Global education and global competence development

Consequently, a globally competent student has knowledge about the world and other cultures, has the skills to understand the world and take action, has the attitudes of openness, respect for people from different backgrounds and global mindedness, and strives for values, such as human dignity and diversity (OECD, 2017).

Several factors have contributed to the importance of the incorporation of the global dimension in ELT (Cates, 2002; Gimenez & Sheehan, 2008, Sampedro & Hillyard, 2004). Firstly, English has gained considerable importance in our increasingly interconnected and globalized world, as there is greater contact between people from various parts of the globe (Byram, 2008; Modern Language Association, 2007). As a result, the importance of teaching the language now lies in preparing students for intercultural dialogue (Byram, 2008; Gimenez & Sheehan, 2008). Secondly, in order to prepare learners for an unpredictable job market, teachers now also have to develop their students' 21st century skills (NEA, n.d.; World Economic Forum, 2015). According to the categorization of Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), 21st century skills include three different types of subskills: learning and innovation; information, media and technology skills and life and career skills (Partnership for 21st Century Learning, n.d.). The P21 Framework highlights that teaching these skills should be integrated into key subjects (e.g., Language Arts, World Languages, Mathematics, Science, History) together with 21st century interdisciplinary themes (e.g., global awareness, environmental literacy, health literacy). Therefore, these skills can be developed during English lessons while students also work on their four basic language skills. Thirdly, apart from becoming productive workforces, students also need to be prepared to be active citizens, who will be able to react to 21st century challenges (World Economic Forum, 2020), and who will be able to navigate in this increasingly complex world, characterized by radicalization, climate change, increased inequalities, and disinformation. Therefore, there is an understandable demand in education to address these difficult issues in a sheltered environment, under the guidance of teachers, and to empower young people to react to them. According to UNESCO MGIEP (2017), the language lesson is an “open-content space” (p.158), allowing teachers to bring in real-world issues and develop the above-mentioned skills. Therefore, the EFL classroom could be a suitable place for the development of students' global competence.

The global content in the EFL class

A globally competent student first needs to understand the world by perceiving its interconnectedness and by being familiar with the pressing issues of our time in order to be able to then face these problems and act to make positive change (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011). To understand the world, one needs both disciplinary knowledge (e.g., World Languages, History, Biology, Geography, Literature, The Arts) and interdisciplinary knowledge (e.g., environmental sustainability, population growth, economic development, global conflict and cooperation, health and human development, human rights, cultural identity, and diversity) (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011). Educators can also develop the knowledge dimension of global competence in their students while teaching English as a foreign language. As it was argued in the previous section, interdisciplinary themes can be successfully integrated into English language teaching, by discussing global, local, and intercultural issues in the classroom.

The knowledge dimension of global competence comprises three main elements. First, it entails the knowledge of global issues. There is no universally accepted definition of what a global issue is, but it can be understood as a problem “that affect[s] all individuals regardless of their nation or social group” (OECD, 2017, p. 12). Second, it includes the knowledge of local issues. OECD PISA (2017) outlines that local issues are also global issues, as “they are global in their reach, but local communities experience them in different ways” (p. 12). The popular phrase “think globally, act locally”, urging people to consider the present and the future of the entire planet and to take action in their immediate environment, also emphasizes the interconnectedness of the local and the global. The third element of the knowledge dimension is the knowledge of intercultural issues, “which arise from the interaction between people of different cultural backgrounds” (OECD, 2017, p. 12). As some of the global issues emerge when “ecological or socio-economic interests cross borders” (p. 12), intercultural issues can be seen either as by-products or as triggers of global issues.

Most of the above-mentioned topics are likely to be controversial issues, as they have a “political, social and personal impact and arouse feeling and/or deal with questions of value or belief” (Oxfam, 2018, p. 2). They tend to be complex and complicated, with no easy answers and people usually hold strong opinions about them (Oxfam, 2018). As some controversial topics have the potential to divide societies and cause conflicts between people, it is questionable whether they should be treated in the language lesson at all. This is partly why controversial questions can be rarely found in coursebooks: as it was suggested by Gray (2002), coursebook writers try to steer away from including the so-called PARSNIP topics (i.e., politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, and pork) in their publications, which might be regarded inappropriate in some cultures, in order not to hinder the widespread publication of their work.

Although there are many local, global, and intercultural issues that can be introduced to students, there have been only some successful attempts to systematize these issues into a coherent sequence of lessons and learning materials. There are, however, some recommendations regarding the thematic areas teachers could focus on in the context of GCED. According to the PISA (2017) classification, the four key domains of knowledge include (a) culture and intercultural issues, (b) socio-economic development and interdependence, (c) environmental sustainability, and (d) institutions that support peaceful relationships between people. This classification has some overlaps with the one proposed by Tawil (2013). The key thematic areas he recommends for consideration include (a) human rights issues, (b) environmental issues, (c) issues of social and economic justice, and (d) intercultural issues. It seems clear from the lists above that teachers have a great variety of topics to choose from and by bringing in global content into the classroom, they can contribute to “building the foundations for students' understanding of the world” (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011, p. 11).

The global content in teacher training

In order to be able to equip students with the above-mentioned knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, teachers also need to become globally competent (Longview Foundation, 2008; Mansilla & Jackson, 2011). This entails developing teachers

1. knowledge of the international dimensions of their subject matter and a range of global issues;

2. pedagogical skills to teach their students to analyze primary sources from around the world, appreciate multiple points of view, and recognize stereotyping; and

3. commitment to assisting students to become responsible citizens both of the world and of their own communities (Guo, 2014; Longview Foundation, 2008).

There seems to be an agreement among scholars that it is important to instill GCED in teacher training in order to educate trainees who will, in turn, educate globally competent students (Bauermeister & Diefenbacher, 2015; Guo, 2014; Longview Foundation, 2008; Merryfield, 2000). As Guo (2014) puts it, “it is not only desirable but also critical that all teacher education programs infuse global perspectives and strategies and develop teachers' professional competencies to educate for global citizenship as a way to achieve transformative learning in various educational settings” (p. 17). Perhaps somewhat optimistically, Bauermeister and Diefenbacher posit (2015) that “for every pre-service teacher who knows how and why to teach sustainability, the world will gain thousands of citizens with the same knowledge and skills” (p. 326). Nevertheless, as Estellés and Fischman (2021) point out, it is important to be aware of the “romanticized perspectives” of GCED as it is idealistic to assume that “pre-service teachers will be willing to develop an ideal GCE in their classes by being aware of global issues” (p. 9). Indeed, the route to successful implementation might be long, but by showing novice teachers examples of successful incorporation of global issues and teaching them how to deal with them effectively, trainees can gain more confidence and they might think of infusing their lessons with global topics, at least, as an option.

The rationale for the study

The Hungarian Government accepted the NEFE strategy (International Development Strategy) in 2015, complying with the Sustainable Development Goals (Government of Hungary, 2015), in which they committed to the inclusion of Global Citizenship Education at all levels of the Hungarian educational system (HAND, 2016). There seems to be “no accredited formal global educational curriculum in any level yet” (CONCORD, 2018, p.72) but it is reported that the “work is ongoing regarding the integration of GE into the national curriculum at primary and secondary level” (p. 72). There is hardly any data about what is happening at tertiary level.

Although, the school should be the place where students are prepared to become active democratic citizens, the Hungarian school culture seems to be dominated by the misconception that politics should be banned from schools (Hunyadi & Wessenauer, 2016). As a result, many students do not have the opportunity to discuss current public issues or social problems under the guidance of their teachers (Hunyadi & Wessenauer, 2016). The negative consequences of the taboo of politics are quite apparent: based on several studies, it seems that Hungarian students are apathetic and disillusioned with politics, which is manifested in their lack of interest and participation in public affairs (Gáti, 2010; Integrity Lab, 2016). The recent PISA study (OECD, 2020) on students' global competence reinforces the fact that there is still much to achieve in the incorporation of the global dimension: Hungary scored low in examining issues of global, local and intercultural significance, and significantly lower than the OECD average, when it comes to students' attitudes towards immigrants and to agency regarding global issues (e.g., taking action for collective well-being and sustainable development).

Based on these results, it seems that the incorporation of the global perspective is yet to deliver successful results in secondary education, so it may be valuable to gain insight into what is happening in tertiary education, most specifically in teacher training when it comes to integrating global issues. In 2012, Hain and Nguyen Luu (Hain & Nguyen Luu, 2012) set out to examine the presence of the global education approach in teacher training in Hungary. They interviewed university tutors teaching at Hungarian teacher training centers and also conducted a questionnaire study with 205 university students in these programs. Although most of the university students said that global education is present in their teacher training, only some of them claimed that they had dealt with current public affairs in their classes. They felt they were the most informed about the following topics: gender equality, climate change, environmental awareness, conscious consumption and changing perspectives. By contrast, one of the university tutors stated that the global perspective is completely missing from the training and outcome requirements (KKK in Hungarian) of teacher trainees and if something is not there, they do not attach any importance to it in the teacher training program. Another tutor claimed that “global education is not part of mainstream pedagogical thinking” (p. 21), which manifested in the fact that university students did not even know what they were talking about when they were asked about it.

University teacher trainers also need to be globally competent, in order to nurture globally competent teacher trainees (Longview Foundation, 2008), which may manifest in their choice of topics and the example they set for their students. Unfortunately, there are not many studies from EFL teacher training contexts, and the existing ones mostly focus on EFL teacher trainee's attitudes towards global topics in their courses (Angelini, García-Carbonell, & Watts, 2014; Gürsoy & Saglam, 2011; Rass, 2020; Rodríguez, 2015). From the teacher trainers' perspective, the existing literature on the incorporation of the global perspective in teacher training institutions mostly concentrates on good practices (Cossu & Brun, 2020; Holló, 2015) or on university tutors' understanding of global education (Divéki, 2020; Lourenço, 2018). However, it is yet to be explored how teachers develop the knowledge component of global competence in their EFL teacher training courses and this study aims to fill in this gap: This paper sets out to examine five teacher trainers' views on global competence development in EFL teacher training. More specifically, it aims to explore what topics they deal with for global competence development, what attitudes they have towards dealing with such issues and what influences them to deal with such issues in their courses.

Research questions

The study seeks to answer the following overarching research question and its sub questions:

Setting

In Hungary, students envisaging becoming English as foreign language teachers have to enroll in an undivided teacher training program offered by one of ten universities specializing in teacher training (Felvi). At the beginning of their studies, EFL teacher trainees take some introductory English courses together with students majoring in English. The name of the degree they receive upon completing the five- or six-year-long training (depending on whether they choose the primary or secondary education track) is teacher of English language and culture. The last part of the program is one-year-long teaching practice, where trainees are required to teach both of their two subjects in a state school, under the guidance of a mentor teacher.

Participants

The participants of the study were selected using purposive sampling strategies. As one of the aims of the study was to reveal how Hungarian teacher trainers deal with global content, five tutors from Hungarian teacher training institutions were identified and asked to participate in the study. Another criterion for their selection was the fact that they all taught language practice courses to first-year university students (who are usually between 18 and 20 years old), a cohort of students who will be able to vote in the next general election in Hungary. As one of the main aims of global competence development is to nurture active and responsible citizens, it seemed logical to inquire about the topics students deal with in their lessons around the time they become eligible to vote.

Maximum variation sampling was used in order to ensure the greatest variety of participants. Apart from the exploration of the variety of responses, as Dörnyei (2008) suggests, the great benefit of this procedure is that it highlights the common features and, in this way, any pattern the researcher finds might be assumed to be “reasonably stable” in the given population (p.128). What the participants had in common was that they all taught courses related to the language development of first-year students, such as general language practice, writing skills or presentation techniques.

Five participants, two males and three females, were asked to participate in this study, representing different age groups and having different lengths of teaching experience, ranging from 3.5 to 35 years. Three of the participants had considerable professional and personal experience abroad, one participant had some experience and one had none. Two participants taught in the capital, Budapest, and the other three participants taught in three teacher training universities in the countryside, in Eger, Szeged and Pécs. All the participants were core members at the departments where they taught. They all received a pseudonym and a code, which will be used with the quotes and themes in the Results and Discussion section (together with the page number of the transcript where the quote appeared). The interviewees' data can be seen below, in Table 1.

Methods of data collection

To tap into how teacher trainers develop the knowledge dimension of GCD, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The languages of the interviews were Hungarian and English, as in one case the interviewee and the interviewer did not share the same mother tongue and in one case, the participant felt more comfortable using English. The instrument was designed for collecting data for two different research projects: the present one and one focusing on teacher trainers' views on GCD and their perceived role in GCD; thus, only half of the interview schedule was used to gather data for the present study. The validation of the interview guide took place in the Spring of 2019, the detailed description of which can be found in the author's previous article (Divéki, 2020).

During the interviews, as a warm-up, the tutors had to think about their first-year language development courses in general and state why they like teaching these courses and how they design them. In the next block, they had to enumerate the topics they usually like and dislike dealing with in general and then, they were asked to focus on what global, local, and intercultural topics they like to and do not like to deal with in their courses. Also, in this section, they had to talk about whether they have any taboo topics in their lessons. The next part of the interview aimed to reveal their attitudes towards dealing with global content in their classes, so the tutors were asked about their feelings about it, the frequency of its inclusion and the importance they attribute to it. Finally, in order to reveal what influences their decision to bring global, local and intercultural issues to class, they were asked what they take into consideration when selecting the topics to include and what might prevent them from bringing specific issues to class. The interview guide used to inquire about these topics can be found in Appendix A.

Procedures of data collection and analysis

The interviews took place face to face or online, depending on the place of residence of the participants: in the case of the participants from Budapest, they took place in the tutors' offices, and in the case of the participants from the countryside, they took place online, using video conferencing tools (Skype, Zoom and Google Meet), between March 2019 and October 2020. The interviews lasted between 58 and 87 minutes and they were audio-recorded with two mobile devices and the recording function of the video conferencing platforms after the participants' consent was obtained.

The interview data were transcribed right after the interviews. After the preparation of the transcripts, the initial coding of the data began by reading the scripts carefully and then labelling and commenting on the script. Using the constant comparative method, “designed to identify themes and patterns in qualitative data” (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994, p. 159), the data were broken down into meaningful units and coded into categories. Each new unit of meaning was then subjected to analysis, compared to the other meaningful chunks and then, grouped with other units of meaning. If there was no already existing similar unit, a new category was formed (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994).

The author went into great lengths to ensure that the study would meet the quality criteria of qualitative studies. The credibility of the study was established by using member checking; the transcripts were sent back to the participants to give them the opportunity to check and correct what they had said in the interview. The parts they deemed unsuitable were taken out of the transcripts and were not subjected to analysis. The researcher aimed to meet the criteria of transferability by attempting to give a detailed description of the research context and the procedures. The dependability of the study was ensured using the same semi-structured interview guide and mostly asking the participants the same questions to avoid bias. Finally, the confirmability, or the neutrality of the study was established by the help of a co-coder, whose codes were compared to the researcher's.

What topics do university tutors in EFL teacher training deal with for global competence development in their first-year groups?

What attitudes do university EFL teacher trainers in Hungary have towards dealing with local, global, and intercultural issues?

In order to inquire into the university tutors' attitudes towards dealing with global, local, and intercultural issues, they were asked to describe their feelings concerning their incorporation and talk about the frequency of their inclusion and the importance of dealing with such topics in the EFL classroom.

As far as their feelings were concerned, four of the tutors admitted to having generally positive feelings towards dealing with such complex topics (U, I, M, R). More specifically, Iván said that he is usually excited when it comes to such issues and quite curious how the students will react to them. Márta claimed that she especially loves dealing with intercultural topics in her lessons, as there are many activities up her sleeve that she knows will work wonders in her classes. Kristóf did not report on any specific feelings, he believes that these topics are normal in the classroom, and “it is possible to talk about any topic somehow” (T/K-4). Apart from positive feelings, two participants also mentioned a bit of anxiety, mostly in connection with certain local issues coming up in their lessons, the students' response to them and not being able to handle a politically heated discussion (M, I).

Ulrich also tries to cover such topics every class and does so by “push[ing] gently” and “choosing homework that has a bit of an angle” (T/U-5). Iván also stated that global issues are “basically always present” in his classes and he even tries to create materials with this in mind – e.g., whenever he encounters passages in his readings that could fit this theme, he brings them into the classroom. According to Márta though, the frequency depends on the type of issue at hand, and she deals with global and intercultural issues in 70% of her lessons, and hardly ever with local ones. For Kristóf, the frequency of the appearance of such topics is completely random – it depends on what the students would like to deal with and bring into class through presentations.

Although Kristóf also believes that talking about global topics is important, he also drew the attention to the fact that it is very difficult to engage some students with these topics. He thinks that this generation has a sensory overload, “they encounter these issues everywhere… billboards, online ads, articles, have you heard about this or that, what's your opinion about this, or that… it's quite understandable that some of them say they've had enough” (T/K-7). All in all, according to him, it is essential to find some balance and not to be overbearing, just as Ulrich said.

Based on the tutors' feelings, how frequently they bring in global issues into the classroom and what importance they attribute to bringing in these topics into the classroom, they seem to have reasonably positive attitudes towards dealing with the global content in their classes. This seems to be imperative in implementing GCE, as it has been suggested in the literature (Bauermeister & Diefenbacher, 2015; Guo, 2014; Longview Foundation, 2008; Merryfield, 2000), teacher trainers have an important role in setting an example to their students when it comes to nurturing global citizens. Even if they are not integrating global citizenship as a topic explicitly in their lessons, by infusing their lessons with the global perspective, they are passing on important values to the next generations and providing prospective teachers with examples to follow.

What influences university tutors in EFL teacher training in Hungary in dealing with local, global, and intercultural issues?

The students and their interests also appear as important deciding elements (U, M, K). During the whole interview, Kristóf emphasized the fact that mostly topics that students would like to deal with appear in his classes, so for him, the students' choice is of utmost importance. In Ulrich's case, if he feels that something is relevant for his students at a given moment, he is ready to even change his plans: “Being open to the moment and to pick up… atmospherically in the group or from individual students… and if I feel that it’s relevant, then to change my plans in terms of content and process” (T/U-6).

All in all, what tutors seem to take into consideration when choosing what global, local and intercultural issues to deal with include the topicality of the issue, its relation to the core course content, students' interest and the language value of the given materials they could use to discuss the issue. The results are mostly in line with what the author found out in her previous questionnaire study about that influences Hungarian EFL teachers to bring in controversial issues into the classroom, where students' interest also scored relatively high (Divéki, 2018). However, further quantitative studies would be useful to yield further insight into what influences teachers' decisions to deal with global content when it is not a requisite in the course.