A discussion of teacher education for second-language teachers argues that this training has generally been based on two misguided premises: that teaching is the execution of activity in classrooms; and that it involves shaping that activity to reflect some broadly held perceptions of effective classroom pedagogy. Two alternatives are proposed: that teaching involves both thinking and doing; and that the effects of teacher education lie less in influencing how teachers behave than in recasting how they think about what they do in classrooms. The discussion integrates two elements: an 18-month research project on the influences of teacher education on teachers' understandings of their teaching; and a conceptual argument that extends those findings to raise larger questions about the nature and processes of second language teacher education. It is organized around six statements that build an argument for a different view of teacher education, one based on the conceptualization of socialization into professional discourse. (38 references) (MSE)