Abstract
The WL profession currently does not have a framework to guide pre-service education programs related to online and/or remote instruction. While the ACTFL/CAEP standards affirm that teachers should be able to use technology and adapt and create instructional materials for use in communication, there is an underlying assumption that the technology will be integrated to supplement rather than supplant instruction. The focus, then, remains on in-class, on-campus experiences for learners and educators. This chapter provides a rationale for including online pedagogy in teacher preparation programs, explores current frameworks for online teaching (TPACK, Community of Inquiry, Pyramid Model, ADDIE), and proposes six considerations for integrating online language teaching as a foundational component of preservice preparation.
TopIntroduction
The sudden shift in instructional delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic (COVID-19) has renewed previous calls in teacher education to include online pedagogy as a foundational component of teacher preparation (Barbour & Harrison, 2016; Barbour et al., 2013; Kennedy & Archambault, 2012). Most K-12 teachers were not prepared for planned online contexts before the global health crisis (Educators of Excellence, 2020), but even those with prior experiences online reported significant challenges when working remotely under emergency conditions (Moser et al., 2021). The additional stress and increased workloads of all educators engaged in remote instruction has led to reports predicting an exodus of teachers (Diliberti et al., 2021).
For world languages (WL) specifically, the effects of COVID-19 on the pre-existing teacher supply crisis (Swanson, 2010, 2012; Swanson & Mason, 2018) contributes to an even more precarious future for K-12 WL learners- especially because WL is the discipline with the highest pre-COVID teacher attrition rate (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2019). Further, studies of WL teachers during the pandemic revealed emotional labor was high as educators struggled with learner disengagement, issues in accountability, equity concerns, and worrying about student well-being (Moser et al., 2021).
This chapter presents a rationale (including useful frameworks) for modification of existing WL teacher education programs to include online education models. Grounded in these conceptual frameworks, the authors provide considerations and action steps for teacher educators. The most feasible option for the majority of WL teacher education programs may be to examine how these considerations and action steps might be integrated into existing courses required of candidates. However, teacher educators are also asked to reflect on how they might guide future professional development opportunities for in-service teachers.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Quality Matters: A consortium designed to provide support and training for online and hybrid educators as well as evaluate courses offered through those modalities and disseminate research.
TPACK: A model to describe a teacher’s knowledge base through the intersection of technological, content, and pedagogical understanding and application in classrooms.
Community Of Inquiry: Learning of individuals in a group through the intersections of social, teaching, and cognitive presences.
ADDIE: Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate, an instructional design model with an iterative approach.
Online Teaching: The process of teaching via computers, which will likely be asynchronous. Online teaching allows students and instructors to work together while being in various geographical spaces. Oftentimes, online teaching allows students to self-pace.
ACTFL: The professional association for world language teachers; formerly the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Remote Teaching: The process of teaching in a non-traditional way because the students and the instructors are not in the same physical space. Remote teaching can be synchronous or asynchronous and will typically include the use of technology to facilitate the exchange of information.
World Readiness Standards: Standards used to guide learning experiences in K-16 world language classrooms organized around the five C goal areas (communication, cultures, comparisons, connections, community).
Backward Design: An instructional design model, which encourages looking at the desired outcomes before designing the content of the course.