The potential participants were approached at the end of summer 2020. After they expressed their interest in the study, they were sent the 10 worksheets and teacher guides that were uploaded to Google Drive. After they had consented to participate in the study, they were sent a Google Forms questionnaire in which they were asked to provide some details about the group they would participate with in the study, i.e., their grade, their language level, the time of their classes, and some sentences about the group in general (the atmosphere, their goals, whether they are open to controversial issues). Then, they were asked whether I needed to send out a consent form to their students to participate in the study, but in all cases, they said that the students and their parents had already consented to be part of research projects at the beginning of their secondary school career. Finally, they were asked to choose the worksheets and use them in their lessons anytime in a three-month-long period between the beginning of September 2020 and the end of November 2020.

3.5.2.4.1 The Reflective Journals. The reflective journals, in which the participating teachers were expected to record their experiences in the lessons, more specifically what went well, what caused successes and difficulties and whether their students were enjoying the classes, were uploaded to the Google Drive by only seven participants. Even though the other five participants were reminded to write about their experiences, they did not manage to do so, possibly because of the extra workload caused by the abrupt change to online learning. The uploaded research journals were then collected and subjected to content analysis. All in all, 19 entries were analysed, and the length of the entries varied between 241 and 1121 words. Coding the data took place in Summer 2021. The reflective journals were printed out, reread several times, and the initial coding began, using a highlighter and a pen. After the initial coding of the data, the second-level coding phase involved “a thorough and careful search for patterns […] in order to find recurrent themes of interest” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p. 205). As a final step, the emerging themes were organised into a matrix using a Word document, together with chunks of the texts written by the participants.

 

3.5.2.4.2 Student Feedback. The main aim of RQ 3.5 was to gain insight into the participating students’ views on activities designed to develop their global competence. This part of the project was important to be able to triangulate concerning RQ 3. Triangulation is described by Elliott and Adelman as a technique which collects “accounts of a teaching situation from three quite different points of view; namely those of the teacher, [their] pupils and a participant observer” (in Hopkins, 2008, p. 133). Although in the case of RQ 3 the focus is on the teachers and their practices, I deemed it important to ask the students about how they view these activities.