Strengthening teacher education in lesser taught languages (STELT)

The main aim of the project is to strengthen foreign language teacher education for French, German and Spanish in Norway, due to the need for formally educated French, German and Spanish teachers in Norwegian Lower Secondary schools.

STELT is a HK-dir funded research and innovation project established to address the need for formally educated French, German and Spanish teachers in Norwegian lower secondary schools. The main aim is to strengthen foreign language teacher education for French, German and Spanish in Norway, 

STELT started as a partnership between OsloMet, Innland Norway University of Applied Sciences, The University of Agder, The University of Valencia, Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg, Universitat de València and Université Caen Normandie. As a result of the project, pre-service teachers from the Norwegian institutions can study Spanish, French and German abroad. 

STELT has also developed further education courses for in-service teachers. Through a hybrid course design combining online and physical sessions at OsloMet and in Valencia, Caen and Freiburg, the participants gain 30 ECTS and become qualified teachers of Spanish, French or German. 

Ongoing and completed trailing research on STELT provide insight into the development of the further education courses and pre- and in-service teachers’ professional, linguistic, and intercultural learning. 

Background and history

The partnership was initiated in 2014 as a response to the urgent need for qualified foreign language teachers of languages other than English, in particular French, German and Spanish. On a national level, about 20 per cent of the teachers who currently teach French, German and Spanish in lower secondary schools are not formally qualified (SSB 2014; 2022).

In addition, statistics from Oslo show that a high percentage of teachers with formal qualifications were aged 50 and above, especially in the case of French and German. Consequently, an even larger need for new, qualified language teachers is expected in the years to come.

OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, one of the largest providers of teacher education in Norway, does not have the staff to teach foreign languages other than English. Funding from HK-dir allowed the partners to create opportunities for Norwegian pre-service teachers to study Spanish, German and French and subject-specific pedagogy in the target-language countries, starting from 2019.

However, very few Norwegian students graduate from upper secondary school with a sufficient knowledge of French, German and Spanish to study the languages at university level. Consequently, the number of new teachers of these languages that can be educated each year is limited.

The next stage in the project was therefore to create study programmes for in-service teachers in Norwegian lower secondary schools who would like to teach Spanish, French or German, but lack the formal education. This part of the project was formally launched in January 2019, also with the support of HK-dir, and with the Education Agency of Oslo as a seventh partner.

Objectives

• Strengthen French, German and Spanish as languages in Norway
• Increase the number of French, German and Spanish teachers with formal language teacher competence and updated knowledge of subject-specific pedagogy
• Contribute to strengthening the quality of foreign language teaching with an emphasis on intercultural competence 
• Contribute to developing subject-specific pedagogical competence in foreign languages
• Develop research-based knowledge on professional development of French, German and Spanish teachers
• Increase the number of students on exchange

Methods and approaches

• Working in a partnership based on three activities: student exchange, further education, and research
• Develop and run further education for teachers of French, German and Spanish
• Develop study programmes on master level for Norwegian students
• Develop courses based on blended learning
• Conduct research on professional education where pre-service teachers acquire their formal competence through longer exchange periods, and in-service teachers study with a combination of online studies and shorter stays at OsloMet and abroad 
• Conduct research on blended learning, Content and Language Integrated Learning, intercultural competence, and multilingualism in foreign language teaching