NCATE/TESOL Teacher Education Standards
The current NCATE/TESOL teacher education standards are prescriptive, impractical, foster an instrumentalist worldview, and as such are fundamentally flawed and endangering the quality of teacher education programs. As our students (teacher trainees and
ESL/EFL students) seek better opportunities in life, they depend on our ability to provide them with quality instruction. What we need is an effective accreditation system relying on peer accreditation in an environment of mutual respect, accountability, and qualitative assessment methods.
Such qualitative assessment could take place through evaluation of narratives in which each domain as defined by NCATE/TESOL (language, culture, planning/implementing/managing instruction, assessment, and professionalism) would be addressed. Reviewers would be able to evaluate these texts based on criteria accepted in the academia (for instance, consistency, treatment of theory and empirical research, adequacy to local needs, and so on). This system would be based on professional evaluation methods such as peer review, self-assessment, and demonstration of knowledge of theory and research. This is the professional model of accreditation.
Unfortunately, instead of such professional model, TESOL focuses on expected candidate outcomes – the prescribed outcomes model. The professional model is ideal for the post-modern world in that it allows multiple approaches and solutions; a prescribed outcomes model promotes a homogeneous curricular mindset based on positivist philosophy and canonical knowledge and “best practices.”
Some other problems with the new TESOL standards:
1) There are as many as thirteen standards and no less than seventy performance indicators
2) As any
ESL teacher knows, aspects of teaching cannot be isolated
3) Some areas of important knowledge cannot be found in the standards
The present prescriptive form of the document is dangerous because:
1) it tries to justify control and creates a false impression of uniformity
2) it fosters micromanagement
3) it promotes an instrumentalist philosophy (teacher as a mere technician, not a researcher or an independent thinker)
The prescriptive, instrumental, and impractical TESOL/NCATE standards must be changed to accommodate the new professional model of teacher training and education accreditation. In their present form, they are degrading to us as teacher educators and of little practical use to our trainees and students.
Reference Newman, M., & Hanauer, D. (2005). The NCATE/TESOL Teacher education standards: A critical review. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (3). http://www.english.iup.edu/dhanauer/web/ 
TESOL Teacher Education Standards 
Re: TESOL Teacher Education Standards 
Re: TESOL Teacher Education Standards 
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