ERIC Number: EJ1223069
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-May
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2191-611X
EISSN: N/A
A Multilingual Refugee, a Personal Experience
Alhallak, Ghaith
Language Learning in Higher Education, v9 n1 p173-178 May 2018
The refugee is the person who has fled his or her country for reasons of war, racial discrimination, vengeance, sectarian massacres or other reasons. Many refugees have left everything behind them to reach a society that is completely different from their own, creating many challenges. Perhaps the most important of these challenges is to learn the language of the host country, which is the key that opens the door to integration in all its forms. Overcoming the challenges in language learning occurs not only through teaching institutions, but society also plays a major role. Thus, we can say that the process of teaching the language to newcomers is a combination of the efforts of the relevant educational institutions as well as those of social and cultural organizations and individuals. In this report, I review the process of teaching foreign languages to refugees and migrants, based on my personal experience as a refugee student and as a language teacher for foreigners, which I have been at the same time for more than three years. The article does not address educational methods as much as the steps that I believe should be taken into consideration in the process of trying to integrate refugees in their host community culturally and linguistically. These steps, which may often have more of an impact than the traditional teaching process, are not confined to the field of educational institutions, but go beyond them to reach social and cultural organizations.
Descriptors: Refugees, Multilingualism, Migrants, Second Language Instruction, Language Teachers, Social Integration, Foreign Countries, Semitic Languages, Intercultural Communication, Foreign Students, Employment Opportunities, Italian, Social Values, Organizations (Groups), Cultural Influences
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Lebanon; Syria; Italy
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A