Educating Second Language Teachers

Book excerpt: Donald Freeman examines how core ideas and practices in educating second language teachers relate to and differ from teacher education in other content areas. He weaves together research in general and second language teacher education with accounts of experience and practice to examine how background knowledge is defined in language teaching. Throughout, Freeman demonstrates how understanding the processes of teacher learning, knowing, thinking, and reflecting are ‘the same things done differently’ in second language teacher education. Educating Second Language Teachers reconsiders pre- and in-service teacher education, and proposes a detailed, comprehensive design theory for teacher education. “A masterful account of the landscape of second language teacher education and the development of its theoretical assumptions and practices. It offers a unique and original conceptualization of the field and will be an invaluable resource for teachers, teacher educators and researchers.” Jack C. Richards, University of Sydney and University of Auckland Additional online resources are available at www.oup.com/elt/teacher/eslt Donald Freeman is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. Oxford Applied Linguistics Series Advisers: Anne Burns and Diane Larsen-Freeman