Hungarian Secondary School Teachers’ Views on Global Competence Development in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

Abstract

In today’s world, education needs to empower students to become active global citizens who are prepared for the twenty-first century challenges and who can solve local and global problems, which makes them globally competent individuals. Global competence development seeks to meet these needs by building the required skills among them. A globally competent student can examine issues of global significance, understand other people’s perspectives, engage in appropriate and effective interactions with people from different cultural backgrounds, and act for collective well-being and sustainable development. In this framework, the main aim of this study, involving ten Hungarian secondary school English language teachers, is to inquire into what they mean by global competence development, to what extent they think it is their task to develop students’ global competence and what they need to succeed in it. Findings emerging from this qualitative inquiry suggest that the participants are reasonably aware of what global competence entails. Moreover, they think it should be everyone’s task to nurture global citizens, but admittedly, they have an easier task as foreign language teachers as opposed to teachers of other subjects. Finally, they would need financial and methodological support to be able to develop students’ global competence more effectively.