Teacher Capabilities Valued by English Language Teacher Educators: Insights From Ecuador

Efforts to ensure quality English language teacher education often impose external criteria that emphasize predetermined language proficiency and pedagogical skills. Inspired by the capabilities approach, this paper describes teacher capabilities valued by English language teacher educators in Ecuador. I analyze focus group interviews with 37 teacher educators from 18 universities about their language use practices and instructional goals, providing insights into how educators may think about content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, teacher identity and cognition, and their importance relative to or together with English proficiency. Drawing on insights from Ecuador, I encourage programs in varied global contexts to critically explore how and by whom the desirable outcomes of English language teacher education are defined and valued in everyday practice.