Federal and state legislation continues to promote teacher accountability in the United States. The new edTPA, a subject‐specific teacher performance assessment, is purported to measure beginning teacher readiness and is being pilot tested and implemented for licensure and certification decisions across the country. In this exploratory quantitative study, the researchers examined edTPA scores of 21 world language teacher candidates from two teacher preparation programs and compared those results to the cut scores for the states of Washington and New York. Results indicated that participants performed best in the planning section and were most challenged by the assessment section. This research has implications for teacher certification candidates, world language teacher preparation programs, policy makers, and other stakeholders.
Second language teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a sophisticated combination of pedagogical and content knowledge. This study explores the acquisition and articulation of PCK, highlighting the question of whether teacher education programs add to language teachers' knowledge base. Data was gathered using a performance assessment that incorporated teacher writing tasks in Spanish with a reflective paragraph to explain decisions made while writing. Areas of interest were language awareness, knowledge of effective teaching, and knowledge of learners. The study's primary purpose is to reveal whether PCK differed in preservice Spanish teachers' writing, as compared to Spanish Liberal Arts majors' writing. Qualitative analysis revealed differing stages of PCK between the groups, suggesting teacher education's influence on the preservice teachers' performance.
Abstract:Teacher accountability continues to be at the forefront of educational policy in the United States, with the current focus on the Outcomes of K-12 teaching and teacher education (Cochran-Smith 2000). edTPA, a high-stakes assessment used in many states to make licensure or certification decisions, purports to measure those content-specific outcomes. This study investigated pre-service Spanish teachers' performance on the World Language edTPA as it relates to planning for instruction in a communicative context. Specifically, the five highest scoring edTPA portfolios from two large world language teacher education programs were examined, with a focus on their alignment with communicative language teaching approaches and Gronlund's (2004) criteria for articulating student learning outcomes. Results showed serious discrepancies among the candidates' learning outcomes, communicative language teaching approaches, and the spirit of the World Language edTPA. This research has implications for teacher preparation and professional development of beginning language teachers.Keywords: backward design/diseño de atrás hacia adelante, edTPA, learning objectives/objetivos de aprendizaje, teacher evaluation/evaluación docente, teacher preparation/preparación del profesorado
The student teaching semester affords teacher candidates the chance to apply what they have learned during their teacher preparation coursework. Therefore, it can be a prime opportunity for student teachers to implement computer assisted language learning (CALL) and use technology for their own language learning. This study explores United States K-12 foreign language (FL) student teachers’ use of and beliefs about CALL technologies. Four research questions guide this study: (a) How are FL student teachers using CALL for personal language learning (if at all)? (b) What do FL student teachers report they believe about their own personal language learning using CALL? (c) How are FL student teachers using CALL pedagogically (if at all)? (d) What do FL student teachers report they believe about their teacher preparation in CALL? Data from 73 FL student teachers suggest FL student teachers do not feel well prepared to use CALL technologies pedagogically and that they have a limited repertoire of technology resources. Approximately 85% of these student teachers self-report their knowledge of CALL technologies as novice or intermediate. This article examines the virtues and shortcomings of FL student teachers’ preparation and use of CALL and offers suggestions for FL teacher education.
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