Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 1 The Landscapes of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 1 The Scope of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 2 Trends in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 3 Critical Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 4 Social and Cultural Perspectives
- Section 2 Professionalism and The Language Teaching Profession
- Chapter 5 Second Language Teacher Professionalism
- Chapter 6 Certification and Professional Qualifications
- Chapter 7 Standards and Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 8 Assessment in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 9 Teacher Preparation and Nonnative English-Speaking Educators
- Chapter 10 “Trainer Development”: Professional Development for Language Teacher Educators
- Section 3 Pedagogical Knowledge in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 11 The Curriculum of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 12 Knowledge About Language
- Chapter 13 SLA and Teacher Education
- Chapter 14 Acquiring Knowledge of Discourse Conventions in Teacher Education
- Section 4 Identity, Cognition, and Experience in Teacher Learning
- Chapter 15 Personal Practical Knowledge in L2 Teacher Education
- Chapter 16 Language Teacher Cognition
- Chapter 17 Teacher Identity
- Chapter 18 The Novice Teacher Experience
- Chapter 19 Teaching Expertise: Approaches, Perspectives, and Characterizations
- Section 5 Contexts for Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 20 Teaching and Learning in the Course Room
- Chapter 21 School-Based Experience
- Chapter 22 Language Teacher Education by Distance
- Chapter 23 Technology and Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 6 Second Language Teacher Education Through Collaboration
- Chapter 24 Collaborative Teacher Development
- Chapter 25 The Practicum
- Chapter 26 Mentoring
- Chapter 27 Language Teacher Supervision
- Section 7 Second Language Teacher Development Through Research and Practice
- Chapter 28 Second Language Classroom Research
- Chapter 29 Action Research in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 30 Reflective Practice
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Acknowledgments
Chapter 13 - SLA and Teacher Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 1 The Landscapes of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 1 The Scope of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 2 Trends in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 3 Critical Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 4 Social and Cultural Perspectives
- Section 2 Professionalism and The Language Teaching Profession
- Chapter 5 Second Language Teacher Professionalism
- Chapter 6 Certification and Professional Qualifications
- Chapter 7 Standards and Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 8 Assessment in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 9 Teacher Preparation and Nonnative English-Speaking Educators
- Chapter 10 “Trainer Development”: Professional Development for Language Teacher Educators
- Section 3 Pedagogical Knowledge in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 11 The Curriculum of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 12 Knowledge About Language
- Chapter 13 SLA and Teacher Education
- Chapter 14 Acquiring Knowledge of Discourse Conventions in Teacher Education
- Section 4 Identity, Cognition, and Experience in Teacher Learning
- Chapter 15 Personal Practical Knowledge in L2 Teacher Education
- Chapter 16 Language Teacher Cognition
- Chapter 17 Teacher Identity
- Chapter 18 The Novice Teacher Experience
- Chapter 19 Teaching Expertise: Approaches, Perspectives, and Characterizations
- Section 5 Contexts for Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 20 Teaching and Learning in the Course Room
- Chapter 21 School-Based Experience
- Chapter 22 Language Teacher Education by Distance
- Chapter 23 Technology and Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 6 Second Language Teacher Education Through Collaboration
- Chapter 24 Collaborative Teacher Development
- Chapter 25 The Practicum
- Chapter 26 Mentoring
- Chapter 27 Language Teacher Supervision
- Section 7 Second Language Teacher Development Through Research and Practice
- Chapter 28 Second Language Classroom Research
- Chapter 29 Action Research in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 30 Reflective Practice
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Acknowledgments
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Second language acquisition (SLA) is a relatively new discipline, dating back only some 40-odd years. It seeks to describe and explain how learners acquire a second language (L2). In this sense, second refers to any language other than the learner’s first language (i.e., it includes foreign as well as third or fourth languages).
Initially SLA was closely connected with language pedagogy as many of the early researchers involved were language teachers or teacher educators. Increasingly, however, SLA has become an autonomous field of study, drawing on a number of other disciplines – linguistics, psychology, sociology, as well as education. In its current form it constitutes a rich and far-reaching discipline, addressing a wide range of issues, not all of which are of relevance to teacher education. In recent years, a number of distinct branches of SLA have developed, one of which – instructed SLA – concerns the relationship between instruction and L2 acquisition. Arguably, it is this area of study that is of most immediate relevance to teacher education.
Language teacher education – the core topic of this book – embraces both pre- and in-service education in courses of varying lengths – ranging from a year or longer to a few hours. Thus, although most teacher educators would acknowledge that language teachers need an understanding of how learners learn an L2, there can be no single recipe for incorporating SLA into a teacher education course. In the following sections I will offer a number of different approaches for utilizing the findings of SLA in teacher education programs.
SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS
WHAT DO TEACHERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SLA?
The main areas of inquiry in SLA are now well established. Widely used textbooks in language teacher education, such as Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991), Ellis (1985, 1994, 1997, 2008), Towell and Hawkins (1994), and Gass and Selinker (2001), all cover the topics listed and described in Table 1, although they label them somewhat differently (e.g., where Ellis has a chapter on “variability” Gass and Selinker’s corresponding chapter is called “interlanguage in context”). Judging from these standard textbooks, then, these are SLA topics that teachers need to know about. It can be argued, however, that not all of them are of equal relevance to language teachers.
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- Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education , pp. 135 - 143Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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