Teachers’ needs and expectations
In the first years of the 21st century, 500 teachers have been asked to fill in a questionnaire
about their teaching practices and professional needs in the southern region of Hungary3. The
teachers were subject teachers of foreign languages and primary classroom teachers prepared for
foreign language teaching to young learners. The main aim was to explore the differences in the
ideas and practices of language teachers with different training backgrounds. Three hundred and
twenty-five questionnaires were returned and a small section of the results will be presented here.
The questionnaire included two groups of questions which aimed to reveal teacher’s thoughts on
the characteristic features of a good language teacher and their teaching arsenal (methods and
aids they use). They were also asked about the professional needs of practising teachers. We
would like to give a glance on the relationship between the answers of practising teachers and the
image of future teachers in EU documents.