11th International Conference on Language Teacher Education

Workshop

University foreign language programs often employ teachers with varying levels of experience in the classroom—from novice graduate student instructors to more experienced lecturers. For language program directors who are often responsible for mentoring teachers with a range of training and classroom experience, finding the right balance of support can be challenging. This session provides language teacher educators with tools and strategies for providing appropriate and effective differentiated teaching support. In the workshop, participants will learn about the specific needs of beginning and more experienced instructors, as well as activities that target these different instructor groups. Larger programmatic initiatives that can effectively support meaningful professional development for teachers at all stages of development will also be shared. To contextualize this discussion on differentiated instructor support, additional variables impacting individual instructor needs will be explored (e.g., native versus non-native speaker, cultural background, beliefs about L2 teaching, age, learning style preferences). Throughout the workshop, we will discuss how to foster healthy interpersonal relationships, team-building, and collaboration among language teachers.