With the ongoing war in Syria, many children have not been able to attend school and, therefore, their schooling has been interrupted. Being from Syria myself, I would like to see more research on Syrian refugee children and more focus on approaches to teaching refugee-background students who are striving towards their L2 or L3 literacy. Many displaced young refugee children enter the United States with emergent mother tongue literacy and developing proficiency in the target language. Therefore, teachers may not know how to respond to these challenges. Windle and Miller (2012), who conducted their research on refugees with low literacy backgrounds, stated that when students have emerging literacy in their first language, it is more challenging for ESL teachers to teach them the target language because the teachers cannot rely on the transfer of first language (L1) literacy skills to their second language.

Because Syrian refugees are now part and parcel of U.S. society, it is of great importance to study this population to help in their acculturation/adaptation process. For example, Oikonomidoy (2010) conducted a study on seven female Somali refugee students in the United States. Findings revealed that refugee students were alienated because teachers did not exhibit cultural, linguistic, and religious sensitivity. The students expressed their frustration because they were prohibited from using their first language. As many researchers have now shown, were these educators better equipped with more diverse literacy-learning tools and structures to apply in their classrooms, the refugee students in this study would likely have experienced a vastly different outcome. Thus, educators should develop great awareness in developing their pedagogical strategies toward teaching Syrian refugee children. As a Syrian and a TESOL teacher educator, I offer some beneficial tips for teachers of refugee students:

First Language Use

Students’ first language is an important fund of knowledge that should be leveraged during instruction. Allowing Syrian refugee students to use their heritage language as means to achieve great learning outcomes and successful academic second language socialization is vital. The use of the L1 serves as a facilitator of and a medium for academic language socialization. Drawing from their linguistic repertoire during their interaction with each other, students will be more smoothly socialized to academic language (Gallagher, 2016). Forbidding language learners from using their first language in English classrooms has been a controversial issue. Being a language learner and an educator myself, I advocate for refugee students to utilize their existing capital, including their first language, toward successful learning outcomes. Educators should exhibit a positive attitude toward the use of mother tongue to enhance the learning process.

Attend to Meaning

Educators should attend to meaning more than structure and forms. Because “language learning is learning to communicate” (Brown, 2007, p. 49), efficient communication is needed and socialization through language should be sought. To explain, refugee students not only acquire language structure, they also acquire language pragmatics simultaneously and are able to go beyond their home language socialization to a wider social context. Thus, it is compelling for Syrian refugee students to become competent participants of a community by being “socialized through language and to use language” (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004, p. 350). Accordingly, communication and meaning are the essential focus through organized meaningful real-world tasks.

Develop Intercultural Sensitivity

Refugees are trying to find their way in a completely new and unusual situation; they are trying to find their way in situations that we cannot even imagine. I volunteer at a nonprofit organization at which there are ESL classes offered for refugees, and I have noticed many instances where students are shy and do not want to “come out of their shells.” Teachers should adjust their pedagogical practices in a way that encourages risk-taking (Brown, 2007, p. 75). This means facilitating student’s pathway to future success through showing them their own value, developing in them a great sense of cross-cultural sensitivity, and making connections to the students. Helping refugees develop relationships within society assists them in various ways because they are not only being socialized to and through language, they are being socialized to the norms and the values of their new host society. This evokes a study done by Lokkesmoe, Kuchinke, and Ardichvili (2016) which found that even though students were successful academically, they failed at developing cross-cultural awareness, which resulted in frustration and alienation. I strongly value cross-cultural awareness as a step toward language learning.

Overall, educators and policy makers should implement efforts to serve refugees with coping and social skills as well as with learning English. Their mission is to compassionately serve and help refugees learn and connect to each other and to society by utilizing their native language, implementing authentic real-life activities, and encouraging risk-taking.

References

Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Gallagher, C. (2016). Socialization to academic language in a kindergarten classroom. Language and Education, 30(5), 383–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1118122

Kulick, D., & Schieffelin, B. B. (2004). Language socialization. In A. Duranti (Ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Lokkesmoe, K. J., Kuchinke, K. P., & Ardichvili, A. (2016). Developing cross-cultural awareness through foreign immersion programs: Implications of university study abroad research for global competency development. European Journal of Training and Development, 40(3), 155–170.

Oikonomidoy, E. (2010). Zooming into the school narratives of refugee students. Multicultural Perspectives, 12(2), 74–80.

Refugee Processing Center. (2018). Interactive Reporting.

Windle, J., & Miller, J. (2012). Approaches to teaching low literacy refugee-background students. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 35(3), 317–333.