Teacher accountability continues to be at the forefront of educational policy in the United States, with the current focus on the Outcomes of K-12 teaching and teacher education (Cochran-Smith 2000). edTPA, a high-stakes assessment used in many states to make licensure or certification decisions, purports to measure those content-specific outcomes. This study investigated pre-service Spanish teachers' performance on the World Language edTPA as it relates to planning for instruction in a communicative context. Specifically, the five highest scoring edTPA portfolios from two large world language teacher education programs were examined, with a focus on their alignment with communicative language teaching approaches and Gronlund's (2004) criteria for articulating student learning outcomes. Results showed serious discrepancies among the candidates' learning outcomes, communicative language teaching approaches, and the spirit of the World Language edTPA. This research has implications for teacher preparation and professional development of beginning language teachers.