Teachers’ Professional Knowledge for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Assessing the Outcomes of Teacher Education

• Published in: Journal of teacher education Vol. 67; no. 4; pp. 320 - 337
• Main Authors: König, Johannes, Lammerding, Sandra, Nold, Günter, Rohde, Andreas, Strauß, Sarah, Tachtsoglou, Sarantis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2016; Corwin Press, Inc; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Beliefs, opinions and attitudes; English (Second Language); English as a second language; English as a second language instruction; Evaluation; Foreign Countries; Foreign language instruction; Graduate Students; Higher education; Knowledge; Knowledge Base for Teaching; Language Teachers; Masters Programs; Methods; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Pedagogy; Practice; Preservice Teacher Education; Preservice Teachers; Scores; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Second language teachers; Second Languages; Standardized Tests; Statistical Analysis; Structural Analysis (Linguistics); Structural Analysis (Science); Student teachers; Study and teaching; Teacher centers; Teacher centres; Teacher Characteristics; Teacher Education; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; TESOL; Test Reliability; Training; Germany; assessment; teacher education preparation; pedagogical content knowledge; teacher knowledge; English as a foreign language
• ISSN: 0022-4871; 1552-7816
• DOI: 10.1177/0022487116644956

Despite an increasing research interest in subject-specific teacher knowledge, the scientific understanding regarding teachers’ professional knowledge for teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) is very limited. This study therefore applies standardized tests to directly assess content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) of preservice teachers for TEFL in Germany from different programs and stages during initial teacher education (during their master’s studies at university and at the end of their induction phase). Structural analysis provides evidence that teacher knowledge with respect to TEFL is a multidimensional construct and PCK is closely related to both CK and GPK. Test scores vary across preservice teachers from different programs and stages, which adequately reflects differences in the learning opportunities they had during teacher education.