Project-based learning experiences have been largely used in higher education and enhanced the development of competences. Previous reports suggest that these practices help develop collaborative skills, critical thinking, and adaptability. In pre-service teacher education, such experiences can aid future practitioners to adapt their teaching strategies to students’ needs in their professional practice.

This paper reports the self-perceived competence development of pre-service secondary school English teachers (PSTs) in Spain through a project-based learning (PBL) experience. The purpose of this PBL was to have the PSTs design an adaptive learning intervention to be conducted with a single student with special educational needs (SEN) in the English subject in secondary education. In order to find out PSTs’ views on the PBL, a mixed-methods approach was followed. Quantitative data was obtained from a questionnaire on the extent to which each competence set for them had been developed once the PBL experience finished. Qualitative data came from participants’ contributions on the aspects of the project they believed that enhanced competence development.

Results seem to indicate that PSTs considered that by completing these adaptive learning interventions in small teams all competences had been notably developed. Participants found the experience valuable as it allowed them to exchange perspectives on inclusion with classmates with different teaching experience and helped them understand how to address similar situations in actual school settings. Furthermore, participants expressed a desire for further training on how to finetune teaching materials for these scenarios.

Keywords: Pre-service teacher education, competence development, adaptive learning, inclusion, project-based learning