A teacher educator's return to P-12 world language teaching: Transforming practices, perspectives, and identities

Abstract

After working at a university as a language teacher educator for 20 years, I returned to the P-12 setting to coteach an inclusive high school Spanish class. The purpose of this return was to relearn to teach and to better understand current challenges in language education, student engagement, and inclusive instruction. Using an autoethnographic approach, I examined how the experience reshaped my instructional practices, my perspectives on pedagogical content knowledge, and my language teacher educator identity. The findings highlight tensions of translating theoretical and research-based approaches to classroom realities, challenges in maintaining a teacher educator identity in a P-12 context, and the importance of student voice in shaping pedagogy. By examining the contradictions between language teacher identity and language teacher educator identity, this autoethnography contributes to the discourse on language teacher preparation and reflective practice. The conclusion underscores the benefits of returning to a P-12 context for teacher educators and postsecondary language instructors, with implications for professional development and for language teacher education.