Pedagogical and methodological approaches to developing the subject-specific inclusive competence of pre-service foreign language teachers

Abstract

As part of the project “Theorie- und Praxis-Verzahnung im ZZL-Netzwerk Lehrerbildung” at the Leuphana University Lüneburg within the framework of the “Initiative for Excellence in Teacher Education,” a seminar with the subject of inclusive English instruction was developed within a tri-phasic and multi-institutional team as a blended learning course, implemented for the first time in the wintersemester 2017/2018, and empirically evaluated. The aim of the seminar is to develop positive attitudes towards inclusive English education with a focus on subject-specific issues and to strengthen the pre-service teachers’ reflective competence with regard to content-related, inclusive pedagogy. This contribution will introduce the theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological principles of the seminar Teaching in Inclusive English Settings. Using the coordinated seminar sessions addressing hearing impairment and co-teaching for illustrative purposes, the ways in which the connection between theory and practice are established, will be described. Students in the seminar use a case study of an student with hearing impairment, utilizing authentic materials and documents to learn about and engage in reflection on methodological approaches to a specific special educational need before drawing a connection to the issue of co-teaching. The students analyze and consider standard cooperative processes, before subsequently examining an actual example of co-teaching between an English teacher and a special education teacher. The exploratory evaluation of the seminar will be described and selected findings presented. The outcomes suggest that specific content and methods can positively influence the reflective competence of pre-service teachers as well as beliefs conducive to foreign language learning.