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Abstract
The United States has been facing a persistent teacher shortage for decades and, despite the proven societal benefits of a multilingual workforce, this shortage has proven particularly severe among world language teachers (Murphy et al., 2003). Addressing this shortage requires a multi-pronged approach, with efforts aimed at addressing issues in teacher retention, support, and recruitment. This research explored issues in world language teacher recruitment. As Super’s (1990, 1996) Life-Span Life-Space theory on career exploration and selection posits that an individual’s process of narrowing career choices begins in early adolescence, this study sought to determine younger students’ perceptions of world language teaching and openness to a teaching career and to determine if differences in these areas existed between middle, high school, and university language students. This research explored this subject through written prompts, focus group discussions, and semi-structured interviews and found a largely consistent perception of language teachers as patient, social, and having strong language skills. It found differences, however, in the way the groups conceived of these language skills and of teachers’ need for patience, as well as in their most common reasons for rejecting a career in teaching. Middle school students were most concerned about classroom management when thinking about the need for patience, while high school and university students focused on the challenges of conveying material. University participants also had a different conception of language proficiency requirements relative to the other groups. These findings, which highlight the specific concerns of different age groups when considering a career in language teaching, can provide insight into how best to speak with these age groups about world language teaching.