INTERNATIONALISATION AS A STRATEGY OF EDUCATING FUTURE TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

Abstract

The close relationship between internationalisation and the employability of university graduates is increasingly viewed as not merely an aspirational agenda, but a strategic one for any HE institution. This transnational perspective has become even more relevant in the period of global challenges for traditional ways of working and educating – with the teaching profession profoundly included. The present article encompasses the theme of the future role of teachers and, in particular, introduces a current 2020–2023 project Teachers of English for Future Europe (TEFE). Fundamentally, the project is viewed as one of Applied Linguistics and much of its inspiration is couched in addressing real-word issues and creating practical relevance for research. By introducing the project vision, methodology and planned outputs, the article argues that the impetus of international mobilities is shifting from the well-understood focus on developing linguistic competence of teachers of English to a more comprehensive, practice-oriented teacher education. Specifically, the trend is to transform traditional environment of taught courses by embedding international experience – be it physical, blended or fully online – into the study programmes of future teachers of English. The TEFE project methodology integrates the vision of English teacher preparation change with collaborative working of linguists, methodologists, student teachers and teacher mentors and uses as a basis the action-oriented approach. As part of the present TEFE report, experiential learning and reflexivity are advocated as the key drivers in arriving at four main outputs of the project: internationalisation of teaching practice, international employability skills, online evaluation and diagnostic tools, communication strategies on TEFE COIL (collaborative online international learning) platform. A case is also made in support of harnessing both existing and emerging technology to create platforms for collaboration, continued learning and self-development as an inherent part of any internationalisation package. The resources produced by the project are useful for HE institutions educating future teachers of English as they will help in preparation for international mobility in an effective way. The contribution of each author in this research is the following: H. Lohrová – 50%, A. Prošková – 50%.