This Guide is a resource for languages teachers to use in reflecting on languages education, their role as languages teachers, and their programs and pedagogies in relation to contemporary educational understandings and contexts. It invites teachers to think about the content, process and outcomes of their work in teaching, learning and assessment. The Guide is based on recent work by members of the languages teaching profession: teachers and researchers based in classrooms, schools and universities. At times this Guide describes the field of languages teaching today generally; at times it describes actual practice in schools and in classrooms; and at times it reports on current research and thinking in languages education. At all times, it seeks to inspire members of our profession to challenge long-held beliefs about the teaching of languages with the intention of confirming their worth or changing them. 1 A key message of this Guide is that teachers need to analyse their personal, professional teaching 'stance': the professional big-picture understanding and position they bring to their work which shapes their programs and pedagogies. This Guide encourages teachers to consider their stance and develop it with regard to:
• professionalism and knowledge of education, teaching and learning
• personal and professional experience and self-understandings
• understandings of new and different contexts for students, teachers and communities and their impacts on learning
• contemporary understandings, including complexities and ambiguities, of languages and pedagogy
• the relationship of experience and past practices to new situations and new understandings as their stance develops and changes.
None of our personal and professional beliefs, perspectives or commitments are ever static, and the Guide addresses those aspects that teachers think about when considering the development of a personal and professional stance.
