I have the good fortune to be able to teach an online seminar on language teacher education at my home institution (the Monterey Institute of International Studies) for our graduate students who wish to do teacher training. As part of the material for that course, I have recorded several language teacher educators talking about how they first got started in teacher training and discussing the challenges and rewards of that role. In preparing for our panel presentation at the 2014 Annual TESOL International Convention & English Language Expo, I asked several of those people if I could summarize the challenges they had discussed in their recordings. They graciously agreed, so in this brief piece, I will share their ideas with you.

The Challenges

Donald Freeman said that a challenge for him is the fact that language, as a subject matter, changes so quickly in terms of its social position and value, as well as its instrumentality in the world. As a result, the language teacher’s role has a hard time catching up. Some teachers’ jobs change on almost a month-to-month basis, so the work of teacher educators is very dynamic.

Lillian Wong got started with computer-assisted language learning (CALL) training for teachers in Hong Kong. She said that at first the inservice teachers in her training courses had much more experience teaching than she did. Also, they were not sure they could use the technology she was teaching them about or whether it would help.

Shortly after she finished her graduate studies, Patsy Duff started teaching in a graduate program for English teachers in China. Like Lillian, Patsy found that many of those teachers were older and more experienced than she was. Now she faces the issue of credibility after not having taught language for a while. Another challenge for Patsy is trying to cover the needs of English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language (ESL/EFL), K–adult, and content area teachers of various languages all in one course. Yet a further challenge is the institutional constraints faced by the graduates when they try to implement what they have learned in her courses in their own classrooms.

Rod Ellis noted that his teacher trainers do not all have the same goals. He said, “How can you give reasonable satisfaction to all of those people? You’ve got to really think about the relationship between theory and practice.” He added that the solution is to stimulate the trainees’ reflection about their teaching.

Denise Murray also faces the challenges of having disparate students with different goals (e.g., elementary and secondary teachers vs. university level teachers vs. teachers who plan to teach in foreign language contexts). Denise said, “Meeting all those needs is well nigh impossible,” but she also added that the diversity of her students is a source of inspiration to her as a teacher educator.

Neil Anderson knew very early in his teaching career that he wanted to be a teacher educator, so he got started with mentoring and coaching teachers. For Neil, one challenge is staying current about the methodologies and research issues in the classes he is teaching—making sure he updates each syllabus to meet the evolving needs of his current students.

Peter DeCosta’s challenge is bridging the gap between theory and practice and making research findings applicable to the classrooms of his trainees. He tries to strike a balance between teaching and research. Peter noted that if we want teachers to be researchers, we need to “walk our talk” and keep that teacher-researcher balance ourselves.

Heekyeong Lee also said she has to model good language teaching and must practice what she teaches. Another challenge for her is demonstrating how powerful language can be in our lives but at the same time how complex language is. She tries to show her graduate students the similarities between their learning of academic discourse and what they will teach their own language students.

Bob Oprandy reflected that in training K–12 teachers for the public schools in the United States, there are many “scripted curricula.” He says that it is frustrating to see what the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the push for accountability have done. How to address these imposed standards and still help the teachers be creative is one of Bob’s main challenges.

Lynn Goldstein’s challenge is working with students who are having serious difficulty, helping them to get past the problems in their coursework. She is also concerned about trainees who do not have confidence. She works at helping them to find their confidence so that they will become the best teachers that they can be.

David Nunan said that a challenge for him is being patient and continuing to remind himself of the lessons he has learned over the years. In teacher training, he notes that simply telling someone how to do something does not result in the person developing that skill.

MaryAnn Christison said she used to think that the challenge was getting teachers to do things she had identified. However, she says, “Now the challenge is also not to put too much of myself onto new teachers—I don’t want them to become miniatures of me.” As a result, she tries to find a balance between providing appropriate guidance and exerting too much influence.

The main challenge for Andy Curtis when he started was recognizing the differences between being a language teacher and being a teacher educator. Many of his trainees were older than Andy then, and he said both sides had to get comfortable with that fact. Andy also said that as a teacher educator, you no longer have the “native speaker edge.” You have to know about theories, frameworks, models, and so on. If you are a native speaker of the target language, you cannot rely on your native speaker intuition.

Jean Turner teaches graduate courses on research methods and language assessment. One of the challenges for her is students who say, “I’m never gonna do research, so why is this important to me?” Some trainees have had bad experiences with tests and say they are never going to test their own students. In addition, Jean must help teachers in training come to grips with the fact that assessment is political as well as academic.

Conclusion

These comments reflect the diversity and yet also some patterns involved in our work as language teacher educators. In spite of the challenges, it is very rewarding work!

Kathleen M. Bailey received her PhD in applied linguistics from the University of California at Los Angeles. Since 1981 she has worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where she has been the head of the TESOL-TFL MA Program and the director of the Intensive English Program. She is currently the faculty advisor to the Language Program Administration specialization students and the Peace Corps Masters Internationalist candidates. Her research and teaching interests include language assessment, teacher education and supervision, the teaching of speaking and listening, and research methodology. In 1998–99, she was the president of TESOL International Association.