International Student Teaching in World Language Education: Critical Criteria for Global Teacherhood

In world language teacher education, there are few opportunities that integrate preparing prospective educators for meaningful participation in intercultural dialogues and for deeper understanding of value conflicts. Student teaching abroad offers one such promising opportunity. With our conceptualization of a critical systems approach towards heightened global awareness, we present an alternative framework that can be used in studies on international student teaching (IST). Furthermore, we theorize a type of mindset that intercultural understanding can develop in student teachers: global teacherhood. After reviewing studies and drawing attention to the importance of preparing teachers for intercultural communication in their field experiences, we discuss the elements of our framework that include teacher reflection and worldview reframing. Focusing on interpretive findings from our exploratory study, we apply critical systems criteria to the cases of two prospective teachers participating in an IST program.