Webquests as a Tool of Preparing in-Service and Pre-Service Teachers of English for Inclusion of Learners with Disability

EasyChair Preprint 2089

Abstract

Inclusion in Ukraine has been the national educational policy since 2018. It was preceded by a nation-wide experiment of teaching children with disability in mainstream schools and also by numerous researches and debates. Higher and post-graduate educational institutions, that provide teacher training and professional development, responded to the need for preparing pre-service and in-service teachers for inclusion and disability issues. Relevant instructional modules and academic courses have been designed and are delivered in different parts of the country. In the same time, the research conducted among in-service English teachers revealed that their self-assessment indices of knowledge and skills required for teaching children with disability are highly insufficient. This can be explained by two reasons. The first one is the complex nature of typical teacher professional development course which may include numerous topics that refer to the Methods of Teaching English and Linguistics. As a result, teachers are denied opportunities for reflection and practice (e.g. in the course of relevant paraprofessional activities). That is why their experience indices also proved to be low. The second reason is the theoretical character of such courses that promotes the development of low order thinking skills. The consideration of the problem mentioned led us to studying the potential of WebQuests as self-instruction and distant learning tools. The current research suggests principles that may be used by WebQuest designers, a list of trainees' skills that may be developed and desired outcomes to be produced by English teachers as a part of relevant training.

Keyphrases: WebQuests, learners with disability, teacher training, teachers of English as a foreign language, teachers' readiness for inclusion

@booklet{EasyChair:2089,
  author    = {Nataliia Scherba},
  title     = {Webquests as a Tool of Preparing in-Service and Pre-Service Teachers of English for Inclusion of Learners with Disability},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 2089},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}