Teaching Refugee and Immigrant Adults: Strategies and Resources to Respect and Develop the Languages They Speak

Introduction

In the field of adult education -- in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and increasingly in many other regions -- teachers are working with a learner population that they have not been specifically prepared to work with -- adults who have come to the new country as migrants or refugees (Young-Scholten, et al., 2015). They are learning to speak, understand, read, and write in the majority language of that country, but they have not yet developed print literacy (reading and writing) in the language(s) of their country of origin, their home or heritage language (henceforth referred to as heritage language). While the number of adults (defined as those aged 15 and above) with limited formal education and literacy has been decreasing worldwide, still over 770 million adults worldwide are identified as lacking minimum literacy skills (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2020). In addition, the rates of migration of these individuals is increasing. In their new countries, these adults face major challenges in moving from a basic to an intermediate level in their linguistic competence in the new language and in acquiring even basic literacy skills in a language that they do not yet know. They may take eight times longer to reach the same proficiency levels and skills as their educated and literate counterparts (Condelli, et al., 2003; Kurvers, et al., 2010; Schellekens, 2011; Tarone, et al., 2009; Young-Scholten & Strom, 2006).

Those who work with these learners as paid teachers, volunteer tutors, or program administrators commonly have little or no relevant training for doing so, even though they are highly motivated. Even those practitioners who may have many years of experience working with adult second language learners, or with young children learning to read, often have not had training and professional development focused specifically on the backgrounds and needs of these adult learners (see, e.g., Schwab, et al., 2015). Instead of having knowledge of the learning processes and trajectories of these learners and research-based expectations about their potential, their approach to working with them stems from previous experiences and might not always be aligned with the characteristics and potential of this learner population (Fernández, et al., 2017; Lightbown, 1984; Young-Scholten, et al., 2015). Research shows, however, that these learners make more progress when they are taught by those with such training (Condelli, et al., 2010; Paget & Stevenson, 2014; Schellekens, 2011).

This chapter first gives a brief description of this population of learners, then discusses trends that have developed in their education in different countries as programs and practitioners have sought to serve them. It then describes a set of online professional development modules that has been designed to help practitioners work effectively with this learner population.The main focus of the chapter is on what has largely been neglected in discussions of integration of migrants: the languages that learners speak when they come to their new countries and whether and how practitioners can support their languages of origin in the instructional process, to develop their proficiency as multilingual and multicultural individuals.It concludes with a description of an initiative that those who work with this learner population might engage in together: the development of an online hub of resources in learners’ languages, from many different countries, which is available worldwide to educators, materials developers, learners, parents of children, and others, with guidelines for using it.