Teaching Foreign Languages Inclusively: Teacher Competence

Today a foreign language teacher often faces the challenge of conducting lessons in an inclusive classroom. The crucial question is whether instructors are psychologically and professionally prepared to teach foreign languages inclusively? The authors of the paper carried out a pioneer survey of the teachers and professors of English as a foreign language in order to determine the knowledge and skills they lack in the sphere of inclusive education. The results allowed the authors to work out the guidelines for compiling an efficient teacher training programme that will make participants ready to work in inclusive EFL classes. The teacher training programme, criteria and forms for assessing teacher’s acquisition of the programme content are presented in the paper by T.S. Makarova, E.E. Matveeva, M.A. Molchanova, E.A. Morozova, associate professors of Moscow City University, and N.V. Burenina, the professor of Ogarev Mordovia State University.

The adequate professional and psychological-methodology training of teachers is of major importance in teaching a foreign language to learners who have health impairment. In spite of the numeral works published in Russia and abroad which cover various aspects of this problem the given article is the first to do the detailed analysis of teachers’ survey in order to reveal the knowledge, competences and skills necessary for their effective work in inclusive classes. The aim of the article is to develop a teacher training/retraining programme, which is based on the state professional educator standard and able to make teachers ready to work with learners who have health impairment.

 Methodology of the research represented is a combination of critical overview of works by Russian and foreign authors, other relative materials and detailed analysis of the results obtained through query of university and school teachers which was necessary for working out a relative teacher training programme that will make them ready to work in inclusive classes. 30 teachers took part in the survey.