The construct of foreign language teachers’ professional knowledge is theoretically well developed and provides a coherent framework for an empirical investigation. However, in contrast to other European countries, empirical research, particularly in the area of foreign language teaching and learning in Germany, is limited at the moment. This is the starting point for several studies that measure pre-service EFL teachers’ knowledge.

The test instrument that was developed and put into trail in the interdisciplinary study Teacher Education and Development Study – Learning to Teach (TEDS-LT, Jansing et al. 2013, Roters et al. 2011), measures the professional knowledge of pre-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at the end of their Bachelor and Master studies. This quantitative study was the first of its kind that measured professional knowledge in the field of EFL.

Based on the groundwork of this previous study, a new research project (PKE, Pre-service EFL teachers’ professional competence) starts in 2014, measuring pre-service foreign language teachers’ professional knowledge at two stages of their teacher training, during their Master studies and their school-based training (mandatory preparatory training; Referendariat).

The theoretical framework is based on the concept of professional knowledge (Shulman 1986, 1987) and includes the following elements: general pedagogical knowledge (GPK, König et al. 2011), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), content knowledge (CK, literature, linguistics) as well as language proficiency. The test construct differentiates between two areas of knowledge: know­ledge of foreign language teaching and knowledge of learning processes (cf. Grossman, 1990, Tsui & Nicholson, 1999).

These two subdimensions cover the areas of knowledge an EFL teacher needs to know in order to be able to teach English as a language. In addition, curricular knowledge, knowledge of their students’ abilities as well as knowledge of motivational aspects above else are included in these two subdimensions. All items follow the taxonomy of Anderson/Krathwohl (2001).  

The PKE-study thus pursues three main research questions:

1) How can pre-service teachers’ knowledge at the end of their master and – as a new perspective – during their school-based teacher training be modelled and empirically investigated?

2) How does PCK relate to other cognitive elements of professional competences, e.g. language proficiency?

3) How is pre-service teachers’ knowledge related to their learning opportunities?

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