Analysis Of Teacher Refugee Learners For Refugee Students

Although refugees face many challenges outside of school, there are ways teachers can make their academic life easier. Many teachers “misinterpret learnt behaviors pertaining to survival in refugee camps or in the migration process itself as behavioral difficulties” (Due, Riggs, Mandara 170). When teachers make assumptions about student behavioral issues based on their “personal observations and assumptions,” it leads to “error of communication diagnosis of the kids” (Usman 112). Neither teachers nor parents should assume they know something about refugee students based on their personal opinions. Some teachers believe that they are unable to relate to their students’ families. As a result, “cultural mismatches” occur between students’ home

A study done, by Jennifer Miller of Monash University in Australia, focuses on refugee students in English-speaking classrooms. Miller wrote a book about multilingual issues, and has recently been rewarded grants for designing a pedagogy for low literacy refugee background-students. Miller’s article “Teacher Refugee Learners with Interrupted Education in Science: Vocabulary, Literacy, and Pedagogy,” explores how the hardships that refugees encounter before their resettlement ultimately transfers certain, unacceptable behaviors into the classroom. Most of the student struggles were based on unclear directions from the teacher. Students were directly quoted saying, “projects are hard,” “I think the teacher should explained me hard word especially in books,” and “she should show and more explainion of the words she said” (Miller 551). The teacher did not explicitly explain vocabulary that was required to complete the lesson. Miller focuses on how many teachers “simply assume students understand what is being said” (Miller 551). The students even commented on how the “teachers talked too much” and that they “wish that they would stop talking and let them do something” (Miller 551). If a teacher is not explaining an assignment in a way that a refugee student can understand, they simply lose interest. On the other hand, when students are unresponsive to a teacher they are considered “disrespectful” (Usman 112). Most of these classrooms struggles are due to miscommunication issues. Teachers should not assume that students are acting out. Rather, they should meet with parents and discuss how to deal with these issues (Usman 114). Students learn survival techniques in refugee camps, and unlearning them is pertinent for students to succeed in a classroom (Due, Riggs, Mandara 170). This requires extra patience from the teacher and additional support resources from