Resumen de Teacher education

Susana Pastor Cesteros, Manel Lacorte

• Quality foreign or second language (L2) teaching and successful learning are only made possible by the use of qualified teachers. The initial preparation and continuing professional development of teachers of Spanish as L2 should equip them with basic teaching competences, knowledge about their own performance in the classroom, and opportunities for further professionalization and more respectable working conditions. The preparation and professional development of Spanish teachers has evolved in parallel with the evolution of the actual subject matter. As both formal and informal contexts for teaching Spanish as L2 have become more heterogeneous (see the Introduction, this volume), L2 teacher education (LTE) must take into account the challenges that such contexts present for pre-service teachers (i.e., student teaching) and in-service teachers (i.e., novices, experienced language teachers, and graduate teaching assistants).