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Teaching English to refugee children: (Master thesis)

Καζαντζή, Ελένη-Φανή/ Kazantzi, Eleni-Fani

The issue of refugee education has recently been at the center of discussions in Greece, as the massive influx of displaced persons that took place from 2015 onwards set unprecedented social data and created the need for the smooth integration of a large number of students into the Greek education system. The present study focuses on the teaching of English in public education structures for refugees, but also in education structures of non-governmental organizations. The reason we chose to study the specific aspect is the prominent place that English holds in the modern world, as it constitutes a contact language between people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and dominates in various areas of modern life, such as technology, economy, tourism and so on. More specifically, the study examines the way in which English language teaching in a refugee education context may differ from other educational settings, the educational practices followed, the difficulties that arise and the way in which they are addressed, in relation to the principles of intercultural education. The research was carried out by conducting semi-structured interviews with teachers who worked in the specific educational settings during the school year 2020-2021, followed by the processing of the information obtained using the qualitative content analysis method. The findings of the study indicated that, when teaching English in public and private refugee education structures, certain issues arise that are quite common in the specific educational contexts, such as deficient material and IT infrastructure, communication difficulties between teachers and students, lack of effective cooperation between the schools and the reception facilities and the incompatibility of the curriculum with the needs of refugee students. In addition, although the teachers appeared to hold a positive stance toward the equal participation of refugee students in Greek schools, it was revealed that the majority of them do not have the necessary intercultural competence and readiness in order to cope with the challenges of refugee education, as the practices they follow are not compatible with the principles of intercultural education. Finally, it was considered that, in order to confirm the findings of the research and to achieve the generalizability of the results, the issue of teaching English to refugee children needs to be further investigated.