The long-standing collegiate FL (foreign language) teacher training paradigm, traditionally consisting of a pre-service workshop followed by an in-service methods course, has been criticized by numerous researchers. This top-down model with its short-term focus on methodologies and techniques for teaching lower-level FL courses has been viewed–particularly by Language Program Directors (LPDs)–as woefully inadequate for preparing tomorrow’s FL professoriate to teach language, literature, and culture in increasingly diverse programmatic contexts.

Furthermore, because commercially available materials for in-service methods courses typically focus on transactional oral communication, relegating reading and writing to the role of “support skills,” the longstanding language-literature divide within FL departments is renewed during the formative professional development experiences of novice FL teachers. As Byrnes (2005) claimed, changes needed in TA education “must address deep cultural shifts in society, in education as an academic field as a practice, as well as in foreign language education (p. 136). The 2007 MLA Report called for a more coherent curriculum in which “language, literature, and culture are taught as a continuous whole,” (p. 3) it is evident that shifts in the content of FL graduate students' professional development as teachers are overdue.

In view of these shortcomings, we are developing a set of topic-based modules to be used for the professional development of FL teaching assistants (TAs) and adjunct instructors in a variety of languages and teaching contexts. The approach to FL teaching and learning foregrounded in these modules will be a multiliteracies approach (Kern, 2000; The New London Group, 1996) wherein the goal of FL teaching and learning is the development of literacy, or

[T]he use of socially-, historically-, and culturally-situated practices of creating and interpreting meaning through texts. It entails at least a tacit awareness of the relationships between textual conventions and their contexts of use and, ideally, the ability to reflect critically on those relationships … literacy is dynamic—not static—and variable across and within discourse communities and cultures. (Kern, 2000, p. 16)

Heather Willis Allen holds an M.A. in French Literature from the Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. in Educational Studies and French from Emory University. In Fall 2011, she joined the Department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before her arrival at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she was Assistant Professor of French and Second Language Acquisition and French Language Program Director at the University of Miami (2006-2011) and Lecturer of French and French Language Program Coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh (2002-2006).

Allen’s research interests include language-learning motivation, teacher development, and literacy-based approaches to teaching and learning. Publications tha