In response to the critical shortage of foreign language teachers internationally, school districts around the world are employing a variety of recruitment strategies, including conducting international searches. While these strategies may help to fill foreign language teacher vacancies, they lack a strong research base, as little is known about what motivates someone to pursue a career as a foreign language teacher, and how these motivational influences vary across nations. To address this void in the research, and to guide and inform recruitment initiatives, the researchers used a mixed methodology to investigate and compare the motivational influences and perceptions that drew pre-service foreign language teachers in the United States, Germany, and China to the profession. The findings contribute to an emerging consensus with respect to motivational influences for all teachers, while also pointing out unique motivational draws associated with foreign language teaching. School administrators, teacher recruiters, and foreign language stakeholders should consider these motivational influences when determining where to focus their recruitment effort, time, and funds.

Recent research has reported professional agreement among foreign language (L2) teachers with respect to the beliefs and behaviors associated with effective L2 teaching. While such research may contribute to an emerging professional consensus, it must be acknowledged that the participating teachers in the related studies were all living and working in the United States. To better understand if the teaching beliefs agreed upon by hundreds of American L2 teachers are supported by L2 teachers in other countries, the researchers used a mixed methodology to compare the beliefs of over 250 L2 teachers and L2 teacher candidates in the United States and Germany to investigate the extent to which the two groups shared similar beliefs about L2 teaching. The study's results suggested there to be a core set of fundamental beliefs associated with effective L2 teaching held by both groups. However, they also underscored the influence of contextual factors in each country on the degree to which various beliefs and behaviors associated with L2 teaching are deemed appropriate. These results serve to inform all teachers currently teaching or planning to teach an L2 abroad.Recent research involving large numbers of foreign language (L2) teachers has suggested a growing consensus in regard to the beliefs or pedagogical content knowledge associated with effective L2 teaching (Bell, 2005;Brown, 2009;Kissau et al, 2011;Kissau et al, 2012). In her study involving 457 experienced, post-secondary L2 teachers, Bell (2005) identified 44 beliefs that the teachers agreed were associated with effective L2 teaching. These beliefs were later supported in a study by Brown (2009), also involving post-secondary L2 teachers. More recently, Kissau et al (2012) extended this professional consensus to include K-12 L2 teachers. According to the combined 728 practicing L2 teachers in the three above-mentioned studies, effective L2 teachers should: (1) expose their students to large quantities of both the L2 and the L2 culture from the first day of instruction; (2) use a variety of instructional strategies, such as group work, technology, and the integration of other disciplines; (3) differentiate their instruction to address diverse interests, age groups, and learning styles and strategies; (4) emphasize communicative competence, as opposed to grammatical accuracy; and (5) align their instruction with influential theories of L2 acquisition.While considering the above-mentioned results, it must be acknowledged that the participating teachers were all living and working in the United States. Kissau et al (2012) cautioned that the results of these studies cannot be generalized to all L2 teachers, given that 'L2 teaching takes place all over the world' (p. 593). The researchers encouraged further studies to compare the teaching-related beliefs of L2 teachers in different countries. Universal BeliefsQuestioning whether or not beliefs associated with effective L2 teaching in the United States are supported outside of the country is particularly interesting in ...

Research has identified 10 high‐leverage teaching practices (HLTPs) that can impact student learning of a foreign language. While acknowledging the importance of this work, more research is needed to inform the preparation of novice teachers to enact these practices. In response, the researchers conducted a case study involving two foreign language teacher preparation programs in the United States and Germany, to better understand how the two very different programs prepare their candidates to implement HLTPs, which HLTPs are emphasized, and how successful they are at preparing their aspiring teachers to implement one practice that has been identified in the research as particularly important (facilitating target language comprehensibility). Survey, teaching observation, and interview data collected from teacher candidates and their instructors suggested the critical nature of select HLTPs, that some of the subcomponents of one of these practices may be more challenging for novice teachers to master than others, and that there may be multiple approaches to preparing foreign language teachers to implement HLTPs.

Despite the importance of advanced language proficiency when teaching a foreign language, little research has investigated the oral proficiency of aspiring foreign language teachers across multiple countries and what their teacher training programs do to enhance it. In response, the researchers collected and analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data from foreign language teacher candidates in Germany, China, and the United States. Results suggested that oral proficiency varies significantly both within individual teacher training programs and across nations. The teacher candidates from Germany demonstrated significantly greater oral proficiency in the target language than their Chinese counterparts, who in turn, demonstrated significantly greater oral proficiency than the US teacher candidates. Helping to explain these findings, the data suggested that foreign language teacher training programs have differing areas of focus. While the programs in Germany and China focused more attention on language development, the US program emphasized pedagogical skills. Implications for practice are discussed.