Free access to the full text for study and reading does not mean in any way that the author/creator will share his/her intellectual property rights, nor will it allow the reproduction, republishing, copying, storage, sale, use commercial, broadcast, distribution, publication, performance, downloading, uploading, translation, modification in any way, of any part or summary of the dissertation, without the express prior written consent of the author/creator. In recent decades, a large influx of immigrant population in Greece has been noticed due to the phenomenon of the refugee crisis. The most representative and famous example is the case of enslaved people who were forcibly moved from Africa to the American territory.
A renewed vision of language education for refugees and immigrants together with a greater understanding of the multidimensional role of language educators is needed today more than ever due to population mobility, as this thesis will try to show.
Introduction
More specifically, the purpose of this thesis is to examine the challenges and needs of educators in this educational context and to propose alternatives and solutions. For the purposes of my study, I conducted a qualitative study with the assistance of the staff at the evening school in Agios Dimitrios. It also hosts Greek language lessons for adult migrants and refugees, run in a non-formal education context, the latter being an initiative of the municipality and the specific school.
Are Greek educators aware of the importance of inclusive education and if so, what relevant teaching methodologies do they use.
Literature Review
The phenomenon of migration in Greece
This measure led to a decrease in the number of projects implemented by Greek NGOs and also by active migrant organizations. According to the Institute for Intercultural Education of the Greek Ministry of Education, around 140,000 migrant and repatriated Greek students attended classes in Greek schools in the 2004/05 school year. This figure is quite high considering that it represents 10% of the entire school population.
Since the state does not encourage the maintenance of the ethnic identity of migrants and refugees in Greece, assimilation practices are activated.
Refugee language education in the Greek formal educational context
Tutorial courses and reception classes were first introduced in 1983 and their purpose was to provide intensive lessons in the Greek language to repatriated and foreign children (Maligkoudi, Tolakidou & Chiona, 2018). A few years later, the students were also taught history, Greek language and culture and the reception classes were adapted to the mainstream school system. Reception classes first appeared in Thessaloniki in the 1980s and were designed for the children of ethnic Greek returnees (Markou 1993; Damanakis 2005).
Reception classes are organized at schools if there are at least nine students who have no or limited knowledge of the Greek language.
Refugee language education in the Greek non-formal educational context
Interrupted access to education and the phenomenon of illiteracy are often observed among these people and are major obstacles to the process of acquiring a second language. At this point, intercultural education is the only solution and the only alternative to the gaps in the education of refugees and immigrants. Thus, it is easy to conceive of the main role of language educators in the Greek context.
We should recognize the value of each culture and each language and promote teaching approaches that integrate them even using the dominant language as a fence (Tsokalidou, 2015).
The Present Study
Methodology
In other words, I wrote down information about the teacher's attitude toward error correction, toward the teacher's role. The fourth category included the objectives, while the fifth examined the objectives of the lessons and the sixth presented the problems, needs and challenges of the lessons. Classes start at 5:00 PM, the duration of each lesson is approximately one and a half hours with a break in between and they take place on the premises of the public evening school of Aghios Dimitrios.
During the lessons I never interrupted the teaching process, instead I discreetly observed and wrote down details of the lessons in the form of field notes.
Profile of the research participants
She has worked for the last 20 years with refugees and migrants in the field of formal and informal education and was the coordinator of refugee and immigrant education in Moria of Mytilene, where she also organized her own school. But she also works as a volunteer in some NGOs in the non-formal education sector and has helped a lot with the "SAITA" project. She works as a volunteer because of her beliefs and as a teacher in the official school to earn a living.
For the last four years, she has been teaching Greek to refugees and immigrants, and last year she was a volunteer teacher at "SAITA".
Data Analysis
Findings
- Points that indicate the mentality of the educators
- Ways in which educators address cultural diversity
- Ways in which the educators deal with needs and challenges
- Awareness of the importance of inclusive education
- Various needs and challenges among the educators in this setting
- Measures proposed by the educators
- The significance of facing the specific needs and challenges
SAITA” was an initiative of the municipality and the evening public school of Aghios Dimitrios. As we can see, "SAITA" was an idea that was created thanks to the cooperation between the municipality and the educators of the specific school to deal with the diversity of refugees and migrants in the learning context. What follows is a quote from Participant B, who goes out of her way to treat her students humanely despite the serious challenges of the job.
This is an example of the touching effort of the educator through her own means to offer the students the minimum due to human dignity. In addition, one of the teachers in the reception class is doing a postgraduate degree in intercultural education. Some of the teaching methods used, especially with adults as they have to deal with the public sector and the bureaucracy in Greece, are role playing and conversations about real life.
One of the incidents observed and recalled in Participant A's interview involved a role-play where a girl was offered a cup of coffee, causing the class to laugh out loud. The teachers in my sample are at least aware of the importance of inclusive education and apply this in their lessons. The needs and challenges that educators very often face in such educational contexts are basically related to the low social status of the students, the existing legislation in Greece related to the education of refugees and migrants and to the fact that the students may be illiterate in their native country. languages.
Some of them have problems with some of the letters or letter combinations as their languages are more phonetically based. One of the challenges noted by Participant C is the ability to keep up with students.
Discussion
One language is not just a system of rules and vocabulary, but is an extension of every person's identity. The identity texts that are the personal product of students' creative work or performances, carried out within the pedagogical context orchestrated by the teacher, could also be part of the lesson with adult students (Cummins, 2011). Through translanguaging, code-switching and identity texts within the educational process, the students' language repertoire would be treated with respect as a whole and not as a fragment, giving them the feeling that their language repertoire
The subjects of the lessons should be taken out of the routine of these people so that they can attract their interest despite the fact that most of them are usually very tired at the end of the day due to the difficult situations they face daily. face to face Through these approaches the learning procedure would be facilitated, directed to the needs of the students and therefore it would become more attractive to them. Based on the data from the bibliography that proves the fact that in the Greek context the teachers who support and promote the ethnic identity of the students are the minority, and if one compares the outcome of my interviews and observations, one can conclude that the particular school studied is a wonderful exception in the Greek educational landscape.
They are people who are well-educated, with love and faith in human values and free from widespread prejudices such as these that promote myths about bilingualism. Such myths are that bilingual students may confuse the two languages, or that the development of the minority language may be an obstacle to the development of the majority language (Gkaitartzi, Kiliari & . Tsokalidou, 2015, Skourtou, 2005). They are also teachers who respect each person's individual identity and cultural and linguistic capital, and they are also aware that there is a strong positive correlation between a student's linguistic or cognitive growth and additive bilingualism, as additive bilingualism is defined as a form of bilingualism, which occurs when students add a second language to their intellectual toolkit while continuing to develop academically and conceptually in their native language (Cummins, 2000).
The state should be an ally in their efforts and provide them with the necessary tools to make their work easier. Training resources, technical infrastructure, permanent jobs, appropriate educational materials for each target group and trained personnel are just some of the areas that should be supported to give them the opportunity to achieve the social changes they dream of and transform our society into a society of equality and human values, where peace and prosperity will prevail for everyone, regardless of color, religion, etc.
Concluding Remarks
Using qualitative methods for analyzing adult immigrants' L2 needs: Findings from a research project in Greece focusing on school-parent communication. The relationship between language, culture and identity and the implications for language teaching and language policy. Albanian parents and the Greek educational context: who is willing to fight for the home language.
Αποτίμηση της Υπάρχουσας Κατάστασης—Προκλήσεις και Προοπτικές Βελτίωση—Μετανάστευση στην Ελλάδα και εκπαίδευση: Αξιολόγηση της υπάρχουσας κατάστασης. Ανακτήθηκε στις 8 Φεβρουαρίου 2020, από τον ιστότοπο της UNHCR των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών της Αμερικής: https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee/.