Reflecting the increased importance of early English foreign language education globally, Austrian primary English as a foreign language (EFL) education has recently been substantially reformed, ‘upgrading’ EFL classes to a mandatory graded subject. With the backdrop of these imminent curricular changes, this study examined the perspectives of 27 Austrian primary school teachers from all provinces across different career phases concerning their educational and curricular needs and prerequisites in terms of teacher education and curricular provisions. By using semi-structured interviews, data was collected and critically examined through qualitative content analysis. This revealed that primary school teachers value foreign language (FL) focused training at tertiary level, yet they wish for more instruction, particularly regarding their own language skills, but also in terms of teaching methodology. Moreover, the majority of practitioners did not feel adequately prepared to assess primary learners’ FL skills and seemed generally sceptical towards formal assessment at primary school level, fearing that especially summative assessment would be detrimental to the students’ FL development. While the context of this study might be unique, these results can be compared to a wider international context, considering that many school systems introduce FL instruction more intensively and with increasing educational standardization. Finally, the results of this study also offer insights into how teacher education might need to adjust.

中文翻译：

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理解教师的观点：非专业早期外语教师教育和课程需求的定性研究


为了反映早期英语外语教育在全球范围内日益增长的重要性，奥地利小学英语作为外语 （EFL） 教育最近进行了重大改革，将 EFL 课程“升级”为必修分级科目。在这些迫在眉睫的课程变化的背景下，本研究考察了来自各省的 27 名奥地利小学教师在不同职业阶段对他们的教育和课程需求以及教师教育和课程设置方面的先决条件的看法。通过使用半结构化访谈，通过定性内容分析收集和严格检查数据。这表明，小学教师重视高等教育中以外语 （FL） 为重点的培训，但他们希望得到更多的指导，特别是在他们自己的语言技能方面，但也希望在教学方法方面。此外，大多数从业者认为没有为评估小学学习者的 FL 技能做好充分准备，并且似乎普遍对小学阶段的正式评估持怀疑态度，担心尤其是总结性评估会不利于学生的 FL 发展。虽然本研究的背景可能是独一无二的，但考虑到许多学校系统更密集地引入 FL 教学并且教育标准化程度越来越高，这些结果可以与更广泛的国际背景进行比较。最后，这项研究的结果还提供了关于教师教育可能需要如何调整的见解。