Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Students with Disabilities in the Republic of Croatia

Since teaching English as a foreign language to students with disabilities has so far received little attention in national scientific discourse, which has mostly dealt just with specific subcategories of disabilities, the paper presents research conducted among Croatian primary and secondary teachers of English as a foreign language regarding their inclusive practice. Three research questions were formulated: What kind of education do teachers of English as a foreign language have about inclusion and students with disabilities? What are the experiences of these teachers in teaching students with disabilities? What kind of support do these teachers receive in the schools where they work? A descriptive research design was used, i.e., a qualitative study that included an in-depth interpretation of open-ended questions in a self-constructed and piloted questionnaire. The results show that 69.4% of the 98 participants did not have any formal education about inclusion or students with disabilities during their university studies, although 67.4% had attended a professional development programme on this topic. Most of the participants had experience in teaching students with specific learning difficulties (90.8%), and just 12.2% perceived themselves unready to work with students with disabilities. When they needed advice, the participants consulted school support team members, principals, class masters and experts or colleagues outside their school. However, only 15.3% of the teachers perceived the support they received as sufficient. The paper represents a solid starting point for further national research, e.g., on a specific category of students with disabilities or on English as a foreign language teachers working in schools with incomplete school support teams without education-rehabilitation experts.