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This article describes the implementation of a practice-based approach to foreign language (FL) teacher preparation. After briefly framing the discussion in relation to the literature on the practice-based approach in teacher education – including Phase I of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Research Priorities – we present the implementation and integration of this approach in the context of FL teacher preparation. The successes and challenges encountered throughout the implementation experience are discussed, and recommendations are made for practice-based course design in FL teacher preparation programs and for future research on the practice-based approach.

This article reports on the implementation of the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) in an Early Foreign Language Learning program. The goal of this research was to examine the performance of grade 4 and 5 students of Spanish on the IPA. Performance across the three communicative tasks is described and modifications to IPA procedures based on the needs of the young learner are presented. Comparisons of the performance of monolingual and multilingual students and information collected through a student post‐IPA survey are also reported. The researchers argue that in addition to benefits of the IPA to describe student communicative performance, integrate teaching and assessment, and promote standards‐based teaching practices, the IPA also has the potential to identify strengths and weaknesses of elementary school foreign language programs.

In response to the ACTFL's Research Priorities Initiative, the present study used a multiple case study design to examine teacher candidates' ability to implement two high‐leverage teaching practices: increasing interaction and target language comprehensibility and questioning to build and assess student understanding. Candidates implemented these practices in K–12 foreign language classrooms following a practice‐based methodology course. Findings revealed that candidates could more easily translate some aspects of practice to the field site than others. Generally, teacher candidates scored better on aspects of practice for which they were able to plan and practice than on those that required them to vary from their lesson plans or make in‐the‐moment decisions. Teacher candidates struggled the most with aspects of practice that involved sustaining meaningful interaction with students.

This case study reports the results of a genre-based approach, which was used to explicitly teach the touristic landmark description to fourth-grade students of Spanish as a foreign language. The instructional model and unit of instruction were informed by the pedagogies of the Sydney School of Linguistics and an instructional model for integrating the three modes of communication, as well as the literature on content-based instruction. An analysis of the writing of a focal student, Jackie, provides evidence of the potential of the pedagogy to develop students' ability to appropriate the linguistic representation of content in ways that current frameworks do not yet consider. Thus, implications of the findings are explored related to the integration of functional linguistics, genre theory, and genre-based pedagogy for instruction that is informed by the World-Readiness Standards, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines-Writing, and the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements for presentational writing.This article describes the results of the implementation of an interactive instructional model through which the touristic landmark description was explicitly taught to fourth-grade students of Spanish as a foreign language (Troyan, 2014). The pedagogy was informed by the genre-based pedagogies