Education International Research
or another form, that the presence of multilingual support teachers bridges the gap between students’ language and the academic content in separate as well as ordinary classes. These teachers are labelled as linguistic and cultural mediators in Italy, as bilingual language assistants in Sweden, and as language support staff in Spain. As Bunar points out in his contribution from Sweden, this is the most important pedagogical strategy for supporting learning and the further development of newly-arrived students. It enables them to participate in mainstream classes (although teachers must make an additional effort to adjust teaching material to their level of language proficiency), to excel in acquiring the second language, and to advance knowledge of their first language. However, this practice is effectively undermined by two circumstances: 1.
Lack of resources to employ bilingual language assistants and/or the shortage of this teacher category. It could be considered natural to turn to the pool of teachers among refugees themselves, but as the German case shows, “In spite of staff shortages, there are few systematic efforts to integrate refugee teachers” (Vogel & Stock, p. 24, in this volume). Sweden appears to have the most established policy with Fast-track and Further education of migrant teachers’ programmes. This policy could serve as a promising example for other countries to adopt.
2.
Lack of internal coordination and collaboration between different teacher categories. If bilingual language assistants are to perform their role in the most optimal way, they need a tight collaboration with teachers in academic subjects. Preparing students for instructions in mainstream classes on the students’ first language, supporting them during lessons and afterwards must be based on accurate information provided by academic subject teachers on the core content. Sometimes, academic subject teachers must also support bilingual language assistants, if they lack a full understanding of, for example, mathematical terms.
Another common theme identified in the four contributions in this volume is that all the countries face shortages of teachers. Once again, it is incomprehensible that more considerable attention is not paid to migrant teachers and their competences. In Germany, students and retired teachers have been recruited to fill vacancies. Indeed, and as evident from the four contributions, teachers need to increase their level of competence to work with newly-arrived children and in multicultural classrooms. In this light, it is even more worrying how and on the basis of what knowledge and experiences the diverse local practices are organised and carried out. Obviously, there is a need, strongly advocated for in all four contributions, for more continuous professional development of teachers and school principals. One-day conferences with invited experts cannot 10