2.2 Who is a Refugee?
2.4.3 Refugees’ Right to Education
2.4.3.4 Language barriers
56 UNHCR (2011d) argues that when learners have not been in school for many years, ALPs are an ideal alternative to placing children into grades which are lower than they should be in.
According to UNHCR (2011d) an ALP, as the word ‘accelerated’ suggests, is a speedy learning programme that is offered within a mainstream school. ALPs enable children to compensate for the time they have not been in school by quickly learning the new information so that they may move to their appropriate grades. It enables older learners to complete an academic course in a short period of time, and it also helps refugee children who may be having language barriers to do intensive learning of the language prior to joining other learners in mainstream classes.
57 face difficulties in understanding instructions given in a foreign language. The situation is worse because some refugee children may have had interrupted education in their home countries, and it would then be difficult to resume classes in another country using a foreign language.
Miller (2009) argues that refugee children with interrupted education find it difficult to cope with different subjects in schools. This is because different subjects have topic-specific vocabularies which should be applied. For example, in science, children should know terms like photosynthesis, osmosis and respiration. The specialised vocabulary cannot be substituted. If learners do not understand that specialised vocabulary, this makes it very difficult for them to do well in school. Sudanese learners who were schooling in Australia had problems with English, especially grammar, spelling and vocabulary in subject areas such as science (Brown, Miller &
Mitchell, 2006). If refugee children’s understanding of the medium of instruction is limited, it becomes hard for them to make meaningful academic progress.
Language issues do not end at primary and secondary schooling. It is also an issue in tertiary institutions. A study conducted by Harris and Marlowe (2011) about the educational challenges faced by African refugee students in a university in Australia revealed that some lecturers reported that they were setting refugees to fail. That is, the university enroled refugee students who did not have a good mastery of the English language which is the medium of instruction.
Worse still, lecturers did not have time to engage with students with language barriers in order to improve their writing and comprehension (Harris & Marlowe, 2011). If students at tertiary institutions battle with their studies because of language impediments, the situation is likely to be chaotic with children in primary and secondary school. A language barrier does not only affect refugee children’s abilities to perform well at school, but also to obtain some basic services such as health care.
A language barrier often impedes the ability of refugee children to navigate local health care systems with a potential to impact on general public health (Congress Report, 2010). For example, a study conducted by Muneghina and Papadopoulos (2010) states that as a result of language barriers, medical service providers never believed that refugees had health problems.
Furthermore, translators did not translate correctly and they communicated with gestures most of
58 the time. This was because refugees had language problems and it was difficult for them to convey their messages. Refugees also have challenges to communicate with officers during emergency situations (Congress Report, 2010).
The enrolment into a school may be complicated for young refugees and asylum seekers who have a lower level of English language acquisition (Elwyn et al., 2012). Affordability and language barriers may discourage refugees from going to school (Tienda & Haskins, 2011).
Furthermore, some teachers find it extremely difficult to teach learners who hardly understand the medium of instruction that is used. For example, Somali Bantu refugee children (who relocated to the USA) had many academic problems throughout the year. They hardly understood the medium of instruction, and they also had reading problems which made them submit their assignments late or sometimes not hand them in for marking at all (Roxas, 2011b).
Teaching refugee children becomes very complex when children have problems with language.
Bacakova (2011) claims that seven out of eight schools did not have prior knowledge of teaching learners with limited Czech Republic language proficiency, or coming from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. A study conducted by Miller (2009) about teaching refugee learners with interrupted education reveals that learners could hardly perform because of their inability to comprehend the language.
Teachers may be unable to explain fully because simple words that they use could be new to refugee children. Thus, refugee children fail not because they lack cognitive and pedagogic content knowledge, but they just do not understand the language (Harris & Marlowe, 2011).
Such hurdles require a teacher trained to help children with their language problems. Language barriers do not affect refugee children alone, but their parents may not be able to be involved in their children’s learning.
As a result of poor language ability, parental involvement which is important to strengthen the school–home partnership that extends to the greater community will be weakened (Sarr &
Mosselson, 2010). In a study of refugee learners in the Czech Republic, Bacakova (2011) postulates that the level of communication between schools and parents was very limited because
59 of language impediments. Parents’ inability to speak the language limited them from actively taking part in the learning of their children. The situation of refugee education in the Czech Republic and other metropolitan countries differs slightly from South Africa.