The importance of teaching refugee students in mainstream Australian classrooms is making sure every student has the best chance of achieving their best in school. Education is a key part of life and every child should receive the same chance of getting formal schooling and an undisrupted education.  It is vital that we as global teachers aid refugee students in bring their literacy and numeracy skills up and create a safe environment that makes them comfortable to engage with the material and embrace the school lifestyle. 

53% of refugee are coming from countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. With the continual global unrest in these developing nations with their unstable governments, terrorism, war and political unrest the percentage of refugees is on the rise. This is very relevant to Australia because of the 13 750 individuals we welcome into our country. This figure might be low considered to other developed nations but introducing refugees into Australian schools bring about many education and classroom challenges such as "misunderstanding about appropriate behaviour, anxiety about the classroom environment, concern over trying to catch up, as peers are also progressing"(Foundation House, 2016,p.19) and many more issues we as teachers need to address.

Strategy:
Scaffolding would be an incredibly useful tool for refugee students to achieve a higher academic performance and achieve better understanding of coursework through gradual removing their dependence on the teacher by become more confident in their work through achieving positive results. "Deconstructing of relevant text types and joint teacher student construction are essential precursors to independent writing."(Windle J, Miller J, Approaches to teaching low literacy refugee-background students, p.321) This would be an important strategy in aiding ESL refugee students as the majority of a classroom would speak predominantly English.

Teaching cross linguistically would aid refugee students as “ESL learning with curriculum content is now broadly accepted as supportive of second language learning.” (Short 1993 etl P Gibbon, p. 119) English would be a great example of using the scaffolding strategy because as refugee students begin to grasp the English through phonetics and grammar, classroom tasks given will optimistically start to see positive results. This will increase confidence and create a better sense of belonging to the cohort. Starting off with simple problems and goals to achieve in and out of the classroom through course work or behaviour the scaffolding strategy would begin to develop the mentality of students.

Using this strategy to tackle cultural and linguistic diversity,"Scaffolding through discussion...[creates] opportunities to talk through complex ideas and hold substantive conversations, including about language and learning. " (Windle J et al, Approaches to teaching low literacy refugee-background students, p.321) This can be further achieved by working in groups and ideally including a diverse range of opinions. This strategy is particular important for refugee students that have migrated with a poor academic foundation. These skills need to be nurtured and small goals need to be set." Skills, such as handwriting...practice and recycling [and] connections to lived experience " (Windle J et al, Approaches to teaching low literacy refugee-background students, p.322) will be reasonable problems to aid a refugee student through their differentiated curriculums.

Aim of this strategy
For students to be able to set goals and successfully achieve them while becoming more independent and confident in their developing learning skills and ability.

Resource 1: Strategies that meet the recovery goals
This includes a more cultural approach to meeting the scaffolding strategy by creating goals to support the recovery of mental distress caused by the lack of discussion in a classroom environment resulting in cultural inequality. 

Resource 2: Starting with the basic's
Using phonetics to build upon the english language will aid refugee students in being able to achieve their set academic goals by being able to sound out instructions for course work and be able to achieve these tasks. This can be achieved by individually planing and reviewing students progress

Strategy:
Collaborative Learning is so important in transitional a refugee student into the classroom environment. It gives other students the opportunity to cross over the linguistic barrier by working together on a task that could be really meaningful. This is important in not only a classroom based approach by a whole school challenge. Being inclusive throughout the entire cohort through celebrations of Harmony day and cultural awareness day, these would go a long way to achieve cultural equality in schools. Collaborative learning would aid a students linguistic challenges by having a nurturing environment to questions and share ideas to contribute verbal or non verbally to the task provided. These small triumphs will allows students both refugee and Australian to participate and feel more confident in their ideas as well as help teachers create diverse learners. Collabrative learning would challenge the culturally literate student to widen their gaze in understanding and being aware of the challenges that refugee students face in our society today.

Tasks such as group oral tasks would benefit refugee students who are still developing their written skills but have a profound grasp of the verbal component. Collaborative learning would challenge ideas brought to the discussion and help students work together to form opinions with such different life experiences brought to the discussion.

 

An activity that we as teachers could use would be by using current events such as the 2016 Olympics to encourage students to research and present about each individual athlete in groups of 2 or 3.  Writing a report and presenting on the background and life of the different refugee Olympians would allow students to empathize with them through sport as well as research the struggles they have faced in their lives as refugees.

By doing activities such as this, it creates better understanding of such a diverse and important issue for students to develop consciousness opinions on such important future issues as well as create better understanding of refugee students backgrounds to Australia students who may not have such a solid grasp of these issues.

Completing this task from first hand experience amongst a predominantly Anglo-Saxon classroom, the changing attitudes and questioning regarding issues refugee students face makes me realise the resounding need to educate and inform classrooms across Australia regarding this issue.

Resource 2: Calmer Classrooms; a snapshot
This resource gives a behind the scenes look at why refugee students would act out in a classroom and the reasons it would be harder for them to transition into a western styled environment. Examples of the impact of traumas associated with learning would include "poor peer relationships, unstable living situation, shame and language delays" (Calmer Classroom-a snapshot, 2016, p.171 to name a few. This resource aids teachers in identifying the issues as well as classroom practices to deal with these traumatised students.

Reading: Foundation House. (2016). School's In For Refugee's: A whole-school approach to supporting students and families of refugee background, 2nd edition (updated 2016) - Foundation House. [online] Available at: http://www.foundationhouse.org.au/schools-in-for-refugees/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2017]. 

Calmer Classroom-a snapshot. (2016). 1st ed. [ebook] Victoria: Foundation House. Available at: http://www.foundationhouse.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Resource_09_Calmer_Classrooms-Practice_for_dealing_with_traumatised_children.pdf [Accessed 23 Jan. 2017].

Foundation House. (2016). School's In For Refugee's: A whole-school approach to supporting students and families of refugee background, 2nd edition (updated 2016) - Foundation House. [online] Available at: http://www.foundationhouse.org.au/schools-in-for-refugees/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2017].

Gibbons P, (2002), ‘Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: teaching second language learners in the mainstream classrooms’ Learning language, learning through language, and learning about language: developing an integrated curriculum”, Heinemann, Portsmouth, p.118-139

Lawrence, C. (2017). How many refugees does Australia settle each year? - Settlement Services International. [online] Ssi.org.au. Available at: http://www.ssi.org.au/faqs/refugee-faqs/141-how-many-refugees-does-australia-settle-each-year [Accessed 21 Jan. 2017].

Naehcy.org. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: http://naehcy.org/sites/default/files/child-hands-globe.jpg [Accessed 23 Jan. 2017].

Pinantoan, A. (2017). Instructional Scaffolding: A Definitive Guide - InformED. [online] InformED. Available at: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/teacher-resources/scaffolding-in-education-a-definitive-guide/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2017].

Refugees, U. (2017). Figures at a Glance. [online] UNHCR. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/figures-at-a-glance.html [Accessed 23 Jan. 2017].

School's In for Refugees, Resource 7: Refugee resettlement experiences that impact on learning and wellbeing. (2016). 2nd ed. [ebook] Victoria: The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture Inc. (VFST). Available at: http://www.foundationhouse.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Resource_01_Beaut_Buddies_a_transition_program.pdf [Accessed 22 Jan. 2017].

Thefulcrum.ca. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: http://thefulcrum.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WUSC-refugee-student-JMSadik2_WEB.jpg [Accessed 23 Jan. 2017].

Thirteen.org. (2017). Cooperative and Collaborative Learning: Explanation. [online] Available at: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/coopcollab/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2017].

Windle, J & Miller, J. Approaches to teaching low literacy refugee-background students. [online]. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy; v.35 n.3 p.317-333; October 2012. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/fullText;dn=194800;res=AEIPT> ISSN: 1038-1562. [cited 24 Jan 17]

YouTube. (2016). Meet The First Ever Refugee Olympic Team | Rio 2016 Olympic Games. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc17klNeGBc [Accessed 20 Jan. 2017].

YouTube. (2017). Life As A Refugee Student. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFn98FCwPj8 [Accessed 23 Jan. 2017].

 

Resource 1: Whole School challenges to address resettlement
This is a highly challenging issue to cohesively integrate refugee students past and present in Australia. This task uses a table to aid teachers in achieving collaborative learning tasks which could aid refugee students in not forgetting where they have come from as well as educating Australian students about other cultures.

Resource 2: Understanding and addressing Racism in schools
This resource would aid the collaborative learning strategy in schools through having an open discussion about race. This would include refugee students to participate and discuss how they feel in their new environment and the difference they see around the. By having a culturally open discussion Australian students could find out more about other cultures as well as share with refugee students their own understanding and way of life.