inclusion and access within crisis situations: how can lebanese multilingual (and multicultural)...

Inclusion and access within crisis situations: how can Lebanese multilingual (and multicultural) classrooms be inclusive and accessible? Anne Wiseman: Manager ‘Accessing Education’ Project

for Syrian Refugees

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Questions Policy Makers

How can we meet the challenges of providing quality education in a emergency situation?

• Integrate 60,000 Syrian refugees into Lebanese state schools within a short time.

Practitioners

How can sociolinguistic and pluralistic approaches help practitioners deal with diverse sociolinguistic profiles in their classrooms?


Findings: Student Profiles


• Profile 1: Students enrolled in Arabic language schools (some with limited French or English instruction).

• Profile 2: Bedouin nomads who do not see the benefits of regular education in relation to their livelihood.

• Profile 3: Bedouin sedentary students enrolled in schools.

• Profile 4: Students in privileged areas enrolled in urban and rural schools with access to regular education.

• Profile 5: Students in underprivileged and rural areas enrolled in seasonal schools. (Students are obliged to assist their parents in agricultural labour. Syrian schools adapted their schedule according to these key times throughout the year).

• Profile 6: Students not in school for the past 1-3 years.

• Profile 7: Kurdish students from different regions. Some enrolled in Kurdish language schools.


Theoretical underpinnings Sociolinguistic approach (framework - Louise Dabène: 1998)

• Changing attitudes: perceptions and language security

Training course design

• Language Awareness (Hawkins: 1994)• Plurilinguistic approaches activities (CARAP Framework: 2007) • Pedagogy of the Other • Autonomous Learning • Life Skills


Some of the issues /barriers

• Linguistic diversity• Cultural diversity • Status of children within the classroom• Teachers’ awareness of issues multilingual

classrooms• Teachers’ awareness of issues in multicultural

classrooms• Teachers’ competencies• Parents’ involvement: language abilities ,

attitudes to education


Principles : Supporting the needs of displaced

learners Celebrate diversity and find similarities

• Building empathy

• Telling our story - hearing others

• Social skills development

• Learning to learn skills - listening

• Overcoming teacher stress

• Working with parents, carers, communities

• Working with creative arts - fun and play


Principles of classroom material design

• Focus on the students’ home languages / languages of instructions;

• Link to the students’ communities’ values;• Inclusiveness; • Celebrate diversity in the classroom• Share diversity in the classroom• Listen to others’ stories


Language awareness: Plurilinguistic portraits


Sociograms

Haiti

New York

Monitoring and evaluation

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Key concepts:• Continuous/cyclical• Qualitative• Analytic• Wide spread of data to ensure triangulation• Long term focused studies to capture individual changes

Data collection• Questionnaires (before and after)• Focus group and individual Interviews (recorded and transcribed) • Before and after video footage used for observation analysis

( focussed)• Qualitative data analysis (Masters students)

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Monitoring and evaluation cycle

Needs Analysis

Findings

Design

Training Feedback

Review / Revise

Training

Deliver Training

StudentsTeachers

Teacher TrainersAdvisers

Policy MakersPolicy M

akers

Policy Makers

Polic

y M

aker

sPolicy

Make

rs


Results Marginalisation

“Well it was really interesting. They (the Syrians) don’t feel anymore bits and pieces in our classes so the activities here helped them to have place in this big world.” (Adviser)

Language Exposure

“I was introduced …to many concepts mainly the sociolinguistics - it’s something new and also we have the language awareness… it is a key to teach student s…who are exposed to media, to internet. Changing the problem into a solution it is just like a key to teach them.” (Trainer)

Diversity

“Till now when we talk about languages teachers dealing with languages as material the student should learn… They talk about culture but they never think about diversity or they never think about accepting the other.” (Trainer)


References Billiez, J. et Millet, A. (2001). Représentations sociales : trajets théoriques et méthodologiques. In Moore, D. (ed), Les représentations des langues et de leur apprentissage, références, modèles, données et méthodes, Paris: Didier.

Council of Europe (2007). Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures. European Centre for Modern Languages

Further reading on research undertaken with Lebanese teachers

Grappe, I.(2002). Apprentissage/multilinguisme et identité (unpublished MA thesis), Université Stendhal, Grenoble 3, France.

Grappe, I. (2010) Conception et évaluation d’une Formation de formateurs au français sur objectifs spécifiques à partir d’une approche sociolinguistique , unpublished thesis , Université de Grenoble.


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