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Even though research on teacher education has gained importance in language teaching both nationally and internationally (Abendroth-Timmer, 2017, p. 196), research studies on the effects of educational programmes on teachers’ competence development are still underrepresented as Legutke and Schart (2016) conclude in their introduction to the current situation of foreign language teacher research:

Sucht man … nach Studien, die die Bildungsprozesse dieser komplexen Programme [they refer to university-based foreign language teacher education programmes in Germany] oder ihre Effekte für die Ausbildung der Kompetenzen der Lehrkräfte erforschen, wird man bis heute kaum fündig: Die fremdsprachendidaktische Forschung im deutschsprachigen Raum hat sich dieser Zusammenhänge erst in jüngster Zeit angenommen (Roters & Trautmann 2014 mit Überblick), … die fremdsprachendidaktische empirische Lehrerbildungsforschung [ist] im deutschsprachigen Raum kaum entwickelt. (pp. 10,11)

The few existing empirical studies are based on individual research often done in connection with qualifying for a PhD degree and are not studies that have resulted from collaborative research projects: they have focused on investigating teachers’ experiential knowledge and their subjective theories (Appel, 2000; Caspari, 2014), on teacher education projects that focus on participants’ needs (Schocker-v. Ditfurth, 1992) or on the role of integrating practice phases in teacher education programmes (Gabel, 1997; Schocker-v. Ditfurth, 2001; Elsner, 2010; Schädlich, 2015). More recently, studies in connection with researching the effects of a blended learning Master course for primary school teachers investigated its potential for cooperative learning (Zibelius, 2015) and action research (Benitt, 2015). The situation is quite different, however, if you review international research on foreign or second language teacher education (SLTE): this has developed to become an established field of empirically grounded research as a number of recently published state of the art review articles demonstrate (e.g., Wideen et al., 1998; Singh & Richards, 2006; Wright, 2010).

Reviewing the existing body of research on professional teacher education which has only recently been termed “an emerging new agenda” for second language teacher education by Wright (2010, p. 263), the following strands can be identified that are expected to contribute to language teachers’ development.

Teacher education programmes need:

 to address the growing heterogeneity of learners both related to their cultural backgrounds and related to their home languages (Legutke & Schart, 2016, p. 9); to this day most existing studies are situated in more privileged learning contexts that do not represent the social reality of contexts of education today;

 to focus on the teacher whose role is fundamental in creating supportive learning environments; teachers have only been a ‘factor’ that was considered in learning to teach studies since the 1990ies (Schart, 2014). It was only a decade ago when Samuda and Bygate (2018) concluded after having reviewed the state of task research in foreign language education that even though tasks in language classrooms “do not take place in a vacuum, nevertheless, until recently, much of the … literature has had a tendency to treat them as if they did. … The role of the teacher as a mediating factor … remains virtually unexamined” (p. 379). Meanwhile, the central role of the teacher in his / her contexts of work has become generally approved knowledge in general teacher education research (Hattie, 2008; 2011; Terhart, 2014; in Legutke & Schart. 2016, p 9);

 to “build upon the beliefs of … teachers and feature systematic and consistent long-term support in a collaborative setting” (Wideen et al., 1998, p. 130). This was concluded after Wideen et al. had reviewed 93 empirical learning to teach studies. Wright (2010) demands that the “split of learning experience and location (or practice and theory)” needs to be overcome which consequently means that teacher education needs to be school-based and to support learning from experience (pp. 264, 265). This proposal has been first brought forward by Freeman and Johnson (1998) who argued that “learning to teach is a long-term, complex developmental process that operates through participation in the social practices and contexts associated with learning and teaching” (p. 402). In their seminal article they have “reconceptualised the knowledge base” of teachers and argued that in teacher education one would need to focus on the activity of teaching, the social contexts of teacher learning and the pedagogical process of teaching and learning;

 to be concerned “with REFLECTIVE PRACTICE (after Schön 1983, 1987), brought initially to the wider SLTE community by Wallace (1991) … [which] signals a fairly radical departure in curriculum design and teacher education practice from the prescriptive to an emphasis on the student teacher’s development of autonomous judgement and practical theory” (Wright, 2010, p. 265; capital letters in original). This results in a focus on learning from experience. The departure from the transmission approach to teacher education has resulted in a “new pedagogy … following modelled practices” (p. 275);

 to be committed “to student teacher INQUIRY – into one’s own beliefs and narratives, and into the professional contexts of teaching and learning for which STs [student teachers] are being prepared” (Wright 2010, p. 273; capital letters in original).

As a result, research on teacher development needs:

 to subscribe to “a more ecological approach to research on learning to teach” which means to situate learning to teach in school and classrooms.

… [There] are ample opportunities for future research that pursue a thoughtful and critical understanding of how individuals learn to teach. However, … only when all players and landscapes that comprise the learning-to-teach environment are considered in concert will we gain a full appreciation of the inseparable way of relationships that constitutes the learning-to-teach ecosystem. (Wideen et al., 1998, pp. 130, 169, 170);

 to take an emic perspective on teacher development processes and investigate “what happens inside the practices of L2 teacher education” (Johnson, 2015, p. 515);

 to be qualitative in nature to be able to capture the complexity of factors involved in learning to teach:

Empirische Studien in der fremdsprachendidaktischen Lehrerforschung verwenden aufgrund der Komplexität des unterrichtlichen Raums und der individuellen Entwicklungs- und Professionalisierungsprozesse vorwiegend qualitative Forschungsmethoden … und diversifizierte Datenquellen. Oft kommen Interviews … zum Einsatz, mitunter verbunden mit der Erfassung und Kommentierung von Lehrerhandeln, z. B. über Beobachtungen. … Dabei stellt der Aktionsforschungsansatz eine besondere Verzahnung von Lehrerforschung, Kollegialer Unterrichtsentwicklung und Professionalisierungs-prozessen dar. (Abendroth-Timmer, 2017, p. 198)

The set-up of the teacher education project of the study presented here will consider the general principles that have been summarized here: it will be situated in a context that represents the heterogeneity of children in state preschools today; it will focus on the central role of the teacher as the mediator to support language learning; it will be organised as a long-term, collaborative process that does not separate experience and location (in other words, is preschool-based and takes place in situ); it will focus on the principle of reflective practice (which means that teachers learn by both reflecting on good practice teacher models and their own teaching practice) and it will investigate in what way English may best be implemented in teachers’ context of work – the preschool (→ chapter 5).

For the research approach it follows that the so-called ecological approach to research on learning to teach will be the basic defining feature of the study: it tries to capture the complexity of processes both as regards the preschool classroom and teachers’ individual development processes. To live up to this claim the research needs to be conducted as a case study. Research results that have been obtained from a selected group of preschool teachers’ experiences – who work as a team in a preschool that qualifies as a representative sample both in terms of its learners and teachers – have been selected for the meso- and micro level of the case study. It is expected that through this approach the results of the interconnectedness of teacher development, children’s progress in learning and teacher education research may be structured appropriately for readers (→ chapter 6).

After the general principles of teacher education programmes and the resulting research requirements have been discussed, the next chapter reviews existing research studies on language teacher education that specifically address early language learning contexts.