Making Space for Teacher Leadership: A World Language Teacher Educator Perspective

Recent research has begun to explore the concept of world language teacher leadership and how it can be developed. Given that pre-service teacher education is already an established space for teacher development, more research is needed to understand how teacher leadership can be proactively supported in future world language teachers. This qualitative study sought to understand how world language teacher educators perceive the role of teacher leadership in their programs and what actions they take to cultivate leadership in pre-service teachers within those programs. Data were collected in the form of semi-structured interviews with 14 world language teacher educators across 5 regions in the United States. Findings show that, although teacher leadership was not a prioritized program goal for most participants, all had found unique ways to integrate teacher leadership development into their courses, curricula, and student experiences. Implications for world language teacher education programs are discussed.