In this final chapter, we would like to reflect on the chapters that we have had the privilege of editing in this collection, consider the lessons we have learned from working with our colleagues, and propose what we consider to be promising perspectives for the future of the field of language teacher psychology.

Lesson 1: There is a Need for Research into Language Teacher Psychology

Many of the contributions in this collection raise awareness of the needs and challenges that language teachers face in their professional roles. While some of these issues are shared by teachers regardless of discipline, there is also evidence of dimensions that are specific to language education, which typically involves moving between languages, cultures and identities. For example, in Chapter 6, Li and De Costa discuss the problems facing Chinese teachers of English who had been trained in the UK in negotiating their teaching identities, roles and expectations when they began their teaching careers in China. By drawing attention to the ways discrepancies between the two settings are perceived, the authors point out the unique challenges language teachers face in constructing their identities. Similarly, Wyatt (Chapter 8) reminds us that teacher self-efficacy beliefs ‘intersect with language proficiency’. He reflects on the possible implications for the well-being of language teachers whose proficiency is still developing, and alerts us to the fact that the ongoing debates about the role of native speakers in language education can impact the self-efficacy beliefs of language teachers.

Another area of interest concerns the challenges associated with transitions between different stages in language educators’ careers, which appear to be associated with cognitive and affective changes. One frequently examined transition is when teachers move from their initial teacher education into the school system, and this remains a key area for researchers to understand. For example, in this collection, Kalaja and Mäntylä in Chapter 3 report on early-stage teachers who experienced a shift in the perceptions of their roles and their expectations.