Contextualized Views of Practices and Competencies in CALL Teacher Education Research

While teachers play a central role in capitalizing on the potentials of computer assisted language learning (CALL), CALL teacher education overall still appears not to be adequate and effective (Healey et al., 2011; Hubbard, 2008). Furthermore, foreign/second language teachers have expressed a desire for more and better professional development opportunities in that area (Beaven, Emke, Ernest, Germain-Rutherford, Hampel, Hopkins, Stanojevic & Stickler, 2010; Digedu, 2014; Kessler, 2006). Given the continuing and new challenges for CALL teacher education, this special issue of Language Learning & Technology on CALL teacher education further speaks to its importance for our field and ultimately our students. To advance our understanding of CALL teacher education, the main goal for this issue is to move beyond research on teacher beliefs and attitudes to investigate actual practices and competencies, especially from a longitudinal perspective, that traces teachers’ development. The current issue brings together a collection of articles that represents a wide variety of contexts, formats, foci, and research methods. This variety is particularly important given the highly contextualized nature of teaching and learning (Freeman & Johnson, 1998) and the different needs of pre-service and in-service teachers (Beaven et al., 2010)