The New Educator

ISSN: 1547-688X (Print) 1549-9243 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utne20

Looking Across Contexts in Foreign Language

Student Teacher Supervision: A Self-Study

Jason Martel

To cite this article: Jason Martel (2012) Looking Across Contexts in Foreign Language
Student Teacher Supervision: A Self-Study, The New Educator, 8:3, 243-257, DOI:
10.1080/1547688X.2012.641872

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The New Educator, 8:243–257, 2012
Copyright © CCNY and ATE
ISSN: 1547-688X print/1549-9243 online
DOI: 10.1080/1547688X.2012.641872

Looking Across Contexts in Foreign

Language Student Teacher Supervision:
A Self-Study

JASON MARTEL
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

In the following self-study, I consider how my involvement in a

teacher preparation program that features looking across multiple
contexts of second language teaching influenced my supervisory
practice with a particular student teacher during her secondary
foreign language student teaching placement. I conduct this
inquiry by identifying and reflecting upon instances in which I
made connections across contexts during postobservation confer-
ences with this student teacher as well as instances in which I
neglected to make connections. To conclude, I discuss the potential
of preparing and professionally developing teachers from different
second language contexts together.

INTRODUCTION

During the practice teaching phase of their preservice preparation programs,

student teachers are commonly paired with a school-based mentor teacher
and are supervised by a university-based supervisor (Shiveley & Poetter,
2002). University supervisors might be graduate students, such as myself,
tenured and untenured faculty members, or retired teachers or administrators
(Shiveley & Poetter, 2002; Slick, 1998a, 1998b; Zahorik, 1988). Considering
the multitude of pathways to supervision, it is not surprising that supervisors
possess a wide range of prior training (Zahorik, 1988) and are each shaped
by their own unique “personal histories of teaching” (Slick, 1997, p. 713).
Studies that address supervision tend to highlight the complexity of the role,
pointing notably to the difficulty of managing tensions between university

Address correspondence to Jason Martel, University of Minnesota, Peik Hall, 159 Pillsbury
Drive SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. E-mail: marte145@umn.edu

243
244 J. Martel

and school knowledge (Fulwiler, 1996) and to the tenuous relational nature
of groups of three people—that is, the triad of the cooperating teacher,
the university supervisor, and the student teacher (see Yee, 1969, cited and
elaborated in Slick, 1998a).
Over the course of the 2008–2009 academic year, I experienced this
complexity firsthand as a university supervisor for the postbaccalaureate
licensure program in the Second Languages and Cultures (SLC) Education
Program at the University of Minnesota. I entered into the role with 5 years’
experience teaching middle and high school French. In tandem with my
supervisory duties, I participated in a course on student teacher supervision,
which served as formal professional development in preparing me for the
role. In this class, I endeavored to more fully understand the intricate way
in which my beliefs about and experiences with second language teaching
and learning affected the work I did with my supervisees. I was introduced
to self-study methodology as a way of turning a critical eye onto my own
practice as a university supervisor who aspires to become a foreign language
teacher educator.

PURPOSE

Self-study resonated with me as a way of analyzing my practice as a begin-

ning foreign language teacher educator for two principal reasons. First,
Hamilton and Pinnegar (1998) note that self-study helps us to consider
practice and personal experiences as points of departure for generating
knowledge about teaching and teacher education. According to Fulwiler
(1996), practice—in particular the interactions between teacher educators
and student teachers—can be seen as “the stuff of emergent theory, which
in turn will inform the profession” (p. 25). It is very important to me that
my work as a novice scholar and ultimately as an academic be rooted in
and helpful for practice. I want my projects to involve contacts with foreign
language teacher educators “in the trenches” and to produce tangible and
explicit findings that help both them and other second language teacher
educators to examine and improve their teaching. In this sense, I follow
Bullough and Pinnegar (2001), who hold that “only when theory can be
seen to have efficacy in a practical arena will that theory have life” (p. 15).
A second justification for employing self-study methodology stems from
my desire to confront issues in my own practice as a budding foreign lan-
guage teacher educator. According to Cole and Knowles (1995), “we engage
in self-study work because we believe in its inherent value as a form of
professional development” (p. 147). As such, if I ask my student teachers to
problematize their actions and beliefs about second language teaching, I feel
compelled to do so myself in the spirit of “walking my talk” (Hamilton &
Pinnegar, 1998, p. 239). This sort of professional development is important
 Looking Across Contexts 245

to me for assessing whether my practice as a teacher educator lines up with

what I intend it to be, as qualitative evaluation feedback from my students in
the past has informed me that my ideals and my practice have at times been
out of alignment. In the case of the present study, I engage in examining my
practice as a university supervisor much like I ask my students to examine
their own practice as aspiring foreign language teachers.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The unique structure of the SLC program at the University of Minnesota

reflects the conceptual framework that undergirds this study: looking across
contexts in second language teacher education. The SLC faculty have written
about combining foreign language, ESL, and immersion/bilingual preser-
vice, and inservice teacher education in several publications (e.g., Tedick &
Walker, 1994; Walker & Tedick, 2000; Bigelow & Tedick, 2005). I will elab-
orate this conceptual framework first by summarizing the faculty’s literature
on looking across contexts and then by describing the postbaccalaureate
program and my role within this program.
Looking across contexts in second language education involves moving
away from the fragmentation that has historically characterized second lan-
guage education in order find a common ground (Tedick & Walker, 1994;
Walker & Tedick, 2000). This fragmentation is well demonstrated by how
second language teachers from different contexts are habitually prepared
and/or professionally developed, as noted by Bigelow and Tedick (2005):
“[foreign language] teachers are primarily prepared in language departments,
ESL teachers often receive their professional development in linguistics or
English departments, and bilingual teachers are enrolled in isolated pro-
grams that are often linked to education departments administratively”
(pp. 295–297; see also Tedick & Walker, 1994).
In contrast, the SLC faculty argue that foreign language, ESL, and
bilingual/immersion teachers should be prepared and/or professionally
developed in an all-inclusive second language education program (Tedick &
Walker, 1994; Walker & Tedick, 2000; Bigelow & Tedick, 2005). In a pro-
gram of this sort, which focuses on “communication across boundaries”
(Walker & Tedick, 2000, p. 240), student/practicing teachers from various
second language teaching contexts take classes together, which encourages
them to approach questions about second/foreign language teaching with
a lens that supersedes their own specific context to include all second lan-
guage teaching contexts. As such, they might come to see not only that
the various contexts are more alike than different (Tedick & Walker, 1994;
Bigleow & Tedick, 2005) but also that “many core issues play out quite differ-
ently depending on the setting” (Bigelow & Tedick, 2005, p. 300). Exploring
both similarities and differences leads to productive discussions in which
246 J. Martel

student/practicing teachers are encouraged to problematize the rationales

that underlie many of their teaching practices, which opens up possibilities
for innovation.
The structure of SLC’s postbaccalaureate licensure program reflects the
principles outlined above. In this program, foreign language and ESL teach-
ers are prepared together, and many candidates choose to complete the
requirements for dual foreign language/ESL licensure. The 15-month pro-
gram contains three major components: educational foundations courses,
second language teaching methods seminar, and clinical experience.
Educational foundations courses tend to take place during the summers,
although students take a few credits during the fall and spring semesters.
The seminar component, which both foreign language and ESL students take
together, spans one academic year. The clinical experiences also span this
academic year. Single licensure candidates have two 7-week-long student
teaching placements; one at the elementary level and one at the secondary
level. Dual licensure candidates therefore have four placements over the
course of the year. The placements are divided up into half-time portions,
where students teach in the morning and then attend classes in the after-
noon, and full-time portions, where students remain at the schools all day.
For dual licensure students, the usual sequence of placements is elementary
ESL, secondary foreign language, secondary ESL, and then elementary for-
eign language (see Bigelow & Tedick [2005] for a more thorough description
of this and other professional development programs offered by SLC).
As a graduate assistant university supervisor, I worked with student
teachers in the postbaccalaureate licensure program in two principal ways.
First, I co-led a weekly “base group” session for the duration of the academic
year with two other graduate assistants. The majority of time in base groups
was left to students for sharing success stories and challenges from their spe-
cific student teaching placements. Time was also carved out for students to
show videos of their teaching in smaller groups and to engage in construc-
tive peer critiques. Second, I worked closely with a group of eight teachers
as their assigned supervisor. This entailed going to the schools in which
they apprenticed and observing them teach at least twice per placement.
After each observation, I met with the student to discuss his or her per-
formance. This duty also required cultivating relationships with the mentor
teachers with whom the students were placed.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Born out of a desire to analyze my own practice and to further explore

the impact of looking across second language contexts, I formulated the
following research question for this self-study: How have my experiences
 Looking Across Contexts 247

working for a postbaccalaureate licensure program that combines foreign

language and ESL teacher education shaped the supervisory work I do
with student teachers from this program during their foreign language
placements?

METHOD AND ANALYSIS

In light of my commitment to professional development, I chose to use data

that came from actual interactions with the eight student teachers I super-
vised during the 2008–2009 school year. I therefore obtained my supervisees’
consent to record our postobservation conferences from their secondary
foreign language student teaching placements, which took place at the
beginning of the spring semester of 2009. During this placement, I observed
each supervisee a minimum of two times and sat down to conference with
him or her immediately after watching him or her teach. Each conference
lasted about an hour and usually included the student teacher and myself
(often, the cooperating teacher could not participate due to teaching duties).
Additional data for this study included a journal of my thoughts and feelings
during the 7-week observation cycle, syllabi from classes I took for my PhD
studies, and syllabi from classes I facilitated as a graduate teaching assistant
(e.g., the base group described above). These syllabi served as springboards
for reflecting on learning experiences that I had concerning second language
teaching and learning both as a supervisor and as a student.
For the purpose of this article, I chose to focus on the postobservation
conferences I conducted with Taylor (a pseudonym), one of the student
teachers I supervised during the 7-week secondary foreign language place-
ment. I chose Taylor because her practice resonated the least with what
I personally considered, based on my own scholarship as a PhD student
and past experiences as a French teacher, to be effective foreign language
teaching. I intended to capitalize on the dissonance created between my
perception of Taylor’s teaching and my own vision of effective foreign lan-
guage teaching practice as a way of exposing a representative, wide-ranging
core of my beliefs about effective foreign language teaching and learning,
thus establishing a portrait of my practice as a supervisor of foreign language
teacher candidates. I transcribed the recordings of our two postobservation
conferences and then coded them, along with the other data, based on the
coding process described in Merriam (2009).
As is common in self-study methodology, I accompanied the themes
I generated through coding with reflections on this study’s focus: looking
across contexts in second language teaching. My analysis of the data thus
synthesizes common qualitative data collection and analysis techniques with
focused introspections about my own practice and experiences. In order
248 J. Martel

to assure the validity of these introspections, I pledged to “engage his-

tory forthrightly” and to “take an honest stand” (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001,
p. 16) in my thinking and writing.

FINDINGS AND REFLECTIONS

Seized Opportunities
Much to my surprise, I addressed looking across second language con-
texts only twice during my postobservation conferences with Taylor. Both
instances occurred during the first conference and focused on the practice
of using academic content to foster foreign language learning.
The first case emerged in response to a critique I made about the pur-
posefulness of several of Taylor’s activities during the lesson. I observed
that many of the activities she planned for the 90-minute lesson were short,
overly simple, and too discretely focused the formal aspects of the language
(here, the preterite tense). I expressed that the activities would be more
meaningful if students had to produce language based on their own expe-
riences, thoughts, opinions, and feelings while attending to the language
forms in question. I suggested that academic content creates a springboard
for purposeful engagement between students and offered the following
example:

For instance, Tom [a pseudonym] did this cool thing in an observation

the other day. He did a science lesson for ESL students and these exper-
iments with air and balloons and whatnot and after they had to write a
little journal saying what happened. So there you go. You could do the
same thing. You could do a demonstration, a fun little scientific demon-
stration and then afterwards they’ll have to tell you what happened in
the demonstration. Something like that, you’re practicing preterite.

In this example, I made specific reference to the type of content that is

taught in ESL contexts—that is, science content—and demonstrated how it
might be linked with the grammatical focus of Taylor’s lesson.
The second case occurred in a similar fashion, in response to my obser-
vation that a large portion of the students’ language production during
the lesson consisted of repeating what was on the page in front of them.
I expressed to Taylor that she risked losing her students’ interest this way and
that activities that elicited language on “some potentially controversial opin-
ion or an idea that other people might disagree with” would lead to greater
student engagement. I returned to the ESL science example explained above:

But if the activity is like that science activity, did the air shrink or did the
air expand, half the class says shrink, half says expand, then the kids are
 Looking Across Contexts 249

going to be like no, it shrank because this, no it expanded because of

that. They’re going to want to throw in their two cents. That’s the kind
of questioning that makes for thoughtful language acquisition.

This lead to the following exchange:

J: So, really think about your activities.

T: I mean that’s why I don’t, I worked for two years as a TA in an
immersion school and I was just so much, I mean, this model, what
I’m doing now is just not. . .
J: Not the same.
T: Not at all.
J: But you, the challenge, what would be great to happen is to bring as
much as you can from your immersion school here. Bring as much as
you can because it can happen. It doesn’t have to, we don’t have to
conform to the way it’s always been, you know?
T: Right.
J: We can bring these ideas in and we can make meaningful learning
experiences even though we have to follow a curriculum. We can
still take a few minutes here and there to do these types of things that
we’re learning about and that we really understand are meaningful for
language acquisition. So, I encourage you to throw these experiences
through the lens of your immersion experience and see what you can
bring across.

In this example, Taylor and I both initiated looking across second language
contexts in response to the topic of content use in foreign language classes—
me to ESL, and she to immersion. However, where I endeavored to support
my previous claim that academic content can give language use purpose by
looking across contexts, Taylor seemingly did so to highlight the differences
between contexts and therefore the difficulty of integrating such a practice
into foreign language teaching. I responded to her by defining this challenge
as important for much needed change in how foreign languages have been
traditionally taught.
Academic content use in foreign language classes is certainly a hot topic
that merits looking across to other contexts of second language learning (cf.
Bigelow & Tedick, 2005). In foreign language contexts, the language itself
and culture tend to serve as content, where in ESL and immersion settings,
this role is generally filled by academic content from other school sub-
jects such as social studies, math, etc. (Bigelow & Tedick, 2005). According
to Dalton-Puffer (2007), “the hub of CLIL [content-based instruction, in
European contexts] argument is that the curricula of the so-called content
subjects (e.g. geography, history, business studies etc.) constitute a reser-
voir of concepts, topics and meanings which can become the object of ‘real
communication’ where natural use of the target language is possible” (p. 3).
250 J. Martel

The practice of using content as a way to teach language helps maintain a

principal focus on meaning that, according to Ellis (2008), is a necessary con-
dition for instructed second language learning. Such a practice is reflected in
immersion models and in many ESL programs, where it is the ESL teacher’s
task to get students up to speed on grade-level academic content.
There is a growing sense of the need to infuse academic content into
traditional foreign language curricula, which is captured in the Connections
Goal of the Foreign Language National Standards (National Standards in
Foreign Language Education Project, 1999). Although I did not specifically
make reference to looking across contexts, I did make a comment to Taylor
during our second postobservation conference about looking to other school
subjects as a way to support the language learning goals she had established:

But can you email their history teacher and find out what they’re working
on? Say they’re working on the Revolutionary War. They all know George
Washington. They all know what happened in Lexington and Concord.
Can you get them to tell you the story of Lexington and Concord [in
Spanish]? What happened using the preterite and then describe it to
me. There were way more British soldiers than American soldiers. The
American soldiers were scared. That’s using the imperfect. That takes
a two minute email, or even if you don’t get in touch with their his-
tory teacher, you can probably safely bet that they all know about the
American Revolution and you can say “Alright guys, we’re going to talk
about some history and we’re going to use the preterite and imperfect.”
There’s your activity for tomorrow, right there.

Here, I counseled Taylor to seek out academic content from a history

teacher colleague to support her language-learning goal, the preterite tense.
Although the Connections Goal of the National Standards begs for the infu-
sion of academic content into foreign language curricula, it seems to me
our program’s student teachers really feel what it’s like to teach language
through content during their ESL and immersion placements. What is quite
interesting is the difficulty that the student teachers demonstrate in bridging
the gap across contexts when it comes to the place of academic content, as
evidenced by Taylor’s comments above. Looking across contexts therefore
begs us foreign language teachers to ask ourselves, I think, the following
question: If ESL and immersion teachers can teach academic content and
stimulate language learning simultaneously, can’t we, too?

Missed Opportunities
Although our discussions about the place of academic content in foreign lan-
guage teaching yielded interesting cross-contextual references, the fact that I
made so few references is more salient in the findings of this study. The SLC
 Looking Across Contexts 251

faculty’s writings suggest a much richer potential for sharing than what sur-
faced in my discourse with Taylor. For instance, Bigelow and Tedick (2005)
note that “some of the most passionate discussions among ESL, immersion,
and FL [foreign language] teachers, including EFL teachers, are with regard
to the place of the L1 [first language] in the L2 [second language] classroom”
(p. 301). This topic, which is widely debated in second language teach-
ing (cf. Turnbull & Dailey-O’Cain, 2009; American Council for the Teaching
of Foreign Languages, 2010), surfaced frequently in my conversations with
Taylor, but without reference to looking across contexts. Here, I will present
some of the instances in which I addressed first and second language use
with Taylor and then I will reflect on how looking across contexts could
have enhanced our discussions.
During both postobservation conferences, I suggested several times that
Taylor stick to using Spanish rather than using English or a combination of
Spanish and English (Spanglish). For instance, from our second conference:

So let’s go back to these goals. The agenda, it was posted. Good. You
went through it, which was nice. You went through it somewhat in
Spanglish and I would really encourage you to either choose English or
Spanish. I would really encourage that choice for you to use Spanish
because there are a lot of high-frequency words in there. That’s a
habit you can cultivate with them very quickly. Primera cosa, vamos
a hacer, segunda cosa, vamos a hacer, tercera cosa, vamos a hacer. A lot
of repeated words like that. Vamos a escribir, vamos a leer, vamos a
escuchar. Predictable stuff. Good for their language acquisition. Easy
time to be all in Spanish.

In this example, my recommendation for Taylor to remain in Spanish

stemmed principally from the fact that the task in question, giving the
agenda, would yield a high return for her students’ language learning.
During our first conference, I had already identified the agenda as “an
awesome place to use Spanish” and had characterized several other tasks,
such as giving directions for A/B partner activities, as “great places to use
Spanish.”
I also questioned Taylor on her practice of giving a direction or expla-
nation in Spanish and then immediately repeating the same thing in English,
as reflected in the following example:

J: One thing that’s huge that came up is your direction giving. In a lot
of cases, is in Spanglish. And sometimes you’ll say it in Spanish and
then sometimes then you’ll pretty much always repeat it in English.
What do you think the effect of that is?
T: They’ll just wait until I say it in English.
J: There you go. They don’t even have to attend to the Spanish.
252 J. Martel

Here, Taylor picked up on the fact that giving directions in the students’
native language immediately after giving them in the target language lets
them off the hook from paying attention to and understanding the latter (cf.
Curtain & Dahlberg, 2010, p. 42).
It is a shame that I did not attend to these questions of language use
with Taylor by looking across second language contexts, for the nature of
first and second language use in ESL and immersion settings brings up inter-
esting reflection points for foreign language teachers. In ESL classes, often
times the teacher does not speak the many native languages of her students,
so the lingua franca of the class is English. In immersion settings, for major-
ity language speakers, teachers speak predominantly in the target language
for the first several years of schooling, with a gradual introduction of classes
in the students’ native languages in later grades. In dual immersion pro-
grams, however, minority language speakers are schooled predominantly in
their native language for the first several years, with a gradual introduction
of classes in their second language in later grades (cf. Christian, 2011).
The first question that looking across contexts begs of us foreign lan-
guage teachers is: Why don’t we stay in the target language more often?
Students in ESL classes, who generally do not share a language with their
teachers, seem to manage when it comes to doing a host of tasks, ranging
from asking permission to use the bathroom to asking for clarification of
directions on an activity. The same goes for immersion students. I have seen
this happen with my own eyes during supervisory visits on several occa-
sions. I find it interesting that many of the student teachers in our program
so readily accept English as the lingua franca in their ESL classes, yet often
seem scared to make the foreign language the lingua franca in their foreign
language classes.
The second question that looking across contexts begs is: When are
appropriate times to use students’ first language? In dual immersion settings,
minority language speakers are instructed principally in their native language
at the beginning in order to capitalize on the principal of additive bilingual-
ism, or the idea that strengthening a learner’s native language will help to
more effectively learn the second language (cf. Lightbown & Spada, 2006).
So, when are the moments that using English will help Spanish learners in
foreign language classes better learn Spanish? Answers to this question seem
to fall under the rubric of what Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain (2009) refer to
as “selective and principled codeswitching” (p. 1). There is still much work
in the field of second language acquisition to determine exactly what this
means.
I consider it a missed opportunity that I did not fold my comments about
Taylor’s first and second language use into a larger discussion about first
and second language use in foreign language, ESL, and immersion settings.
Sharing perspectives from settings other than foreign language may have
helped Taylor to develop a more nuanced position on Spanish and English
 Looking Across Contexts 253

language use in her classes, ultimately leading to changes in her practice

that would stimulate her students’ foreign language learning.

DISCUSSION

It is curious to me that I so infrequently addressed looking across sec-

ond language contexts with Taylor during our postobservation conferences.
At the time that I conducted the conferences with Taylor, I had already
begun to develop a strong personal interest in the idea of looking across
second language contexts. My close readings of the SLC faculty’s publica-
tions and my observations of the program excited me about the potential
inherent in this innovative way of approaching second language education.
Although this interest did not display a strong presence in my conferences
with Taylor, it did surface in my journaling on several occasions during the
course of Taylor and her colleagues’ secondary foreign language student
teaching placements. At one point, I explicitly wrote that “I truly do believe
that foreign language teachers do have a lot to learn from ESL and other
second language contexts.” A few days prior to this entry, in response to
one student’s comments on the program’s sequencing of student teaching
placements, I had written:

I told her the program is designed so that students can see that the
contexts can give to each other, and that it’s important to see what there
is in ESL instruction that can be brought into foreign language instruction.
One thing I suggested, that I love seeing in the ESL placements and
hardly see in foreign language contexts, is storytelling.

Here, it is clear that my thinking was oriented towards looking across con-
texts. I remember reveling in the way that my supervisees gave bookwalks
and engaged in guided reading with their elementary ESL students and think-
ing that the same practice could have a positive impact in foreign language
classes, tailored to the students’ ages and interests, of course.
I can only wonder about potential reasons for which I did not bring
up cross-contextual perspectives more with Taylor during our conferences.
Maybe I went directly into (foreign language mode), given my experience
of teaching secondary school French for 5 years? Maybe I went back to this
experience and funneled most of my commentary through it? Or, maybe
the thinking I had been doing about looking across contexts subconsciously
motivated the topics I brought up with Taylor even though it only appeared
in my discourse during the postobservation conferences twice? It is also pos-
sible that I took looking across contexts as a given with Taylor. I might have
thought that, by virtue of being in this specific program, she was already in
this particular mindset.
254 J. Martel

Whatever the reasons, I feel that I could have problematized certain

aspects of Taylor’s teaching much more deeply through the lenses of other
second language teaching contexts. This is certainly the case with Taylor’s
use of Spanish and English with her students. I could have included a nod
to content use in ESL and immersion in my discussion of the Revolutionary
War and the preterite tense. And I could certainly have made specific ref-
erences to the use of academic content and students’ first and second
languages taken from Taylor’s elementary ESL placement, which took place
before her secondary foreign language one. Going even further, I could
have asked Taylor to express a general philosophy on these topics draw-
ing upon the range of experiences she had in different second language
teaching contexts (for her, ESL, foreign language, and immersion). These
missed opportunities certainly represent a wake-up call for me in my super-
vising. It is clear to me that I need to make a concerted effort to align my
practice with my academic interests and beliefs concerning looking across
contexts.
Finally, I find it important to note that Taylor might have made more
cross-contextual references herself if I did less telling and more guiding
during our postobservation conferences. Even in the few examples above,
I find my tone to be generally pedantic and the amount of talking I do
to be stifling. In the few years that I have been a supervisor, I have
certainly worked to change this, resulting from a shift in perspective con-
cerning my job as a supervisor; during my first year of supervising, which
includes these postobservation conferences with Taylor, I recall thinking
that I was duty-bound to get out as much information as possible (in the
form of things to do better) to my supervisees. This practice, however,
most likely negatively impacted not only the way they felt about and heard
my comments but also the quality of the learning experience. Ultimately,
I aspire to be the type of supervisor described in Blanton, Berenson, and
Norwood (2001), who guides students to come to their own realizations,
expertly helping them to do meaningful work within their Zones of Proximal
Development.

CONCLUSION: VALUE AND PROMISE ON MULTIPLE LEVELS, TO

BORROW HAMILTON AND PINNEGAR’S (1998) TERMS

This study’s findings and reflections demonstrate the value and promise
of looking across the various contexts of second language teaching in the
preparation and professional development of foreign language teachers.
In the case of academic content use in foreign language classrooms, looking
across contexts can help student and practicing teachers to understand that
the inclusion of content from subjects such as history and math can promote
 Looking Across Contexts 255

foreign language learning by providing communicative purpose (cf. Dalton-

Puffer, 2007). I hope that I successfully planted this seed with Taylor when
I shared details with her about her ESL colleague’s science lesson. In the
case of first and second language use, looking to ESL, immersion, and bilin-
gual education settings can help student and practicing teachers to find
an appropriate balance of languages for optimizing their students’ foreign
language development (cf. Turnbull & Dailey-O’Cain, 2009). This balance
is what I aimed to help Taylor find by identifying “great places to be in
Spanish,” although explicitly evoking other second language contexts and
past experiences might have made my comments more meaningful.
As these two hot topics illustrate, looking across contexts holds much
potential for helping aspiring and practicing foreign language teachers to
improve their teaching by problematizing various aspects of their prac-
tice and ultimately (re)developing sound rationales for doing what they do.
These two topics represent, however, only a subset of the many advantages
inherent in looking across contexts. Bigelow and Tedick (2005) outline sev-
eral other topics that might be problematized by looking across contexts,
such as the balance of content and language focus in second language
classrooms and the differences in perceptions about the status of foreign
language, ESL, and immersion teachers’ work.
I am enthusiastic in advocating for the preparation and/or professional
development of foreign language, ESL, and immersion teachers together, as
is done in the University of Minnesota’s SLC program. If this is not program-
matically feasible, foreign language teacher educators might start by asking
their students to read about, to observe, to chat with, and even to co-teach
with teachers in ESL and immersion contexts. Innovations of this sort sug-
gest, it seems, a reexamination of the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)
of foreign language teacher education (Shulman, 1987). In other words, for-
eign language teacher educators might help their students to understand
concepts such as academic content use and first and second language use
in the classroom (the what of PCK) by looking across second language
contexts (the how of PCK).
I also believe that this study demonstrates the value and promise of
self-study for the preparation of future teacher educators (cf. Hamilton &
Pinnegar, 1998). On a practical level, the findings and reflections presented
here have helped me to understand where I need to work in order to align
my beliefs with my supervisory practice. This, I hope, will translate into
a better education for the student teachers I work with in the future. On a
career-forward level, carrying out this study has allowed me to engage in the
academic research process. By virtue of the “in the trenches” work we do
with student teachers, I believe that graduate student supervisors like myself
are well positioned to contribute to what our field knows about learning to
teach via self-study.
256 J. Martel

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