One of the most difficult, complex, and seemingly intractable problems facing second language (L2) educators, especially in the United States, has been the tendency to restrict discussions and interactions to particular areas of specialization: foreign language education, teachers of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), bilingual education, and so on. The causes of this professional Balkanization are myriad and are beyond our concern here. What is important, in my view, is that language educators learn to cross these artificial boundaries that divide us and recognize the common concerns, themes, and issues that unite us. Tedick's edited volume is an invaluable contribution to this effort. It brings together language educators from a variety of specializations to examine the preparation of both pre-service and in-service language educators. In fact, it does even more than this because the contributors to this volume also represent a widely divergent international group as well as an interesting and valuable mix of both researchers and practitioners at different levels. The book contains a total of 18 chapters, divided into four thematic sections that deal, respectively, with the knowledge base of L2 teacher education, the contexts of L2 teacher education, collaborations in L2 teacher education, and L2 teacher education in practice. Each thematic section of the book is introduced by a brief essay by the editor, which provides both an overview of the chapters included and a sense of how the papers relate to each other and to the remainder of the volume. Although each chapter is placed in a particular thematic section of the book, it should be noted that it is clear that most, in fact, address issues that cross several—and, in some cases, all—of the four organizational themes.

The volume begins with a fascinating chapter by Tarone and Allwright, entitled “Second Language Teacher Learning and Student Second Language Learning: Shaping the Knowledge Base,” which is essentially a response to and critique of an article published by Freeman and Johnson in 1998. That earlier article, published as the lead article in a special issue of TESOL Quarterly co-edited by the authors, was an attempt (albeit a controversial one) to articulate the knowledge base for L2 teacher education. In essence, Freeman and Johnson's position emphasized the commonalities of L2 teacher education with teacher education in general. Tarone and Allwright, in contrast, argue for the exceptionality of L2 teacher education and, in so doing, raise a number of important questions about the nature and content of the knowledge base of L2 teacher education. Freeman and Johnson, in turn, offer a thoughtful response to this critique in the second chapter of the book under review. They also build on this response in the fifth chapter, “Toward Linking Teacher Knowledge and Student Learning.” Regardless of which argument one finds more compelling, the debate itself is important and timely and it provides an outstanding introduction to the remainder of this volume.

Other noteworthy chapters include Scarino's “Introspection and Retrospection as Windows on Teacher Knowledge, Values, and Ethical Dispositions,” Shohamy's “The Power of Tests Over Teachers: The Power of Teachers Over Tests,” Edge's “Build It and They Will Come: Realising Values in ESOL Teacher Education,” and Cloud's “The Dialogic Process of Capturing and Building Teacher Practical Knowledge in Dual Language Programs.” These chapters, in particular, provide insights into the evolution of more critical—in Pennycook's sense of the term—perspectives in teacher education in general and in L2 teacher education in particular.

In short, Tedick's edited volume is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature that deals with L2 teacher education broadly conceived. This volume is both a good indicator of where the field is at present and, even more important, where we need to go in the future. This is a book that really should be on every L2 educator's bookshelf.