Key Findings

The key findings from the project included:

• A review of the research literature has shown that there are few studies on refugees as learners in New Zealand contexts. It also showed that there are concerns about the quality of provision for them. This study has provided some insights into the nature and extent of refugees’ learning needs as well as some elucidation of strategies to achieve impact on their language and literacy skills with a longer aim of achieving successful settlement in New Zealand.
• The challenges teachers face in achieving impact with their learners primarily come from two main sources: the social and pedagogical background of the learners and the nature of the content being taught. In both these respects, ESOL literacy courses for refugees present considerable challenges for the tutors involved.
• It is difficult to assess the degree of impact that refugees’ experiences have on them generally and in relation to learning in particular, but it is clear that these learners bring much to the classroom that is not always immediately discernible that can impede and delay their rate of progress compared with other learners.
• Many refugee learners begin acquiring their English and literacy skills at the lowest level as they have no, or minimal, previous English and they often lack reading and writing skills in their first language. With all of these factors in play, progress is usually slow and painstaking, requiring the tutor to carefully scaffold skills, building on the small steps previously achieved and constantly revising in order to consolidate these initial gains.
• As the learners develop their learning skills and fundamental literacy skills, they also develop a set of skills, attitudes and knowledge about their new environment, enabling them to undertake daily tasks in their community with increasing confidence. These gradual developments in turn build self-confidence, which in turn helps develop the motivation to further develop language and literacy skills.
• Psychological factors resulting from the refugee experience provide resistance that is unseen, but unquestionably present in the learners’ abilities to take on new skills in an unfamiliar environment. External factors relating to managing family crises, coping with scant resources and a lack of knowledge and familiarity about support mechanisms and services can also impede what happens in the classroom. At worst, open discrimination exacerbates a feeling of anomie in surroundings that are vastly different from those left behind in the home countries. Within the classroom, crying babies, crowded conditions and high and increasing roll numbers also counter what the teaching staff can achieve.

Key Recommendations

The key outcome from the project was the identification, by both learners and teachers, of the factors and strategies that help refugee learners learn English and literacy skills in their context. These included:

Teaching strategies and skills | constant revision of previous learning; varying teaching strategies to meet the needs and skills of the learner; access to bilingual tutors; pitching teaching at the right level for the learner; being responsive in teaching to maximise learning; approaching tasks from different ways to ensure relevance; using the cycle of modelling/acting/role-play/re-cycle/reflection/practise in pairs; and ensuring that learners with a common language can work together.

Teacher qualities | Patience; understanding that learners’ previous trauma can be played out in the classroom; and ‘being human’ and de-mystifying the ‘teacher as expert’.

Teaching content | ensuring that learners have all the requisite ‘learning blocks’ on which to build higher levels of learning; ensuring relevance of teaching content by using ‘realia’, everyday life tasks and issues; importance of teaching all four literacy skills; importance of basic sight words, with some taught every day; phonics, especially for low-level learners; dictation with all levels; and rote practice of oral skills, especially with very low-level learners to ensure a solid foundation of key skills.

Teacher development | the need for on-going professional development for teachers and bilingual tutors.

Learning environment | creating and sustaining a welcoming and supportive environment; and careful grouping of learners within the classroom to ensure that cultural values are respected.

Interpersonal relationships | importance of learners believing they can succeed; showing respect for learners in terms of their age, religion and culture; and understanding that learners’ previous trauma can be played out in the classroom in the form of constant headaches, difficulties in concentrating on tasks and on-going health issues.

Outside the classroom | the need to practise new skills outside the classroom; field-trips to significant New Zealand sites; and pastoral care for issues outside the classroom.