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Hello!
My name is Linda Carlos
Ruiz. I’m a 36 year old
teacher from Finland. I live
in Helsinki and I work in a
primary school in Vantaa.
I think a lot about the big
challenges the world is
facing and how I can do
something to help the
situation. Massive
migration in the world is a
reality because of the poor
conditions people are living
in in third world countries,
and I think it is our duty as
human beings to help
people who are forced to
migrate as best we can. As
teachers we are in a key
position to promote
intercultural competence
and respect for different
cultures.

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I am a teacher of an Instruction Preparing for basic education class. All my
students are newly arrived
immigrants. They will be in
my class for one year
learning the Finnish
language and integrating
into the Finnish schoolsystem. Currently I have 8
students. They are between
7 and 12 years old and they
are from Estonia, Russia,
Iraq, Nepal and Kenya.
Everyone is on a different
level in learning Finnish.
Besides the boy from
Kenya who speaks English,
I don't have any language
in common with the
students, other than the
Finnish they have learned
in my class

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Successfully integrating newly arrived migrant children in our society is one of the key challenges for Europe at the moment. Schools have a key role to play here, but often they lack the experience and external support. Welcoming newly arrived migrant children at the school is a huge task for the school management, teachers, but also all staff members.

I think the key to integration is education and respect. We can’t objectify the immigrants. Immigrant students represent a possibility. A possibility for the schools to change to make themselves better and improve themselves. Also, or especially, teenage students need a structure, they need a place to go to every day, they need to normalize their lives. We need different structures different possibilities. What works for someone or in one school perhaps doesn’t work in another place.

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1.2 Meeting the needs of newly arrived migrant students at school

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1.2 Meeting the needs of newly arrived migrant students at school

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The specific needs of newly arrived migrant students coming into schools are as diverse as the students themselves. However, their common experiences of fleeing their home country, often living through harrowing situations and losing loved-ones, sometimes coming from quite basic living conditions prior to arriving in schools, as well as the experience of being in a foreign place, does mean that this group of students often has some specific needs that we at school need to be aware of.

Amber Price, ELL teacher in USA: I could really relate to every word she was saying. What makes the job difficult for an ELL teacher and for all the teachers of newly arrived migrant students is the diverse backgrounds and extremely diverse previous academic schooling of the students. While some are extremely skilled and come from very academic families, others have never been to school before and have to start with learning how to hold a pen, write their name, write the letters, sit at a desk in school. Another thing is that you have to teach so much more than academic skills. Sometimes you have to teach basic life skills and you have to teach the parents and give them information about rights and duties, networks and services and benefits etc. The second video was extremely inspiring and very useful. As a teacher of newly arrived migrant students there is so much you have to consider. The students can suffer from anxiety, anger, depression etc… But the most wonderful thing is watching a student with a very difficult background grow into a wonderful young person.

I loved this  tree-exercise:

http://www.doorway-to-self-esteem.com/self-esteem-exercises.html

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As you are probably well aware, schools in different countries but also within the same country organize the integration of newly arrived migrant students very differently. In some schools, the children are taught in seperate classes for a certain period of time or certain subjects, in others they are quickly integrated in classes together with the other students. In this section, you will hear from Wolfgang Oelzant, one of our course moderators, who briefly outlines some of the main ways how the integration of newly arrived migrant students is organized in schools. His list is not exhaustive, so please share how the integration is organised in your school. Getting an idea of all the different ways this is organised in schools around Europe will allow us to understand how we might be able to modify our own approach.

My Padlet comment: As I have shared with you before, I have only newly arrived immigrant students in my class. It is a special class for only immigrant students and it is called Instruction Preparing for Basic Education (valmistava opetus). So you could say it is the parallel model that is used. The students stay in my class for one school-year and after that they should understand and speak enough Finnish to be integrated into normal classes. This is of course not always the case. In special circumstances the period in my class can be extended or the student can be moved to a special class if they have problems with learning that are not due to the language. This is normal practice in primary schools as well as secondary schools in Finland. However there are some regional differences; in very small towns where there are none or very few migrant students the migrant students are integrated into normal classes immediately, but with extra support.

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1.4 Organising support within & outside of school

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1.4 Organising support within & outside of school

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Support at school-level: It should be easier to get information than it is today. All information should be available in one place… In Finland stated in law how to organize the education of refugee children, not up to the principal… Projects together with students speaking the majority language is a good idea.

My Padlet comment: In Finland the migrant children usually start in a class that is only for migrants still trying to learn the language (Instruction preparing for basic education). I teach such a class in a primary school. The students learn Finnish and parts of other subjects, like math in my class. For physical education, arts, music and hand-craft they are integrated into a regular class according to their age from the beginning.This helps to make friends and adapt and hear the language of the majority spoken by peers. In my class they mainly study the Finnish language. However if a child is strong in math and goes to a regular class for the math lessons, I still have math occasionally with these students too, just to make sure that they understand all the terminology in Finnish. The same goes for natural science and so on... The students also receive extra lessons with a special-needs teacher and with me if needed. They also have two lessons a week in their mother tongue. All students in my class have individual learning plans. The time in my class is usually restricted to one year. After that the student is transferred into a regular class but continues to get extra lessons in Finnish and extra lessons with a special-needs teacher if they need it.

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1.5 Example of a community-based project

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1.5 Example of a community-based project

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My Padlet comment: This sounds like a very interesting project. The students need to feel at home and safe in their environment and I think projects like this helps a lot. I hope I have a chance and time to try something like this in the future.

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2.1 Preparing yourself and your class for arrival of newly arrived migrant students

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2.1 Preparing yourself and your class for arrival of newly arrived migrant students

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In the first video, Kristina Robertson, an English Learning Language (ELL) Program Specialist, gives some tips on how to get started and what to be aware of right from the beginning. She stresses again the point we have made already in the first module: how important it is to get to know your new students and their different backgrounds.

My padlet comment: I have ONLY recently arrived migrant students in my class, so in my class the students are used to everyone being different. Of course we still do all the rituals above when a new student arrives.

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2.3 Supporting specific needs of newly arrived migrant students

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2.3 Supporting specific needs of newly arrived migrant students

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In this section, Erika & Nora stress that newly arrived migrant students often have some very specific needs that you as a teacher cannot always support them with. Many newly arrived migrant students have lived through very difficult or even traumatic situations back in their home country or during their journey to Europe. Sometimes they do not feel safe yet about their present and future in the new country. While both Erika & Nora stress how it is important to know your own boundaries of ability and responsibility and it is not your job to solve these issues for your students, it is essential that you know where you can refer them to the external support they need. Erika also gives a lot of tips how you can help your students already by creating a safe and welcoming classroom environment.

My padlet comment: I think the most important thing for me to do as a teacher of migrants and refugees, apart from making the students feel welcome and safe, is to give them some structure in their day, in their life, as many don't have that. Structures and rules also make them feel safe. I disagree with Raimo Salo from Finland on his view of teachers not acting as social workers and psychologists. Of course there are professionals who do these jobs. However, all situations and students are different and being a teacher is not only about passing on information, it's about seeing the student as a whole human beeing and listening to him / her and accepting them as a person. Last year I had a student, 16 year old refugee, who refused to talk to any psychologists although everyone tried to make him do that. He'd talk to me because he felt I was the only one who had shown to really care and listen.

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2.4 Classroom activities to support newly arrived migrant students

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2.4 Classroom activities to support newly arrived migrant students

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In this section, Erika and Katja Kiesler, a special needs teacher who works with newly arrived migrant students, give you a lot of concrete ideas on classroom activities that are particularly suited to help newly arrived migrants in their learning. Erika also mentions sports games as a good activity for newly arrived migrant students. In section 2.5 you will hear more from Jana Gottschalk of the CamP Group, who already introduced some of her projects to you in the first module, about how to make use of sports activities in your classroom.

Erika mentions in particular the book “The More-Than-Just-Surviving Handbook: ELL for Every Classroom Teacher” as a useful place to get started. Finally, Wolfgang presents examples of very interesting practical resources that will support you in your further planning of classroom activities. There are shortend links shown directly in the video or you can access all mentioned resources directly

My Padlet comment: All my students are immigrants and often don't have any language in common neither with me nor with each other. But one thing I'm going to try out next year is to start each day with a silent smiling circle.

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2.6 Supporting newly arrived migrant students with language learning

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2.6 Supporting newly arrived migrant students with language learning

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Erika and Nora give you here very useful tips on how to deal with one of the most immediate challenges of teaching newly arrived migrant students: the language barrier. Giving your students some support in the beginning can make all the difference, as many are very motivated to learn the language very quickly.

My Padlet comment: papunet.net for communicating with pictures, moped.fi for example instructions and different kinds of forms in arab, somali, etc.

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2.7 How to foster community building in the classroom

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2.7 How to foster community building in the classroom

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In the previous section 2.4 on classroom activities, Erika already points out that sports activities can be very useful to get different students do something together without using many words. In the three short videos below, Jana will present to you some concrete exercises you can use in your classroom in order to enhance the trust between your students and to foster the community building in your classroom.

My Padlet comment: In Finland it's common for migrant children to take sports lessons together with the other children who speak Finnish as their mother tongue because it is seen as a great way to integrate them. However I do have one very bad experience with sports for refugee students. Last year when the school year was finishing and it was already summer I suddenly decided to go outside with my students ( afghan and iraqi boys about 16-17 years old)to play football. Two other teachers also with students of the same age and origin decided to follow me. After we had played about 5 minutes a huge group fight broke out. There I was, in the middle of 50 boys formidably trying to kill one another. I went home with blod all over my clothes.

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This document is to help you structure your own thoughts & planning. There is no correct way to complete the document. Hence, if you find parts of the document unclear or not useful, feel free to modify the document according to your own needs. The only thing you need to bear in mind is that the course participants who will review your template need to be able to comment on your ideas, so make sure they are sufficiently clear.