In the local context, the Oslo school district, 39% of all pupils currently attending primary schools have a minority language background, ranging from 99% to 4% of all pupils at any given school from over 150 different language backgrounds. This makes almost every classroom in Oslo a multilingual classroom within a highly diverse multilingual context. Efforts to aid inclusive education practices are supported at the European and national levels. However, research from Norway and beyond states that English Language Teachers (ELTs) need to increase their competence of multilingualism to meet the needs of the multilingual classroom and to make a paradigm shift towards multilingualism. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), as a multilingual means of communication, plays a key role in this effort. This presentation reports findings of a needs analysis study conducted in Norway in the framework of the EU-funded project entitled “ENRICH” (“English as a Lingua Franca Practices for Inclusive Multilingual Classrooms”, 2018-2021), whose aim is to develop a high-quality Continuing Professional Development (CPD) infrastructure which will promote teacher competences in multilingual pedagogy and empower ELTs to integrate the current role of ELF in multilingual classrooms. The findings illustrate: a) the beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes of EFL teachers in Norway regarding the multifaceted dynamics of the global spread of English and its impact on their own teaching practices, and b) the perceptions secondary-school learners in Norway have about English used as a global language and the possibility of integrating this awareness in formal EFL teaching. The results are interpreted through recent research in multilingualism and ELF, with the aim of informing the development and delivery of the online CPD course. We hope the presentation facilitates for discussions regarding innovative design and content of professional development for teachers in multilingual contexts.
