Re-Thinking Language Teacher Education

The path to becoming a foreign language teacher usually involves a number of requirements, such as fluency in the foreign language, holding a bachelor’s degree, and demonstrating competency in different areas. However, these requirements do not always hold true in different countries due to a number of challenges, such as the lack of teacher induction and professional development. This study aims to explore the experiences of novice English language teachers, focus on how they started their teaching career, and explore their perceptions about the differences between language teaching in the east and west. To this end, the researcher interviewed three English language teachers who started teaching English as a foreign language in Syria and who are now teaching English in the United States. The interviews were open ended to allow for more flexibility and to enable the researcher to probe for more clarification. The researcher is engaging in preliminary data analysis to acquire a deeper understanding of those experiences and identify major areas that require follow up. During this process, the research intends to transpose the data to gain insight into other perspectives. Iterative reading of the interviews will help the researcher see emerging patterns and capture similarities or differences in relation to those experiences