Davey Young

Quality inclusive education has been guaranteed at the international policy level, but for inclusive education to be realized, teachers must be prepared to teach students with a wide variety of support needs. With well over a billion English language learners worldwide, and considering the fact that language learning can present many unique barriers to students with disabilities, the TESOL field has a growing need to consider how to best train teachers to teach inclusively. English language teachers (ELTs) generally lack training to teach students with disabilities, and little research has been done to identify specific training needs. If language learning environments are to honor the human right to inclusive education, then this is a critical research gap to close. This study reports on the use of a novel instrument, the Inclusive Practices in English Language Teaching Observation Scale (IPELT), in combination with post-observation interviews, to determine specific training needs among ELTs working at the postsecondary level in Japan. Magnitude coding of IPELT results and thematic analysis of field notes and interview data from 13 participants suggests that ELTs in this particular context would likely benefit from training in differentiation and specific considerations for teaching students with disabilities, as well as identifying possible students with disabilities. The participants also demonstrated a foundational skill set to create inclusive learning environments despite a general lack of relevant training.

While general and special education teachers’ sentiments, attitudes, and concerns about inclusive education have been extensively researched in recent years, little is known about English language teachers’ views on inclusive education. This is a critical research gap, as students with disabilities can face many unique barriers to learning a foreign language compared to other subject areas, and teachers’ views on inclusive education impact their ability to teach inclusively. However, many English language teachers have reported feeling unprepared to teach students with disabilities. Using postsecondary English language teachers in Japan as a case, the present research employed a modified version of the Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised Scale (SACIE-R; N = 239). Respondents had a generally positive view of including students with disabilities in their instruction but were concerned about lacking knowledge and skills to teach inclusively and giving appropriate attention to all students in an inclusive classroom. Predictive factors included previous interactions with people with disabilities and inclusive practices self-efficacy, though both were overshadowed by the relationship that participation in pre- and in-service training to teach students with disabilities had with teachers’ views. The results have implications for how to best prepare English language teachers to teach inclusively, particularly as pertains to in-service training.

The implementation of inclusive education—education for all—is complicated in language learning contexts due to the unique barriers that students with disabilities (SWDs) can encounter when learning a foreign language. In addition, teachers’ views on inclusive education are critical in ensuring its full and proper implementation. Therefore, there is a clear need to understand English language teachers’ (ELTs’) concerns about teaching such students. This study used the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954) to interview 13 ELTs working at the postsecondary level in Japan about their concerns about teaching SWDs. Thematic analysis using the constant comparative method (Glaser, 1965) revealed 12 concerns, with the two most common being concern for issues related to diagnosis and/or disclosure and curricular constraints, both of which were frequently connected to concern for institutional barriers to inclusion. A discussion of local contextual factors and suggestions on how to reduce these concerns conclude the paper.インクルーシブ教育（すべての人のための教育）の実施は、外国語を学習する際に障害を持つ学生（SWD）が遭遇する特殊な障壁のために、言語学習の文脈において 複雑である。さらに、インクルーシブ教育の完全かつ適切な実施を保障するためには、インクルーシブ教育に対する教師の見方が重要である。したがって、こうした 学生を教える際の英語教師（ELT）の懸念を理解する必要があるといえる。本研究では、クリティカル・インシデント技法（Flanagan, 1954）を用いて、日本の中等教育修了後のレベルで働く13人のELTに、SWDの指導に関する懸念についてインタビューを行った。継続的な比較法（Glaser, 1965）を用いた主題分析により、12の懸念事項が明らかになったが、その中で最も多かったのは、診断や情報開示に関する問題への懸念とカリキュラム上の制約の2つであり、この2つは、インクルージョンに対する制度的障壁への懸念と頻繁に関連していた。 特定文脈の要因についての考察と、これらの懸念を軽減する方法についての提言を本稿の結びとする。

Since its emergence as a global policy movement and alternative to special education in the 1990s, inclusive education has been touted as a guarantee of equitable education provisions to minoritized groups around the world. However, the implementation of inclusive education has been irregular, confined in part by historical, cultural, and ideological factors at the local level, including in Japan. This chapter traces the evolution of inclusive education within the history of Japanese schooling framed against the backdrop of its development as an international policy movement and proposes a global-local policy cycle that shapes inclusive education’s incremental and context-specific advancement at various levels of policy and practice. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the current state of inclusive education at the compulsory and postsecondary levels in Japan, including consideration of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Despite the ubiquitous presence of students with disabilities (SWDs) enrolled in institutes of higher education around the world, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) programs are often underequipped to provide them with appropriate and effective disability services and inclusive instruction. Given the general uncertainty among EFL professionals of how to provide such services and instruction, and considering that postsecondary EFL learning environments can differ considerably from context to context, it may be useful for language program leaders to create context-specific support systems to serve SWDs enrolled in their courses. The present paper provides a set of practical guidelines for establishing an institutional or departmental policy and procedure for ensuring a continuum of services to SWDs in contexts where such measures do not already exist, as is the case in many postsecondary EFL learning environments around the world. These guidelines are presented as a set of eight steps in a suggested sequence of execution: identify existing policies or create new ones, identify and determine the availability of resources, identify and remove barriers in the learning environment, assign clear roles and responsibilities for leadership, create a framework for service delivery, include a provision for post-implementation evaluation, offer opportunities for professional growth and creation of expertise, and share best practices with practitioners in other contexts.