Needs analysis to language teachers
Karin Vogt, University of Education Heidelberg, Germany
This module draws on findings from the SPLENDID project’s teacher needs analysis survey, which gathered responses from 491 language teachers across five European countries: Greece, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, and Italy. The survey was designed and led by the University of Macedonia and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with participation from all consortium partners, and represents one of the most extensive cross-national data collections on teacher preparedness for inclusive EFL education conducted in recent years.
The data collected reflect the real baseline from which language teachers across Europe approach the challenge of supporting students with diverse learning needs — including students with visual, hearing, mobility, and learning-related differences — in mainstream classrooms. Rather than assuming what teachers need, the SPLENDID project asked them directly: what do you already know, what do you find difficult, and what do you most want to learn? The results shaped the content of the training sessions delivered across four countries, the structure of the Teachers’ Handbook, and the design of the MOOC itself.
Understanding the findings of a needs analysis is not merely an academic exercise. It is an invitation to situate yourself within a larger European professional community — to see where your challenges are shared, where contexts diverge, and what this means for how you approach inclusive language teaching in your specific school, city, and country.
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Interpret the key findings of the SPLENDID teacher needs analysis, identifying the most frequently reported training gaps and the contextual factors that shape them across different European educational systems.
- Reflect critically on how your own teaching context — in terms of curricula, infrastructure, professional development opportunities, and student population — compares with and relates to the broader European picture presented by the data.
- Recognise linguistic and cultural diversity as a resource in the EFL classroom, understanding why inclusive classroom environments that respect this diversity were identified as a top training priority by teachers across the consortium.
- Apply practical strategies for acknowledging and celebrating learner linguistic identities, including the use of language portraits, as a concrete starting point for building inclusive classroom communities.
- Connect the evidence base from the needs analysis to your own practice, identifying one or more areas where the survey findings resonate with your professional experience and where you might take a first step toward change.
The SPLENDID teacher needs analysis rests on a foundational understanding that effective inclusive education cannot be designed in the abstract — it must be grounded in the actual knowledge, attitudes, and professional realities of the teachers who are expected to implement it. This principle reflects a participatory approach to professional development, one that treats teachers not as passive recipients of expertise but as professionals whose voices and experiences are themselves a legitimate and essential source of evidence.
The survey framework was informed by research on teacher preparedness for diversity and disability in mainstream language classrooms, a field that has consistently documented a significant gap between policy ambitions and classroom realities. Despite growing policy commitments to inclusion at the European level — including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Salamanca Statement, and the EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030 — most language teachers report receiving little or no pre-service preparation for teaching students with diverse learning needs. The SPLENDID needs analysis sought to map this gap empirically across national contexts, allowing training content to be targeted and evidence-based rather than generic.
At the same time, the survey was attentive to the structural and contextual factors that shape what teachers can realistically do. Inclusive teaching does not happen in a vacuum: it is enabled or constrained by curriculum flexibility, classroom resources and physical infrastructure, institutional support, workload pressures, and access to ongoing professional development. These contextual variables differ substantially across European educational systems, which means that the same training need can look very different — and require very different responses — depending on where a teacher works.
The module’s focus on linguistic and cultural diversity as a dimension of inclusive education connects to the broader theoretical tradition of plurilingualism and pluricultural competence, as articulated in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and its companion volume. This tradition holds that all languages and partial competences a learner brings to the classroom have value, and that recognising and building on learners’ full linguistic repertoires — rather than treating any language as an obstacle — is both pedagogically sound and ethically important. The language portrait activity introduced in this module is one practical expression of this theoretical commitment, offering a low-threshold, high-impact way to make linguistic diversity visible and celebrated in any classroom.
One of the top three training needs is creating an inclusive classroom environment that respects linguistic and cultural diversity.
- In your context, what do you understand by linguistic diversity? How is cultural diversity visible in your EFL classroom?
- What do you think is an inclusive classroom environment in your teaching context? Please reflect on aspects that are important to you in terms of an inclusive classroom environment. Can you implement some of these aspects and how do you / how would you do that? If possible, share with a colleague.
- Language portraits are a good way to help your learners express their linguistic identity and help you learn more about your learners. Regular language portraits value all languages that learners bring with them.
For doing learner portraits, bring copies with a silhouette of a person
(https://heteroglossia.net/fileadmin/user_upload/portrait_child.pdf)
Bring coloured pencils or crayons for the learners.
In a first step, ask learners to fill in the silhouette with every language they know (how well is not relevant, partial competences are common and count, too) in the body parts that are relevant to them. For example, if they think a language helps them to do things, colour in the hands. Each language has one colour they can choose.
Here is a possible assignment:
This is a picture of you on a piece of paper. (language portrait silhouette)
It is about what languages are in your life and how you feel about them. All languages are important, no matter how well you know them.
Colour in the languages on the paper. Each language has a different colour. Choose a body part for your language and colour it in. Write down which languages have which colour.
Present your language portrait to others.
The purpose of this part is the celebration of all languages, including partial competence of a language, and regardless of where the learner has encountered it.
In a second step, the learners would connect their languages with the celebration of cultural difference. This is done by asking learners to add to their portrait one cultural aspect that might or might not be connected with a language in their lives and that they find interesting / fascinating / worthwhile sharing with others. They find a symbol for this cultural aspect and add it to the portrait. They share the symbol with fellow learners, either in small groups or in the plenary, and they find similarities with others rather than differences.
The teacher needs analysis questionnaire has collected data from 491 language teachers across Europe. How do you imagine contexts to differ in terms of curricula, resources and infrastructure, availability of professional development activities, teacher workload etc.? What do you think about their impact on results? Can you relate the main results to your teaching context?