Moving beyond the historical and theoretical traditions that have defined teacher education in TESOL over the last quarter century, in this introductory piece we argue for a reconceptualization of the knowledge-base of ESOL teacher education. Essential to this reconceptualization is the premise that the institutional forms and processes of teacher education frame how the profession responds to the basic sociocultural processes of learning to teach. As such, our teacher education practices constitute our professional self-definition. We argue that the core of the new knowledge-base must focus on the activity of teaching itself; it should center on the teacher who does it, the contexts in which it is done, and the pedagogy by which it is done. Moreover, this knowledge-base should include forms of knowledge representation that document teacher learning within the social, cultural, and institutional contexts in which it occurs. Finally, we believe the knowledge-base of language teacher education needs to account for the teacher as a learner of teaching, the social context of schools and schooling within which teacher-learning and teaching occur, and the activities of both language teaching and language learning. This tripartite framework calls for a broader epistemological view of ESOL teacher education, one that accounts for teaching as it is learned and as it is practiced; we argue that it will ultimately redefine how we as teacher educators create professionals in TESOL.

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Language teacher education has become fragmented; too often, its efforts focus on ancillary areas such as applied linguistics, methodology, or language acquisition while overlooking the core—teaching itself. Emphasis on these areas, although it may create a pedagogical foundation for the teacher‐in‐preparation, skirts the central issue of learning to teach. This article refocuses language teacher education on teaching itself by proposing two schemata: (a) a descriptive model that defines teaching as a decision‐making process based on the categories of know‐ledge, skills, attitude, and awareness and (b) a related framework of two educating strategies—training and development—to teach teaching.

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Characteristics of entering teacher candidates, defined as students enrolled in their first education course, have been the focus of 44 studies located for this review. Four major categories of variables have been studied: (a) demographics and high-school background; (b) motivation to teach and career expectations; (c) confidence and optimism or anxiety and concerns about teaching; and (d) perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of teachers. Most of the research employed a survey methodology. This article presents a descriptive synthesis of findings from these studies. The principle of thematic consistency with empirical variability-that is, that the general conclusions of the studies have been similar even though the data have shown differences from study to study-is advanced to organize a discussion of what is known about entering teacher candidates and suggestions for future research in this field.Few would question the basic tenet that teachers should have a thorough understanding of their students-their learning styles, their prior knowledge, their cultural backgrounds, and their interests. But what about the teachers themselves? What knowledge, beliefs, motivations, and experiential backgrounds do those who teach bring to their roles as teachers? And what impact do these attributes have on their performance in the classroom? Research into preservice and in-service teacher characteristics has a long history (Schalock, 1979). Most research on learning to teach has focused on the student teaching level (Borko, 1989). This review centers on studies of teacher attributes at the earliest stage of professional development. As teacher educators, we were interested in the characteristics that are already established by the time teacher candidates enter their teacher preparation programs. What knowledge, skills, and beliefs do entry level students already possess? Which of these attributes should teacher educators reinforce, and which should they try to alter?For this review, entering teacher candidates were defined as students enrolled in their first teacher preparation course. This was typically either an introduction to education and/or early field experience course or an introductory educational psychology course. Two basic questions guided the analysis of the research literature. First, what characteristics of entering teacher candidates have been studied, and what has been learned? Second, what research methods have been used in these investigations, and how might these methods be improved? Analyses prompted by the first question should inform those who teach professional education courses or direct professional field experiences. Teacher educators can look to this review for a better understanding of the students they teach and a perspective on the knowledge, skills, and beliefs appropriate for instruction. Teacher educators can also examine the results from a theoretical perspective. For example, those who subscribe to Vygotsky's (1978) social constructivist perspective can gain a better sense of the 37...