Broadening our sights: internationalizing teacher education for a global arena

This article represents the collaborative efforts of two college faculty, one in the USA and one in Australia, exploring notions of internationalization of colleges of education and research on multilingualism and teacher education. First, the paper presents experiences of interactions with international researchers in Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Austria, Italy, Finland and Australia. Second, it presents research of three overseas immersion language teaching and learning experiences pursued with teacher candidates from Australia in Indonesia, Korea and China. The article focuses on two questions: in what ways can teacher educators enhance their expertise to prepare teachers for multicultural teaching in a global context? How can teacher educators and institutions create contexts and experiences where teachers and prospective teachers develop their knowledge, skills and dispositions to teach from an international and multicultural perspective? In essence, how can faculty prepare teachers to internationalize curricula and effectively teach students, not only from different ethnic groups and cultures but also different nations and languages?