ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the wide-ranging shifts needed in the attributes of the foreign language teacher. Interviewees highlighted the need for foreign language teachers to have intercultural experience, practical knowledge of how language functions in the real world, professional experience working with language in the real world, experience of living abroad and of being a member of the society where they teach. Teacher background, practical knowledge and experience, combined with content knowledge and a critical orientation towards it, should enable foreign language teachers to understand how communities come into contact in everyday social interactions, and appreciate how identities of students are constructed in diverse ways in different settings based on the communities with which they are interacting. Teachers need a multidialectal language competence. They should have the competence to shuttle in and out of diverse varieties of English. Many multilingual teachers already have this capacity.