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THE TITLE of this paper reflects two underlying assumptions: prospects suggests that reform is desirable but that its realization is in question, and significant implies a belief that only major modifications will suffice. Clearly, change is not necessarily progress. Moreover, piecemeal innovation is not significant reform; it may improve current practice without substantially altering goals, structures, roles, and the complex cultures that have developed over many decades (Fullen and Stiegelbauer; Morain). Teacher education has become a patched and neglected dirigible that begs to be transformed into a spacecraft, a task that will require at the very least a new commitment and teamwork from all concerned, the development of new knowledge and skills, the provision of adequate resources and incentives, and the opening of new channels to promote innovation and collaboration.
Pressures for change are increasing. The sources range from an evolving knowledge base and shifting goals to public and political accusations that American education is failing and that it's the teachers' fault. A growing body of literature analyzes and criticizes current practice and proposes fundamental reforms. For foreign language teacher education in particular, many issues have been addressed, and specific recommendations have been made (see, e.g., Guntermann; Morain; Phillips; Richards; Tedick and Walker; Wallace). But effecting major change requires critically evaluating the status quo and modifying long-held attitudes, fossilized structures, routinized procedures, and the traditional discourse that serves to perpetuate these barriers to significant change.
The pressures for reform come from outside the profession and also from fundamental changes within. Perhaps he most powerful are political pressures from outside. Although many would have us return to yesteryear, when the “basics” presumably excluded languages, some decry the unwillingness of the education establishment to reform itself. (Paradoxically, these groups are often the same.) Teachers and teacher educators are perceived to be a major part of the problem. Legislators, boards of education, and boards of regents challenge us to do better with less and often believe they have solutions that are superior to ours (witness the promotion of charter schools and school vouchers and the elimination of colleges and departments of education to make room for more local control).
A second source of pressure for new approaches is the changing clientele of schools; students bring with them unprecedented social and emotional problems, together with an increasing desire for an education that will ready them for their future careers and for other practical endeavors. This orientation means that language teachers need to achieve proficiency in language and culture, yet majors typically do not reach the Advanced level on the ACTFL scale by the time they graduate. As the national standards suggest, teachers need Advanced proficiency to teach in the language and not just about it (ACTFL). Our goals have changed and have become clearer. The ACTFL proficiency guidelines define—for the moment, at least—what it means to communicate, while the national standards outline additional areas that need to be addressed: subject-matter learning in the language, insight into the nature of language itself, and the ability to use the language beyond the classroom.
Pressures for change are accompanied by an evolving, expanding knowledge base; for example, we know that language acquisition takes place through communicative interaction and through using the language to learn other material rather than through building an isolated system of forms and structures. Researchers are discovering how learners go about the tasks of learning and what kinds of teaching strategies are most effective in classrooms filled with diverse learners. Unfortunately, we also know that teachers tend to teach the way they were taught. Where will the break in this pattern come if we continue to think of teacher candidates as apprentices? How can we prepare future teachers to teach in a way that reforms schooling, or as Marilyn Cochran-Smith has said, to “teach against the grain”?
Other pressures stem from technological developments and shifts in the way we think about assessment. Teachers and teacher educators need to keep abreast of technological changes, both to use them effectively and to ensure that they are really advances rather than “delivery systems” that do not engage learners' minds. It is also desirable to identify forms of assessment that measure what students and teachers can do more authentically than tests can. Portfolios, for example, chart students' products, performances, and progress over time and give students more input and responsibility in the evaluation process.
Since many of today's universities began as normal schools, which focused solely on teacher education, it is difficult to imagine how they were so completely detoured from this mission that even in colleges of education teacher education is often relegated to inferior status today. If universities fail to attend to this situation, public leaders may view them as incompetent or irrelevant. Students in teacher education programs, graduates of these programs, and the mentoring teachers who work with teacher candidates in the schools are also critical of universities' performance in teacher education. As part of an MLA-sponsored teacher education project, a team consisting of a high school teacher and of five faculty members and administrators from Arizona State University conducted a survey of these three groups to assess the experience of students in the teacher education program and make necessary changes. The results suggest that the program at Arizona State is typical of most traditional language programs.
The survey revealed that most faculty members in the department of languages and literatures took teaching seriously and that students have a good deal of input and were assigned a great deal of reading and writing, a certain amount of oral work, and a healthy dose of grammar. In a traditional sense, the program was sound. Another strong point was that language courses aimed at skill development were required of majors not only in the first two years but in the third and fourth years as well. Respondents perceived weaknesses in the faculty's teaching practices, particularly in content courses (literature and civilization). They also noted a lack of coordination between the department of languages and literatures and the college of education, inadequate advising in both units, and inadequate instruction in foreign language teaching methods (only one course was offered).
Students and recent graduates noted that the typical format of the content courses—lectures combined with oral presentations—did not relate to the practices required for effective teaching at the high school level. Some suggested that such a format is outdated in any educational context, given communicative competence goals and current knowledge about the learning process. Faculty questionnaires supported students' claims that faculty members seldom used cooperative group work; only a few faculty members used portfolios, and most portfolios were limited to folders of students' essays for a given course. At the time of the survey, faculty members did not use technology in their teaching, although the recent installation of state-of-the-art laboratories and the initiation of summer workshops on technology have begun to change faculty practices.
Students and faculty members alike reported that authentic materials (except for literature) were used infrequently and that prereading exercises were uncommon as well. Students were seldom given opportunities to select, organize, or assess their own or one another's work. Occasionally, particularly in some noncognate languages, literature was taught in English because it was considered important enough to warrant the sacrifice of language proficiency development. In fact, proficiency development, especially oral proficiency development, received little focused attention in most content courses. The result of this omission is that few majors reached the Advanced level before graduation.
All respondents complained that one course in foreign language teaching methods was not enough. They typically called for more preparation in applied linguistics and pedagogy, which they saw as directly affecting teaching strategies and as promoting understanding of how students learn. Respondents would prefer that this additional preparation be substituted for much of the general theory presented in education courses.
In commenting on the preparation of the teacher candidates, the mentoring teachers noted in particular a lack of expertise in planning, assessment, and classroom and time management. They added that in the future, teachers will need preparation for using technology in language instruction, for working with diverse student populations, and for collaborating with other teachers to integrate curricula. They also noted that because of reductions in district-level personnel and the push for local control, teachers will need more expertise in curriculum design and development.
To respond to the educational reform movement and to the survey respondents' recommendations, the team concluded that it would be necessary to establish the following model program. Only the aspects of teacher education that are usually the responsibility of language departments are included here: knowledge and skills related to language and culture, linguistic preparation, and pedagogical content specific to foreign language teaching. The responsibilities shared with the college of education are not listed. It is also assumed that pedagogical preparation takes place in the language department, as it often does for secondary education majors. The model defines proficiency in language and culture, linguistics, and pedagogy.
Proficiency in language and culture is achieved by
extensive practice of language for social, travel, and classroom-related purposes through activities that target communicative ability, appropriateness, and accuracy in real-life situations
teaching in the target language at all levels
integration of language proficiency development, cultural knowledge, and literature at all levels
cooperative learning activities for planning, problem solving, and learning subject-matter content in all language and content courses
individual and group presentations of other subject matter (e.g., history, science, math) in the target language
use of the audiovisual lab and of taped materials from television and radio
use of the computer lab for foreign language word processing, for running language-specific software, for interaction with native speakers (e.g., by e-mail or voice mail or in chat sessions), and for searching the Internet
use of authentic print media
stress on critical thinking in comparing and contrasting home and target cultures
maintaining a portfolio of best work
teaching peers and editing and evaluating their work self-monitoring and self-evaluation
use of prereading, reading, and postreading exercises to teach content
advising and mentoring
diagnostic testing at the beginning of the education program and proficiency-level testing before student teaching
related coursework in other areas (e.g., history, art history, geography, philosophy, music)
Proficiency in linguistics is achieved by
knowledge of basic concepts and theories of language and of language use in communication
knowledge of phonology, morphology, and syntax of the target language
knowledge of language-acquisition theory and research and of acquisition of the target language by adults and children
comparison of the native and target languages
study of linguistic applications to language teaching and for curriculum design; practice in teaching pronunciation, auditory discrimination, and vocabulary
acquiring information about the language learner, including learning styles and strategies, attitudes, motivations, language anxiety and language beliefs, and the relation of these factors to language learning
Proficiency in pedagogy is achieved by
practice in using professional resources (e.g., journals, teachers' organizations, books and monographs, language-learning technologies)
defining clear goals for language learning and teaching
knowledge of traditional and nontraditional teaching methods
practice in integrating culture into language teaching and in using technology to teach
knowledge of oral skill development and practice in presenting new material, in designing and implementing lessons for varied functional practice in context, and in using technology to develop oral skills
knowledge of listening skill development and practice in designing lessons for comprehension of controlled and authentic input, in using technology to develop listening skills, and in locating and producing audio materials
knowledge of reading skill development and practice in teaching sound-symbol relations, in designing lessons for comprehension of authentic materials, in incorporating literature, and in using technology to develop reading skills
knowledge of writing skill development and practice in designing lessons to provide extensive and intensive writing practice and in using technology to develop writing skills
practice in integrating the four skills within lessons and activities
practice in developing achievement tests and in administering and rating proficiency tests
practice in assessing progress, products, and performance in the four skills and in cultural awareness
practice in giving feedback and correcting errors
practice in promoting and defending language study, orally and in writing
instruction and introductory experience in curriculum design and development
knowledge of course planning and practice in unit and lesson planning
evaluating instruction and programs
evaluating and selecting textbooks and other materials
devising supplementary materials
teaching other subject matter in the language
guided experiences with students in schools and collaboration with master teachers and with foreign language teaching specialists throughout the program
participation in professional meetings and conferences
Conversations to devise plans for implementing these recommendations are taking place with representatives from the five language sections that prepare teachers. The success of this endeavor, as well as that of similar efforts in other institutions, will depend in part on changes with regard to the problems and issues I outline below.
At a conference of participants in the MLA teacher education project, it was noted that changing a university is like moving a cemetery. There are many reasons why this assertion may be true. The structure of universities tends to separate teacher educators who work in different units, each of which may have a distinctive culture. Genelle Morain has aptly noted that each culture often has its own worldview, as well as “a different set of heroes, and enough differences in tribal rites to generate authentic culture shock in a visitor to the other culture.” She decries the negative stereotypes these groups have about one another: “It is time to dispel the misperceptions that have divided our profession; we have more important things to attend to” (20). Nevertheless, these barriers are difficult to penetrate, given the lack of structures to facilitate interaction between units and the priorities for projects, funding, and faculty lines that are already well-established within each unit. Additional obstacles separate universities from the schools, where much of teacher education should occur and where all teacher educators should work with teacher candidates.
During recent decades research has been stressed above all else, and any enterprise with a practical aspect has been perceived as unworthy. Teacher education has lost prestige and credibility even in colleges of education, to the detriment of both practice and research in the field. Teacher education has been provided with few resources in language departments or in colleges of education, and some faculty members have carried all the responsibilities for teacher education while their colleagues have devoted themselves to other research. Negative attitudes have led to the establishment of a hierarchy of prestige, which has been reinforced by the kinds of remarks one often hears in language departments: “Why do we have to offer that course every semester? Those are not our majors.” “You can select any topic for your thesis, as long as it's not related to education.” “You want teacher education to become the tail that wags the dog.” “If the grants committee rejected your proposal, it's probably because they share my feelings of condescension toward people in education.”
Another problem is that the traditional rewards system privileges individual productivity over teamwork. A faculty member who spends a year rallying colleagues to the cause of program reform and conducting associated faculty development activities is not likely to enjoy the superior merit evaluation that may be awarded to a colleague who writes an article or two in the same time.
A further barrier to significant reform is the lack of preparation on the part of faculty members. Expertise in program development, administration, and reform are not typically considered in the hiring process. Such expertise, along with a bent toward teamwork, is necessary if we are to develop programs rather than loose collections of courses that, once established, are seldom or never evaluated.
Moreover, in the typical language department, one resident pedagogue is often considered sufficient (or even excessive). One person can hardly be expected to teach all the courses for prospective teachers, to supervise field experience, to serve as the adviser, to initiate workshops and graduate degree programs for teachers in the field, and to participate actively in the profession on state, regional, and national levels, in addition to carrying the usual teaching, research, and committee loads.
These problems can overwhelm the most industrious teacher educator, especially when he or she thinks about the unrest and anxiety that changes can provoke among colleagues. Yet any hint of support for change is a morale booster. Political pressures from boards of education, legislatures, and regents may encourage university administrators to create channels that allow teacher educators to break through some of the barriers to change. Since foreign languages are often overlooked or viewed as marginal outside our field, it is important that we seek administrative positions or accomplish great feats in order to call attention to languages and to language teacher education (e.g., by acquiring substantial grants for teacher education).
As national and local standards lead to proficiency testing of students, teachers' skills will be assessed as well. Could our current teacher candidates meet the twelfth-grade standards, and can they develop in their students the knowledge and skills necessary to meet these standards? When additional standards for teachers and teacher preparation programs are in place—for example, when the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education reviews the language and culture components of teachers' preparation as well as their pedagogical preparation—how will our language departments fare? Universities may have to make adjustments in their programs to ensure that their graduates are qualified. This process has already begun in states such as Texas, where the legislature has mandated that language teacher candidates achieve an Advanced oral proficiency rating and where additional standards for teachers and teacher education programs are being established.
How does change take place? According to Michael Fullen and Suzanne Stiegelbauer, the change process is composed of four phases: initiation, implementation, continuation, and outcomes. The quality of the outcomes depends on the success of each of the phases (48). Initiation of significant change requires open dialogue among all parties, as well as the gathering of pertinent information and shared decision making in the planning process. All those who participate in the action plan must understand and accept it. In all stages conflict and disagreement should be acknowledged and accepted and should be worked out to the mutual satisfaction of the participants. According to Mary Lippitt, in the absence of a shared vision, much confusion can be expected, and without a clear action plan, any project will likely begin with a series of false starts (joiner 207).
Successful implementation of a plan depends on the participants' having the necessary knowledge, skills, resources, and incentives. As Lippitt observes, without skills, participants may feel anxiety; without resources they may become frustrated; and without incentive, the project may move slowly or dissipate entirely (Joiner 207). Implementation includes piloting the plan to ensure its integrity and making any needed adjustments. Perhaps one of the most important ingredients in implementation is equal distribution of power (Fullen and Stiegelbauer 82), or at least a shared understanding that any inequities are legitimate and acceptable.
The third phase, continuation, requires assistance and support for personnel, because it entails continuous improvements; once the new plan is in place, the reform has only begun. Successful outcomes depend on maintaining momentum, on regular monitoring and review, and on further adjustments. For fundamental change to occur, participants need to recognize that change will take time, and a significant proportion of the faculty needs to demonstrate trust and commitment.
What factors tend to prompt the most fundamental changes in language departments? According to vigorous discussions among department chairs at the 1996 ADFL Summer Seminar West, in San Diego, the major force, particularly among small departments, is the threat of elimination as administrators comply with pressures to downsize and streamline. Many departments must forge partnerships with businesses and other entities, including schools and local teachers, as they seek to demonstrate their value to society beyond scholarly endeavors. According to Elizabeth Welles, other effective catalysts include grants, merit raises based on teaching evaluations, curricular revisions resulting from departmental self-study, and faculty seminars, which can expand perceptions of the departmental mission and bring professors out of scholarly isolation to work together for a common end.
Although change in teacher education is slow, there are many signs that it is beginning to take place, both in content—that is, language and culture—instruction and in pedagogical preparation. Language departments are hiring more applied linguistics specialists, who have knowledge of language theory and research of language use, and of language acquisition. Each year the MLA job list announces more such openings. As these specialists increase in numbers, they will surely affect attitudes and discourse patterns, as well as practices. Even traditionalists are at least attempting to use group work and asking about portfolios, as they hear about these “new methods” and recognize changes in their students. Older returning students do not always share the professors' understanding and valuing of academic culture, and younger students are increasingly interested in preparing for careers.
Burgeoning articulation projects are a second sign of change. The proficiency and national standards movements are creating an awareness of the disparities that already exist among levels of study and those that will occur as sequences of language study are extended. As articulation projects spring up across the country, it is incumbent on language departments to ensure that their programs are based on clear goals and that fewer gaps exist between levels. Faculty members increasingly take the responsibility for filling those gaps instead of blaming those who teach at and coordinate lower levels. And faculty members who previously have not expressed interest in language teaching are now asking for information on the ACTFL proficiency guidelines and the national standards and for opportunities to participate in designing articulated curricula based at least in part on these documents.
There are also some encouraging indicators of change in the pedagogical preparation of language professors. New compensation plans place teaching on a par with research and redefine service in ways that recognize much of it to be closely related to teaching and scholarship. Projects are being established to prepare graduate students for the professional realities they will encounter after graduation. For example, in Preparing Future Faculty, a project sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools, seventeen doctoral institutions nationwide are involving graduate students in experiences at various types of colleges and universities. In the process, students' eyes and minds are opened to possibilities beyond the boundaries of literary criticism or linguistic theory. Those who specialize in these areas may become department chairs one day, as have many pedagogical specialists who have been hired in recent years. These faculty members tend to be practical, action-oriented organizers who observe curricular and pedagogical discrepancies and work to repair them.
Deans of arts and sciences or of humanities are often at least as interested in fomenting change in teacher education as are their counterparts in schools of education (witness the composition of the Holmes Group, the Renaissance Group, and the Project Thirty Alliance [Murray and Fallon], for example). Cross-campus committees on teacher education are springing up, and universities are encouraging cross-disciplinary endeavors. These efforts come at a time when some (limited) grant funds have become available for teacher education. The MLA project, for example, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, enabled six foreign language departments and six English departments to assess and reform their programs. More such collaborative efforts are needed.
These signs of change are encouraging. But even if barriers are removed and incentives put in place, we need to be actively engaged in at least the work outlined below, all the white observing the guidelines for effective change proposed by Fullen and Stiegelbauer, Lippitt (see Joiner), and others:
Open channels of communication and work collaboratively with colleges of education, schools, and teachers.
Provide remunerated opportunities for faculty development.
Hire specialists in foreign language education and in applied linguistics who integrate research and practice. Work closely with these specialists and avoid overburdening them with the administrative and clerical aspects of supervision and collaboration.
Prepare graduate students to be appropriate models and mentors for future teacher candidates and catalysts for change.
Add courses, field experiences, and assessments that meet the needs of current and future teachers, and encourage teacher candidates to question the status quo and to work for systemic reform.
Call attention within and beyond the university to teacher education research and to innovations in teaching and curricula.
Participate in activities of the wider profession and keep abreast of research and other developments in teacher education.
Establish structures that will encourage and facilitate continued progress.
There seems to be reason to hope that current changes are indicators of more profound reforms to come. As driver education instructors often admonish their students, “A heavy object, once in motion, is hard to stop.” From where we stand now, the question is whether the momentum is sufficient to keep the reforms moving toward ensuring that teachers have the knowledge, skills, and inclinations to make their students truly proficient. Because the many barriers to significant change will not be easily overcome, reform may be more evolutionary than revolutionary. But as Christine Brown has argued, “it may actually be a healthy and enduring way to ensure true reform” (19).
The author is Associate Professor of Spanish and Foreign Language Education in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Arizona State University. This article is based on her presentation at ADFL Summer Seminar West, 6–8 June 1996, in San Diego, California.
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© 1997 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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