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¡Profesores Adelante! Recruiting teachers in the target language
Author(s) -
Back Michele,
Dean Joseph
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
foreign language annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1944-9720
pISSN - 0015-718X
DOI - 10.1111/flan.12482
Subject(s) - salary , curriculum , psychology , intervention (counseling) , pedagogy , mathematics education , medical education , political science , medicine , psychiatry , law
Abstract Recruiting qualified world language (WL) educators is a continuing challenge in the United States. Limited research has been conducted on attracting potential teacher candidates. Furthermore, recruitment materials are unavailable in target languages, making it difficult for existing WL teachers, as critical advocates for the profession, to incorporate recruitment into their instruction. This study discusses the findings from the implementation of an adapted teacher recruitment curriculum created for secondary students in Early College Experience (ECE) Spanish courses. Using data from pre‐ and post‐intervention surveys, responses to writing prompts, and post‐intervention focus groups, we found that the curriculum contributed to a slight increase in student interest in becoming WL educators, as well as interest in continuing language study beyond high school. However, several teaching‐related student concerns also surfaced, most notably salary and target language ability. We discuss implications for general and WL teacher recruitment, including the importance of targeting potential WL educators in their language classrooms.