preparation programs and in making institutional accreditation decisions (Coltrane, 2002). The NCATE/ACTFL program standards for foreign language teacher education programs consider three major aspects of teaching:
content-area and pedagogic knowledge; skills in teaching; and dispositions for teaching.
The document further identifies six content standards that categorize the broad areas in which teachers are expected to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and dispositions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
language, linguistics, and comparisons; cultures, literatures, and cross-disciplinary concepts; language acquisition theories and instructional practices; integration of standards into curriculum and instruction; assessment of languages and cultures; and professionalism.
Each of the content standards is organised into two or three supporting standards that describe in detail the specific types of knowledge, skills and dispositions required. In addition, guidelines are given to illustrate the types of performance that approach, meet, or exceed the standard. The standards themselves are, therefore, broadly focused and language proficiency is just one of the dimensions found in language, linguistics and comparison. The document is very closely tied to standards for language learning (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, 1999) which are organized around five goals of language learning:
Communication: Students communicate in languages other than English. Cultures: Students gain knowledge and understanding of other cultures. Connections: Students connect with other disciplines and acquire information. Comparisons: Students develop insight into the nature of language and culture. Communities: Students participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world.
The preparation of foreign language teachers is the joint responsibility of languages teaching and education. The document argues that in order for language teachers to attain the required knowledge, skills, and dispositions, teacher education programs of must demonstrate that they include: 1. The development of candidates’ foreign language proficiency in all areas of communication, with special emphasis on developing oral proficiency, in all language courses. Upper-level courses should be taught in the foreign language. 2. An ongoing assessment of candidates’ oral proficiency and provision of diagnostic feedback to candidates concerning their progress in meeting required levels of proficiency.
3. Language, linguistics, culture and literature components. 4. A methods course that deals specifically with the teaching of foreign languages, and that is taught by a qualified faculty member whose expertise is foreign language education and who is knowledgeable about current instructional approaches and issues. 5. Field experiences prior to student teaching that include experiences in foreign language classrooms. 6. Field experiences, including student teaching, that are supervised by a qualified foreign language educator who is knowledgeable about current instructional approaches and issues in the field of foreign language education. 7. Opportunities for candidates to experience technology-enhanced instruction and to use technology in their own teaching. Opportunities for candidates to participate in a structured study abroad program and/or intensive immersion experience in a target language community. (Foreign Language Teacher Standards Writing Team, 2002:24) This framework is designed as a set of standards for entry to the profession and for shaping pre-service training rather than as a description of accomplished professional practice and as such differs from the sorts of professional standards being developed by professional organisations in Australia, such as ACE, AATE/ALEA and AAMT.
Conclusion The discussion of standards above reveals a number of common features. Firstly, they all focus on macro-level statements about teachers’ professional work rather than attempting to detail what that work may be based on. Secondly, they do not make specifications about the nature and standard of relevant disciplinary knowledge (as would be the case for standards of language proficiency) although they all assume knowledge of the discipline. Thirdly, they are all developed as descriptions of the accomplished teacher and can be used by teachers as a resource for their own professional learning as teachers of the relevant discipline. Fourthly, they conceptualise teachers’ professional practice in broad groups which cover: teachers’ knowledges, teachers’ practice and attributes of the teacher. In addition, the knowledges that teachers have and the practices in which they engage can be seen as complex. That is, there is no one feature of teachers’ knowledge or practice which can be deemed to be of paramount importance for an accomplished teacher. Moreover, there is a range of variation in what constitutes good teaching and good teachers may teach in widely different ways which are nonetheless equally good in their context. This means that there can be no decontextualised idea of what constitutes ‘good practice’ in language teaching. Instead, good language teaching relates to being able to achieve language teaching goals, in a particular program, with a particular group of students, in a particular social and cultural context. It is therefore important that standards for language teachers reflect the inherent variability of good teaching and allow for flexibility rather than attempting to impose a model of professional practice.
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