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During the last decades, several students who are deaf or hard of hearing (SDHH) attend higher education institutions. The level of lecturers' awareness regarding accessible practices and the provision of such practices or accommodations during lectures play a major role in students' access. The purpose of this study was to investigate the educational practices and accommodations that lecturers used during lectures to enhance academic access to SDHH. In total, 51 lecturers were interviewed. The interviews were analysed using a thematic analysis and a three-stage coding procedure. Lecturers adopted various practices and accommodations that enhanced the access of SDHH during lectures, such as using visual educational tools, explaining difficult terms, monitoring comprehension, maintaining visual contact, repeating and providing environmental accommodations. Lecturers pointed out the importance of accessible educational practices for all students. The study indicates the need to make lecturers aware of the use of flexible teaching approaches and accommodations that benefit SDHH and other students promoting a culture of inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed at investigating the teaching practices and materials, the challenges, as well as the classroom climate in Greek classes offered to adult refugees and migrants in three different regions in Greece. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the students and their teachers and classroom observations, which were analyzed through the content analysis method, in the context of the Postgraduate Programme "Language Education for Refugees and Migrants" at the Hellenic Open University, particularly the module "LRM50: Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition." The results of the study revealed learners' diversity, teachers' use of various teaching materials, and practices focusing mostly on the Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) method and the communicative approach. In addition, it was shown that teachers mainly emphasized speaking skills in a friendly classroom atmosphere, which was in accordance with the learners' goals. The educational implications that resulted from this study are further discussed and the need for further research to verify these findings is pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored differentiated instruction in relation to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). More specifically, it investigated teachers' beliefs and practices related to differentiated instruction in order to give an account of the status of the approach in Greek TESOL contexts. Data were collected from 234 practitioners teaching in a variety of TESOL contexts in Greece, who were asked to complete an online questionnaire consisting of 42 items. Their responses were statistically analyzed, and the frequencies on items investigating beliefs and practices in relation to differentiation as well as the relationships between them were closely examined. The analysis showed generally promising teacher beliefs towards differentiation and relatively weaker differentiated teaching practices, especially in areas that require preparation time. The discussion focuses on significant statistical observations and possible interpretations, concluding with suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper examines teaching practices in three first-grade primary classrooms (age range from five years and nine months old to six years and nine months old) in Greek Cypriot public schools, exploring whether the wider changes in critical literacy education declared on a policy level are influencing classroom literacy practices. Greek Cypriot public education has followed the language policies developed in Greece since the island gained independence in 1960. However, from 2010, there has been a full-scale educational reform in Cyprus at all levels of education, and for the first time, a critical literacy model has been implemented. Drawing data from research conducted into classroom practices and discourse, the current paper analyses literacy teaching in three Greek Cypriot classrooms, focusing on the materials used, the idea of textuality, the role of metalanguage and the notion of language legitimacy produced in the classroom. The overall aim is to document how the model of critical literacy is applied (or not) in these classrooms, and to explore the limitations and difficulties encountered, especially in the first grade of primary school where students need to move from emerging to developing literacy, i.e. they need to acquire the mechanisms of reading and writing. The methodology adopted follows the methods used in micro-ethnography, focusing in this case on participant observation of literacy classes and interviews with teachers in three classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to development of research tools for observation and analysis of educational practices used by teachers in preschool classrooms. More specifically, we approached the implemented curriculum of mathematics in Greek preschool education. We analysed the recorded data from a week of teaching practices in eight classrooms of Greek public kindergartens, based on Bernstein's theoretical framework on pedagogic discourse. The results showed that the actual educational practices in the observed classrooms deviated from the objectives of the official new cross-thematic curriculum for teaching mathematics in Greek kindergarten in terms of the form of transmitted mathematical knowledge, the instructional rules and strategies that teachers adopted for teaching mathematics, and the teaching-interactive relationships between preschool teachers and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]