Education

Henkin and Helms-Your classrooms fueled my love of learning. Even with a 3½-hour roundtrip commute, I looked forward to class days with enthusiasm. My fellow students-Thank you for welcoming the forty-something academic dean of a Bible college into your environment. I never felt out of place. My case institutions-I loved every minute of my visits to your campuses (okay, maybe not the sinus infection, but everything else). Thank you for your kind hospitality and your articulate reflections on the process of accreditation. My colleagues at Emmaus Bible College-My deepest gratitude to you for your support while I pursued the equivalent of two full-time jobs. Jack wins the prize for asking me about my progress more often than anyone else. Now that I can give my full attention back to EBC, I'll try not to come up with too many new projects for us work on together…at least not right away. And to Ken Daughters and Phil Boom, presidents of Emmaus-My sincerest thanks for your unwavering support for my doctoral work-from tuition support to time off for classes, travel, and writing. I cannot imagine a better place to serve.

ABSTRACT  This study investigated the attitudes of secondary school administrators toward the supervision of foreign language teachers and gathered information about administrators' own foreign language backgrounds. The results indicate a limited knowledge of foreign languages among secondary teacher supervisors and widely varying opinions on the consequences of this limited understanding. The survey also identified the instructional strategies deemed most important and the areas of supervision considered most difficult by these administrators.

A utumn traditionally is the season of new beginnings: a new school year starts, clothes are added to the wardrobe, and in academia we become excited as a host of fresh faces await us. So, it is appropriate that this fall issue of Foreign Language Annals marks an editorial transition. The contents of this issue culminate the tenure of Sheri Spaine Long as the editor of Foreign Language Annals. We wish to thank Sheri for her dedicated service to the profession as editor from 2006-2009. Under her guidance the journal has maintained its high standards of scholarship and fostered the growth of new knowledge related to the learning and teaching foreign languages. We wish her well as she begins a new journey as editor of Hispania. I am honored and humbled to begin the fall of 2009 as editor of the journal that I referenced as a secondary teacher of Spanish, contributed to as a member of the research professoriate, and assign as mandatory reading as graduate professor of Foreign Language and ESL Education at the University of Iowa. With a professional background that reflects the readership and with an urgent sense of responsibility as editor of the voice of the language learning and teaching profession, I have decided to begin a conversation with the readers of Foreign Language Annals regarding questions that as a community of foreign language education professionals we need to discuss in meaningful and productive ways. Communicating the relationship between research and teaching is a challenging task that I have been faced with throughout my professional career. Therefore, in this column I will begin to share with the readers questions focusing on this often-contentious relationship and to invite the readership to discuss these topics in a column entitled the Conversations with the Community to appear in future issues during my editorship.

Many of the readers of Foreign Language Annals are unaware that when we compile the summer issue it is really the middle of winter; in fact it is the end of January when I write this column. To remind you of what weather we have all experienced this January, let me recapFrecord snow and ice in the southeastern states and last week the northeast was slammed by yet another snow storm which dumped record levels of snow in New York, Boston, and Washington, DC; and tomorrow in the midwest we are expecting a record snow storm. In contrast, for the two weeks I was in Los Angeles, it was very sunny and warm, but the days were very windy and short. Happily, however, when you read this issue, we can celebrate the solstice of summer bringing longer and warmer days. Equally important, we can celebrate how as a profession we are moving forward with research that is forming a database of learning and teaching languages through out the United States, but we are moving very slowly and it is becoming problematic. We need to push ourselves and our research agendas to go further, and that is the beauty of summerFtaking time to reflect and to develop research projects that might help us better explain to the public the following topics related to foreign language teacher education. The first topic is that learning to teach is a continuum that only begins with a teacher education program and extends throughout one's career (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). As a profession, we do an inadequate job of communicating this reality to our students and to the general public. Our failure to make this point clear leads to unrealistic expectations by policy makers, the press, and novice teachers. This issue has always puzzled me because we are quite good at informing the language learner that it takes time and dedication to become a competent second language speaker; so why do we fail at informing our novice language teachers that the principles of development of language skills equally apply to those who teach languages? Is it because ''teaching is an enormously difficult job that looks easy'' (Labaree, 2006, p. 78)? Second, how does graduate coursework in teacher education support the continuous learning of practicing teachers and improve the learning of their students? Purposeful and consistent programs that develop in-service teachers through graduate education are extremely hard to find, define, and support. And yet, collectively as a profession we understand that there is a need to consistently develop and maintain teachers' language and pedagogical skills so that their students can excel. Do we have any data that support our assumptions? Last, how can foreign language teacher educators help create and sustain real and virtual communities of practice and third spaces in teacher educationFspaces that ''bring practitioner and academic knowledge together in less hierarchical ways'' (Zeichner, 2010, p. 92)? This topic needs to be explored because many of us are involved with programs that are successful in graduating language teachers who are committed to their own growth and development and who then enter school contexts that do not support that commitment. What is the responsibility of the teacher educators to such teachers? What recourse do they have for professional improvement? In various ways, the articles in this summer issue enhance our knowledge base. Foreign language education is complicated. Yes, but at the same time, research such as what is highlighted in this issue helps to demystify language learning and teaching. What is important to recognize, however, is that we need to make transparent these practices to our students and to the public. A critical aspect of our professional agenda is to serve as

This study investigated the attitudes of secondary school administrators toward thesupervision of foreign language teachers and gathered information about administrators' own foreign language backgmunds. The results indicate a limited knowledge of foreign languages among secondary teacher supervisors and widely varying opinions on the consequences of this limited understanding. The survey also identified the instructional strategies deemed most important and the areas of supervision considered most difficult by these administrators. During a recent Holmes Group Forum, John Palmer (9) reported that most teaching is "doing to others what we had done to us" (p. 5). It is commonly alleged that teachers tend to operate in ways similar to those used by their own teachers. This is especially true in the area of foreign language study in which current teachers are using techniques inherited from their teachers, specifically the grammar-translation or the audiolingual approaches. These methods may not serve well the current trend for oral proficiency in the classroom. Foreign language teachers are no longer satisfied with mimicking their own past language teachers and instead struggle to formulate a teaching format more compatible with the goals of today's

Writing my first column in the fall of 2009, I invited members of the language education community to offer comments on topics of interest to the readership of Foreign Language Annals. In this issue, James Sweigert offers his opinion on the status of foreign languages as an ''untested'' part of the K-12 curriculum in response to the blueprint for success proposed by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (see http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/ index.html). Mr. Sweigert writes a cautionary essay focusing on the call by some in our profession for the participation of foreign languages as either a tested competency or core curricula area, implying that if it's tested, it's respected. However, his cautionary words are not new; they were first mentioned by June K. Phillips 15 years ago, when she warned that we have yet to have solid research on what classroom language learners should know and be able to do. She implied that our place at the adults' table of curricular standards needed to be secured if we were going to be respected and valued in the future. Sadly, since the advent of the No Child Left Behind policies, many long-standing early language learning programs in the schools were devoured by lack of funding and no longer have a place at the table. Further, we only have the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests to use as possible models for language assessments in the schools, and these assessments are only written for Spanish. They are a start, but hardly a model to gain a seat at the head table. If we wish to be a core area in this race to gain funds for schooling, we should be totally aware of what being a tested area means for students and teachers alike and whether or not we are ready to move from the children' s table to the adults'.

Many of the readers of Foreign Language Annals are unaware that when we compile the summer issue it is really the middle of winter; in fact it is the end of January when I write this column. To remind you of what weather we have all experienced this January, let me recapFrecord snow and ice in the southeastern states and last week the northeast was slammed by yet another snow storm which dumped record levels of snow in New York, Boston, and Washington, DC; and tomorrow in the midwest we are expecting a record snow storm. In contrast, for the two weeks I was in Los Angeles, it was very sunny and warm, but the days were very windy and short. Happily, however, when you read this issue, we can celebrate the solstice of summer bringing longer and warmer days. Equally important, we can celebrate how as a profession we are moving forward with research that is forming a database of learning and teaching languages through out the United States, but we are moving very slowly and it is becoming problematic. We need to push ourselves and our research agendas to go further, and that is the beauty of summerFtaking time to reflect and to develop research projects that might help us better explain to the public the following topics related to foreign language teacher education. The first topic is that learning to teach is a continuum that only begins with a teacher education program and extends throughout one's career (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). As a profession, we do an inadequate job of communicating this reality to our students and to the general public. Our failure to make this point clear leads to unrealistic expectations by policy makers, the press, and novice teachers. This issue has always puzzled me because we are quite good at informing the language learner that it takes time and dedication to become a competent second language speaker; so why do we fail at informing our novice language teachers that the principles of development of language skills equally apply to those who teach languages? Is it because ''teaching is an enormously difficult job that looks easy'' (Labaree, 2006, p. 78)? Second, how does graduate coursework in teacher education support the continuous learning of practicing teachers and improve the learning of their students? Purposeful and consistent programs that develop in-service teachers through graduate education are extremely hard to find, define, and support. And yet, collectively as a profession we understand that there is a need to consistently develop and maintain teachers' language and pedagogical skills so that their students can excel. Do we have any data that support our assumptions? Last, how can foreign language teacher educators help create and sustain real and virtual communities of practice and third spaces in teacher educationFspaces that ''bring practitioner and academic knowledge together in less hierarchical ways'' (Zeichner, 2010, p. 92)? This topic needs to be explored because many of us are involved with programs that are successful in graduating language teachers who are committed to their own growth and development and who then enter school contexts that do not support that commitment. What is the responsibility of the teacher educators to such teachers? What recourse do they have for professional improvement? In various ways, the articles in this summer issue enhance our knowledge base. Foreign language education is complicated. Yes, but at the same time, research such as what is highlighted in this issue helps to demystify language learning and teaching. What is important to recognize, however, is that we need to make transparent these practices to our students and to the public. A critical aspect of our professional agenda is to serve as

This study analyzed questionnaire and interview data on teachers' practices and perceptions with respect to test preparation. Questionnaire respondents were asked to rate the ethicality of various test-preparation practices and indicate the extent to which they utilize these practices in their instruction. On the basis of questionnaire results, interviews were conducted with a smaller sample of teachers to determine their views on the appropriateness of particular test-preparation practices, and to determine the factors affecting teacher perceptions about a given activity. Contrary to previous empirical work, questionnaire results indicated that neither use of a given practice nor teacher perceptions of the ethicality of the practice vary across levels of student achievement. On the other hand, consistent with previous empirical work, both use and perceptions varied across grade-level configuration. Estimates of the prevalence of particular teacher practices and perceptions were obtained and compared with those from the literature. In addition, dimensions of teacher reasoning were explored, indicating that when considering the appropriateness of a given practice, teachers consider the following factors: score meaning, learning, the potential for raising student scores, professional ethics, equity, and external perceptions.

This report summarizes two empirical studies that address two related topics—rater halo and how much unique information is provided by multiple analytic scores. Specifically, we address the issue of whether unique information is provided by analytic scores assigned to student writing, beyond what is depicted by holistic scores, and to what degree multiple analytic scores assigned by a single rater display evidence of a halo effect. To that end, we analyze scored student responses to an expository writing prompt that were scored by six groups of raters—four groups assigned single analytic scores, one group assigned multiple analytic scores, and one group assigned holistic scores—using structural equation modeling. Our results suggest that there is evidence of a halo effect when raters assign multiple analytic scores to a single student response and that, at best, only two factors seem to be distinguishable in analytic writing scores assigned to expository essays.