This paper aims to situate the emergence of the university teacher educator as an object of academic research, considering the Brazilian context and focusing more specifically on the foreign language teacher educator. Global and national pressures have brought to surface the need to consider the processes of education for the higher education professor, which has been evidenced by governmental programs, initiatives in higher education institutions, and the development of a body of research about university teacher educators in several areas, including the area of foreign language teaching. A bibliographic search of the academic research in Brazil during the first decade of the 21st century, based on the main national thesis and dissertation databases, shows the gradual increase of research about teacher and teacher educator education and the initial interest in specific questions about and contexts for the professional education of university foreign language teacher educators by graduate programs in Letters and Applied Linguistics.
university teacher educator; foreign language teacher education; bibliographic search