Education: Hope for newcomers in Europe
Inside the classroom: What is the right thing to do?
Let us start with an unequivocal statement here: Although extremely important, the inclusion and success of newly-arrived students in education is not all about attaining proficiency in the majority language. Yet, it appears that internal pedagogical discourses have been reduced almost entirely to the question of how to make sure newly-arrived students quickly develop deep language structures in German, Italian, Spanish, Catalan and Swedish. This is an almost intuitive reflex emanating from teachers’ bewilderment once faced with a seemingly insurmountable task: How to teach a child without a language? This is a flawed premise, since all newly-arrived children already have one or several languages with them. For some reason, the language–or languages–of the newlyarrived children are not acknowledged and valued. There is ample international research on language acquisition for migrant children, descriptions of various pedagogical practices and evaluated models (for example, Gibbons, 2002, 2009; Thomas & Collier, 2002; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017). Virtually all of them present the first language as a resource to build upon and utilise for second-language learners. As Morland and Birman (2016, p. 363) put it: Current research also supports the benefits of maintaining native language while learning English. For example, developing skills (such as grammar) in a first language facilitates learning a second language, improves problem solving, supports a positive ethnic identity, and enables ongoing connections with members of the family and community, who can continue to share positive values regarding education. Maintaining the native language is positively associated with academic achievement. In the four national contributions in this volume, the role of first language for successful educational outcomes has been corroborated, with the exception of Germany and in relation to regular classes. According to Vogel and Stock (p. 35, in this volume) “The authors did not find any documented cases in which mother-tongue teachers are employed to help alleviate the impact of education gaps”. This is a concern given that the other contributions reiterate, in one 9