Inclusive Education Practices During the COVID-19 Pandemic From the Eyes of Turkish EFL Student Teachers: A Qualitative Research

Introduction

Every student has his/her potentials, capabilities, and learning strategies regardless of their abilities and disabilities. For this reason, each student can learn new subjects with acceptable course content, appropriate instruction, suitable approach, and assessment types offered by qualified teachers. Inclusive education defines a learning process or educational environment that offers equal learning opportunities to learners regardless of their disabilities or differences (Norwich, 2002). According to Loreman et al. (2005), inclusive education means not only the presence of students physically in learning activities provided by formal institutions but also refers to students' participation and recognition as individuals who are a part of the society by taking into consideration that they have the same rights as others. Inclusive education as a theoretical concept has been known since the 1990s (Jimenez, 2018). Inclusive education includes accepting differences and diversity of learners, either able or disabled, and reducing learning barriers that may prevent students' learning due to their abilities, gender, race, and ethnicity. Foreign language learning, like other fields, should support inclusive education with practical applications. Thus, learning a foreign language is also a right for every student, able or disabled. English language teachers' role as facilitators, organizers, and mediators of language teaching activities must include mutual respect and acceptance of all classroom students. In this perspective, language teachers must provide a positive learning and teaching atmosphere in which every student feels relaxed and delighted while the learning is taking place (Jimenez, 2018). It should be noted that an inclusive educational environment for foreign language learners fosters students' both cognitive and linguistic levels in addition to their better personal behaviors, which are the results of self-belonging and social acceptance (Norwich, 2002).

According to Ramos (2009), inclusive classrooms provide many teaching and learning opportunities for teachers and learners because these classrooms are great places that include diverse student profiles, from typical developing learners to students with special educational needs. However, teaching in inclusive classrooms may sometimes become challenging in terms of language teachers and requires special training in inclusive education. Moreover, teachers' patience and eagerness to the range of students in inclusive settings make the learning process more efficient. Challenges that a teacher may face in inclusive classrooms are mentioned by Ramos (2009). The first challenge is the “lack of experience in an inclusion setting” that a teacher's inexperience in teaching in an inclusive classroom may negatively affect the teaching process and learning outputs. The second challenge is the “lack of experience dealing with severe and profound disabilities” that some inclusive classrooms may include severely disabled students who need additional learning needs or more attention during the learning process. Moreover, curriculum and lesson plans require special modifications to meet these students' learning needs. In this perspective, teachers may face a challenge. The third challenge is “including students in all activities” for teachers in inclusive classrooms. Students learn by doing and learn better by active participation and experiencing (Moon, 2004). In this perspective, inclusive classrooms should include all students in all classroom activities like regular classrooms. However, some students who need special needs (SEN), minority students, and students with different ethnicity and race may not want to join some activities. In such cases, teachers may be challenged to make them join the activities or prepare suitable activities in which every student participates. The fourth challenge is the “shortage of teacher aids” in inclusive classrooms. Teachers need teacher aids to prepare effective course materials (Kumar, 2017). It is an urgent need to provide all necessary teaching aids to inclusive classrooms due to the capacity of classrooms.