The first research question enquired into university tutors and secondary school EFL teachers’ views on global competence development through two interview studies (Study 1: n = 5; Study 2: n = 10) and two questionnaire studies (Study 3: n = 182; Study 4: n = 34). The studies revealed that the participants have different degrees of understanding of GC, and they mostly struggle with defining its knowledge component. Even though many of the participants do not mention some inherent parts of the model (e.g., knowledge of global and sustainability-related issues, conflict resolution, adaptability, global-mindedness) (OECD, 2018), they believe that well-informedness, language- and self-knowledge (knowledge) and the desire the stay informed (attitude) could be valuable additions to the global competence framework. The interview studies revealed that the participating teachers use a myriad of student-centred activities to develop their students’ GC. However, as the respondents did not report on conducting activities with the help of which they could encourage their students to take action outside the classroom, hence linking the classroom with the outside world, the extramural dimension of GCED does not seem to be incorporated into EFL classrooms. Although these results suggest that participants do not have a full picture of what GCD means, they do believe that it is important to raise global citizens (even more so in the university context) and feel that they can contribute to this in their EFL classes. Moreover, they think that they have an easier task as language teachers because they are not as constrained by the curriculum as teachers of other subjects. From the participants’ characterization of globally competent teachers, it became apparent that they regard them as globally competent individuals, but they do not clearly understand what distinguishes them from other teachers and what specific pedagogical content knowledge they should have to nurture global citizens effectively.

Given that based on empirical studies (Evripidou & Çavuşoglu, 2014; Haynes, 2009; Yoshihara, 2013), one of teachers’ main concerns about GCD may be dealing with sensitive and controversial issues, the aim of the second research question was to gain insight into the ways teacher trainers and secondary school EFL teachers develop the knowledge component of GCED in their students, i.e., what topics they choose for classrooms discussions, what attitudes they hold towards the integration of such topics and what influences them in their topic choice. From the results of the four studies (Studies 1–4), it became clear that both university tutors and EFL teachers deal with a wide variety of relevant and timely global and intercultural issues, but they tend to avoid local issues, especially if they are regarded as highly controversial or have political overtones. Secondary school teachers and university teachers tend to prefer similar topics (e.g., climate change, health, youth, education), which may result in students encountering the same topics several times, which could even lead to a lack of engagement and potential overload. The statistical tests have revealed that the type of school they work in, the type of settlement they teach in and their age also influence Hungarian teachers’ topic choice: if they teach in smaller towns or secondary vocational or technical schools, they are less likely to incorporate hot button topics in Hungarian society into their classes (e.g., migration, threats to democracy); however, if they belong to the younger generation of teachers (under the age of 35), they are more likely to integrate controversial topics (e.g., sexual identities, negative stereotypes, and discrimination) into their EFL lessons. The participants reported reasonably positive attitudes towards integrating global content into their EFL lessons, nonetheless, they prefer dealing with intercultural and global issues significantly more than with issues of local significance or issues they deem controversial. The statistical test showed that not only are younger teachers more likely to integrate controversial topics into their classes, but they also have more positive attitudes towards such issues, they deal with them more frequently and think that these are more important than their more experienced colleagues do. Finally, with the four interrelated studies, I aimed to reveal what influences teachers and tutors in dealing with global content. Based on the results, university tutors tend to consider students’ interests, their own attitudes towards certain topics, their competence to deal with global content, the relevance and timeliness of the issues and whether they can find materials to address these complex issues the most when selecting global content for their lessons. Strong correlations were found between the teacher’s attitude and materials, teachers’ competence and materials, and time and group variables, which shows that tutors who have positive attitudes towards global content and who feel capable to address complex issues in class are more likely to bring engaging, interactive materials into their groups than those who do not think global competence is important or who feel incompetent to tackle complex issues. In addition, tutors who have a good relationship with their groups are more likely to spend their time and energy on preparing for lessons revolving around global, local, and intercultural issues than those who do not have good interpersonal relationships in their groups. Secondary school teachers, on the other hand, primarily consider their own competence to address given issues, their students’ interests, the availability of the materials and whether they have the time to prepare for lessons focusing on global content. The moderate negative correlations between the coursebook and the materials, and the coursebook and the teacher’s competence variables signal that teachers who rely less on their coursebooks are more likely to use supplementary materials on global issues and they also tend to feel more confident to address such complex issues in their classes than those colleagues who strictly follow the coursebook.

The third research question aimed to identify good practices in the ways university EFL teacher trainers and secondary school EFL teachers develop their students’ global competence by revealing what approaches they take when discussing controversial issues in their lessons, how they create a safe space for challenging discussions and what activity types they use to develop their students’ GC. Four studies helped me answer the third research question: a classroom study (Study 5) with the participation of 140 students in 13 of my university language practice groups, another classroom study (Study 6) in 12 participating secondary school teachers’ groups, with the participation of 158 students; a focus group interview study (Study 7) with four teacher trainers working at a renowned university in Hungary, and another focus group interview study (Study 8) with the 12 secondary school teachers who also participated in the classroom study. The two focus group interview studies revealed that both university tutors and teachers take various approaches to discussing CI with their groups, depending on the aim of the activities: when they are endeavouring to educate their students, they tend to take the committed or partisan approach; however, when they aim to encourage their students to explore different views, they are more likely to take the balanced or objective approach. The focus group studies also shed light on the fact that the participants’ definitions of the ideal classroom atmosphere coincide with those of a safe space, and they are attempting to create a safe, respectful, and inclusive atmosphere for their students. There seems to be a slight difference in university tutors’ and secondary school teachers’ perceptions of safe spaces: teacher trainers tend to believe that conflict and tension are also essential elements of an ideal classroom, thus, their idea of a safe space approximates the concept of a brave space. The idea of creating ground rules for successful discussions divided the participants in both studies, contrary to the recommendations of the literature. Nevertheless, the participants use a wide range of conflict management techniques to ensure that the discussions go smoothly and fruitfully. The respondents from both contexts use a wide array of student-centred techniques and activities in their classrooms to address global issues, nonetheless, they do not seem to use transformative learning practices, e.g., storytelling, service-learning, online collaboration, project-based learning with which they could encourage their students to take action for collective well-being and sustainability. In the classroom studies, the participants had the opportunity to try out ten activity sequences based on authentic pop-cultural materials. Their reflective journals and the focus group interviews revealed that they appreciated the worksheets, they thought that these were teacher-friendly materials, catering to their students’ needs and interests as they were out of the ordinary and made use of materials that are close to their students’ world (e.g., songs, animations, colourful images). The university and secondary school students were also enthusiastic about the lessons where they used the worksheets: they felt that the lessons were enjoyable, engaging, and eye-opening, and the materials enabled them to learn a lot about the world and at the same time, develop their language proficiency.