Advanced training course for English teachers as a way to form an idea of methods and techniques to work with special educational needs learners

Abstract

The relevance of this article is due to the research we conducted in 2019 as part of the thesis work. The study revealed that many English language teachers lack knowledge of not only the core principles of inclusive education, but the psychological and pedagogical peculiarities of special education needs children, as well as the ways and methods of teaching English to them, according to the principles of short- and long-term subject planning adaptation. The identified problems specified the tasks of our further work: to define the most effective ways for imparting the missing knowledge to English teachers on improving the effectiveness of teaching children with special educational needs in special classes, as well as in classes with normatively developing children of secondary schools. When specifying methods and techniques for teaching special educational needs learners, it was also necessary to take into account legislative instruments regulating the English teacher’s activities. Thus, the object of our research was psychological and pedagogical features, methods and techniques of teaching children with special educational needs, statutory instruments, working academic programs, model curricula, information letters and Orders of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan as well. The result of the study was the Instructional book with adapted tasks for primary school English teachers (2nd grade), as well as the advanced training course program on methods of teaching English within the inclusive education. The instructional book included adapted tasks that could be used for teaching English to children with special educational needs. The goal of the advanced training course was to introduce special aspects and methods of working with special educational needs children. At the beginning and end of the courses, teacher surveys were conducted via Google forms, which demonstrated the effectiveness of such advanced training courses.