Language and literacy learning among Syrian refugee children: A progress report

Abstract

Among refugee children and youth, successful adaptation to life in a receiving country requires the acquisition of language and literacy skills in the language of school instruction (the children's L2), as well as maintenance of the heritage language (L1). In the current study involving a small sample of Syrian refugee families (n = 4) resettled in Canada for 3 years, we employed a mixed methods approach to achieve two objectives. First, through semi-structured interviews, we examined child experiences and practices with respect to L2 learning, as well as parental attitudes and practices with respect to L1 maintenance. Secondly, we examined child outcomes on key literacy skills (vocabulary, word reading, reading comprehension, narrative competence) in English and Arabic over a 1-year period to monitor progress from a quantitative perspective. Our child interview results suggested the importance of peer and teacher support in acquiring the L2 and revealed persistent difficulties in achieving proficiency in English. Our quantitative results suggested that, overall, the children were progressing in terms of individual scores but were struggling to close the gap in performance relative to English monolingual children. Progress was also noted in Arabic over time despite a lack of formal Arabic instruction.

Keywords: L1 maintenance; L2 language and literacy acquisition; Mixed methods; Syrian refugee children and youth.