A growing number of teacher education researchers have joined the discussion about what should constitute effective coursework design and program composition to train qualified second language (SL) teachers. Traditionally, the content of second language teacher education (SLTE) programs was drawn heavily from theoretical linguistic knowledge of the target language and knowledge of second language acquisition (what SL teachers need to know) rather than pedagogical knowledge (how SL teachers should teach) (Johnson, 2009). In the recent past researchers (e.g. Bartels, 2005) realized that within this traditional approach, teachers often fail to apply content knowledge in their classrooms because SLTE programs often do not train SL teachers to transform content knowledge into accessible and learnable forms. This trend led to a preference of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987), which blends content and pedagogical knowledge, as the dominant framework of guiding and evaluating SLTE programs (Johnson, 2009). Many researchers (e.g. Wang et.al, 2013) examined this framework focusing on curriculum innovation by comparing SLTE programs in different social and political settings. But little research actually focuses on how the different characteristics of a given second language can affect the appropriate weight of linguistic knowledge for a SLTE program. Specifically, research has not explored in great detail the social and cultural facets of language that go beyond a strictly communicative use. This paper argues that historical, cultural, grammatical, syntactical, semantic, and morphological differences among different languages may require SL teachers to acquire different width and depth of linguistic knowledge in order to teach SL effectively. Thus, SLTE programs should by no means ignore the effect of the distinctiveness of every target language on the curriculum.

Using the framework of teacher language awareness (Bartels, 2005), this paper explores how second language teaching is taught and how the linguistic differences of target languages influence the theoretical and pedagogical constructions in two SLTE programs—teaching Chinese as second language (CSL) teacher education program in China and teaching English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) program in the US. This paper chooses Chinese and English for two reasons: 1) the vast linguistic differences between Chinese and English may manifest their effects on the SLTE programs; 2) the large number of English learners and the increasing number of Chinese learners make SLTE programs in Chinese and English of vital interest for SLTE curricula innovation. With this approach in mind, the goals of this paper are threefold: 1) to examine the foci of the course design and program composition of a CSL program in China and an ESOL program in the US; 2) to explore how linguistic differences of Chinese and English shape the curricula of the aforementioned SLTE programs; and 3) to investigate how the findings can help improve curricula innovation in SLTE programs. 

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