Language teaching and learning

in multilingual classrooms
Language teaching and learning in
multilingual classrooms

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Education and Culture
Directorate B — Education policy and programme; Innovation, EIT and MSCA
Unit B.2 — Schools and educators; multilingualism
E-mail: EAC-UNITE-B2@ec.europa.eu
European Commission
B-1049 Brussels

http://ec.europa.eu/languages/policy/learning-languages/multilingual-classrooms_en.htm
 EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Language teaching and

learning in multilingual
classrooms

Prepared by ICF Consulting Services Ltd

Directorate-General for Education and Culture

2015 EN
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Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2015

ISBN 978-92-79-51830-0
doi: 10.2766/766802

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Education and Training

Table of Contents

Table of Contents ............................................................................................. 5

Terms and definitions........................................................................................ 8
Executive summary .......................................................................................... 9
Focus of this study ...................................................................................... 9
The challenge ............................................................................................. 9
Method...................................................................................................... 9
Reception and integration .......................................................................... 10
Access to the curriculum ............................................................................ 11
Developing mother tongue competences ...................................................... 11
Teacher education..................................................................................... 12
Conclusions: What will make a difference?.................................................... 12
Recommendations: What will facilitate making a difference? ........................... 14
Introduction .................................................................................................. 16
Purpose of this research ............................................................................... 16
Context ...................................................................................................... 16
EU policy ................................................................................................. 16
Commission guidance and support within the Open Method of Coordination (OMC)
.............................................................................................................. 17
The educational achievements of migrant children ......................................... 18
The growth and extent of multilingual classrooms.......................................... 22
National policies and responses................................................................... 25
Method ...................................................................................................... 26
Broad assumptions.................................................................................... 26
Considerations.......................................................................................... 27
Approach ................................................................................................. 28
A framework for the review of evidence and this report ..................................... 29
Reception and integration .......................................................................... 30
Access to the curriculum ............................................................................ 30
Developing mother tongue competences ...................................................... 30
Teacher education..................................................................................... 30
Theme 1: Reception and integration.................................................................. 31
Participation in early childhood education and care ........................................... 31
Research evidence .................................................................................... 31
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 32
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 33
Placement and admission.............................................................................. 34
Research evidence .................................................................................... 34
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 34
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 36
Assessment of language support needs........................................................... 36
Research evidence .................................................................................... 36
Practitioners’ view and experience ............................................................... 37
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 38
Learning the language of instruction for integration into the school system .......... 39
Research evidence .................................................................................... 39
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 40
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 42
Key summary points .................................................................................... 42
Participation in ECEC ................................................................................. 42
Placement and admission ........................................................................... 42
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Assessment of language support needs ........................................................ 43

Learning the language of instruction for integration into the school system ....... 43
Theme 2: Access to the curriculum ................................................................... 44
Support in the classroom for language and subject learning ............................... 44
Research evidence .................................................................................... 44
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 45
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 46
Support outside the classroom....................................................................... 47
Research evidence .................................................................................... 47
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 48
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 51
Adapted teaching approaches by class teachers ............................................... 51
Research evidence .................................................................................... 52
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 53
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 54
Parental engagement ................................................................................... 55
Research evidence .................................................................................... 55
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 56
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 58
Key summary points .................................................................................... 58
Support in the classroom ........................................................................... 58
Support outside the classroom .................................................................... 58
Theme 3: Developing mother tongue competences ............................................. 60
Recognising and developing mother tongue competences in informal and non-formal
learning ..................................................................................................... 60
Practitioners’ views and experiences ............................................................ 60
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 63
Developing mother tongue competences in formal learning................................ 63
Research evidence .................................................................................... 63
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 65
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 71
Key summary points .................................................................................... 71
Non-formal and informal learning of mother tongues...................................... 71
Formal learning of mother tongues .............................................................. 71
Theme 4: Teacher education ............................................................................ 73
Developing language development skills and cultural competences ..................... 73
Practitioners’ views and experiences ............................................................ 73
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 74
Developing skills for teaching children without the language of instruction ........... 75
Research evidence .................................................................................... 75
Practitioners’ views and experience ............................................................. 76
Lessons for policy and practice.................................................................... 78
Key summary points .................................................................................... 79
Teacher education in language teaching skills and cultural competences ........... 79
Teacher education to develop skills to support children without the language of
instruction in the classroom........................................................................ 79
Conclusions ................................................................................................... 80
Research evidence gaps ............................................................................... 80
What makes a difference .............................................................................. 80
What are the factors working against migrant children achieving their potential? 80
What brings about higher attainment and reduced gaps in achievement and
progression? ............................................................................................ 81
What increases children’s development of their multi-lingual skills ................... 81
What improves inter-cultural education? ...................................................... 81
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What facilitates making a difference ............................................................... 82

ANNEXES ...................................................................................................... 85
Annex 1 Research protocol............................................................................ 85
Annex 2 Bibliography ................................................................................... 89

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Terms and definitions

Invariably there are many different terms used in the literature to describe children
who have learnt a different language before they enter education in a country whether
that is at the start of compulsory education because they have a learnt a different
language at home or during compulsory education because they are recently arrived
migrants from a country where another language was spoken. In all cases they are
expected to learn the language which is used for instruction and assessment so that
they access the curriculum and progress to higher education and employment.

In this report, these children will all be described as ‘without the language of
instruction’ even where they are described differently in the literature being drawn on
where many different terms are used depending on the country context. Where they
are distinguished generically as being the children of parents who have migrated in
the literature (not all of whom will have learnt a different language at home), they
may be described as migrant children.

The language they have learnt at home from their parents and/or in school in another
country is also often described in many different ways. Here it will be described as a
‘mother tongue’.

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Executive summary
Focus of this study
For the children of migrants, learning the language of instruction and assessment so
that they can enter school or carry on their education is paramount. Education
authorities in many parts of the EU are faced with this challenge because of growing
levels of mobility. Enabling such children to access teaching and learning quickly is
critical to ensuring they can reach their potential and progress to higher education and
employment to the same degree as non-migrant children. In the process the children
themselves gain linguistic and meta-linguistic skills from learning the language of
instruction and assessment in addition to their mother tongue.

This research is designed to gather, analyse and synthesise existing data and research
on:
ƒ What works to enable migrant children who use a language at home different
to the language of school instruction to participate in learning, attain
proficiency in the language of instruction, and achieve results (qualifications,
progress to higher education, progress to employment) that match their
potential; and
ƒ What works to maintain and develop the multilingual skills of migrant children
which will enable them to use these competences for cultural and economic
purposes.

The challenge
Because of increasing mobility multilingual classrooms are becoming more
commonplace in many EU countries as is the range of mother tongues that children
have.

It is clear that:
ƒ Migrant children without the language of instruction do not reach their potential
and are more likely to leave school early and have lower levels of attainment
throughout their schooling;
ƒ Children are not always provided with support to learn their mother tongue;
ƒ Schools can reduce the difference in attainment between native children and
children without the language of instruction as they progress through their
education.
It is accepted in this study that learning the language of instruction is necessary for
children to reach their potential, that bilingualism increases children’s cognitive skills
and their ability to learn languages effectively and that barriers affect the educational
outcomes that children without the language of instruction can achieve.

Method
To address these questions, the study has comprised:

ƒ A literature review drawing on academic research and grey literature;

ƒ A series of round table discussions involving practitioners and experts; and
ƒ A study visit to Cologne to see what is happening on the ground and to have
further discussion with practitioners and experts.

It was important for the study to include research which was based on empirical
evidence and practitioners’ experiences provided that:

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• The methods and their limitations were understood so that the strength of
evidence could be assessed;
• The context was known so its transferability could be considered; and
• Practitioners’ experience was drawn on in a systematic way (such as through
workshops and action research).

The study examined evidence in relation to four themes. The key findings on each of
these is set out below.

Reception and integration

Participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC)
There is conclusive research evidence which shows that ECEC can have positive
learning and progression outcomes for migrant children which gives them the start
they need to develop their skills in the language of instruction. Practitioners believe
that better results are achieved where there is outreach to ensure migrant children
take up free provision of ECEC and where ECEC providers have a systematic
curriculum for language learning.

Placement and admission

While migrant children are segregated and schools with higher proportions of migrant
children have lower attainment, there is no conclusive research evidence that
segregation is a cause and that reducing it will improve attainment. Practitioners
believe that reducing segregation does however help schools to manage and that the
greatest benefit of this comes from increasing cultural awareness of all children. They
also believe that it is more important for education authorities to ensure that the
quality of leadership and teaching in schools with children without the language of
instruction can meet the challenges of multilingual classrooms and that such schools
need to have additional resources and funding.

Assessment of language support needs

There is conclusive research evidence that poor measures of assessment on entering
the school system have a detrimental impact on migrant children. This is because they
are more likely to be allocated to special education and lower ability tracks.
Practitioners have developed better systems for assessing children’s language skills
and other knowledge and competencies during the early stages of their reception into
the education system. These address the causes of poor assessment that have
adversely affected children without the language of instruction.

Learning the language of instruction for integration into the school system
There is indicative research evidence that children without the language of instruction
should be quickly moved to having targeted and continued language support provided
in mainstream classrooms (immersion) rather than in separate classes. The amount of
time needed in preparatory education should be linked to age and previous education.
Practitioners strongly support a speedy transition with teaching support because they
believe this supports integration, learning the language of instruction and learning
other subjects. Where separate classes are required children without the language of
instruction should be enabled to make a transition to mainstream classes with a
special curriculum and support from specialist teachers.

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Access to the curriculum

Support in the classroom
There is indicative research evidence that the availability and level of support
improves migrant children’s educational attainment and that additional learning
activities and support in school for children without the language of instruction can
improve their progress. Practitioners strongly believe that classroom support has to be
maintained to develop their language skills as well as access to the curriculum with
the support of teaching assistants, specialist teachers and resources.

Support outside the classroom

There is indicative research evidence that formal and informal learning led by trained
staff and volunteers outside school enhances migrant children’s interest in education,
their language skills and their aspirations. This is through a variety of measures:
homework clubs, out of school activities, mentoring, coaching and advice. Practitioners
believe that these help and can be targeted at children who need extra support which
include migrant children. It helps to achieve positive outcomes if some of the
staff/volunteers have the same mother tongue/migrant background as the children
and parents.

Adapted teaching approaches by class teachers

There is indicative research evidence that adapting teaching approaches to
accommodate children without the same level of language ability as native children
has a beneficial effect. The adaptions they effectively employ are similar to those used
in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) settings. There is some evidence
that providing children without the same level of language competency as native
children with tools and materials assists them to achieve their potential in assessment
tests. Simplification of the language used in tests has been found to be beneficial.
Practitioners believe that teaching approaches need to be adapted in multilingual
classrooms, teachers need to be aware of this, and have strategies and resources to
manage. Practitioners also believe that teachers need to have positive attitudes
towards migrant children if they are to achieve their potential and overcome language
barriers. There is evidence that not all teachers have these positive attitudes.

Parental engagement
There is some indicative research evidence that equipping migrant families with skills
to develop their children’s language skills in ECEC helps to accelerate their learning.
Practitioners believe that engaging migrant parents is necessary throughout their
children’s education to build their emotional support for their children and their
cooperation with the school. These are believed to improve their children’s attendance,
behaviours and attitudes to learning as well as mutual trust and understanding
between teachers and parents.

Developing mother tongue competences

Non-formal and informal learning of mother tongues
Practitioners believe that informal learning of mother tongues should be provided and
encouraged both in the absence of formal learning opportunities and where formal
learning of mother tongues is available. The opportunities for children to use and
develop their mother tongue skills enable them to gain recognition for these skills and
see they are of equal value to other language skills. Children need to be stimulated to
develop and use their mother tongue skills. Parents, schools and the community have
been shown to play an effective part in this. Resources are available for non-formal
and informal learning.

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Formal learning of mother tongues

There is conclusive research evidence that learning mother tongues alongside the
language of instruction enhances not only their mother tongue competences but also
their competences in the language of instruction.

There is indicative research evidence that this has:

ƒ Longer term benefits for educational attainment and reducing the gap between
migrant children and native born children;
ƒ Wider benefits in enhancing children’s confidence and their cultural awareness
and pride in their culture;
ƒ Longer term benefits in increasing employment opportunities.

Practitioners generally support the benefits of mother tongue learning although

teachers are not always aware of these. Some schools and teachers continue to
discourage speaking in mother tongues. Bringing mother tongues into language
learning and the language curriculum as well as offering formal learning of mother
tongues as foreign languages through language classes and CLIL throughout primary
and secondary education appear to be efficient and effective approaches to achieving
the benefits described in the research evidence. This is facilitated where pluri-lingual
approaches to language learning are adopted, qualified mother tongue teachers are
available and mother tongues are recognised in the curriculum and school
examinations.

Teacher education
Teacher education in language teaching skills and cultural competences
Practitioners believe that teachers who provide language support should have

specialist training and qualifications in second‐language acquisition that is aligned with

the approaches implemented in practice. Alongside this practitioners believe that all
teachers require training to teach children without the language of instruction and to
be able to value diversity by incorporating cultural diversity within their teaching. This
should include intercultural training.

Teacher education to develop skills to support children without the language of

instruction in the classroom
There is some indicative research evidence that in-service training helps teachers to
build their capability and resources to teach children without the language of
instruction which improves the attainment of children without the language of
instruction. Practitioners strongly support this and also believe that initial teacher
training ought to be adapted given the significant and growing proportion of teachers
who will work in multilingual classrooms.

Schools and teachers benefit from the resources, networking and training provided by
specialist centres in many countries and cities in the EU. Practitioners have found that
networking between and within schools facilitates non-formal learning by teachers to
support migrant children’s learning.

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Conclusions: What will make a difference?

While the research evidence is not comprehensive in covering all the aspects of the
educational system which can improve migrant children’s educational achievements, it
goes a long way to supporting measures targeted at children without the language of
instruction to enable them to reach their potential.
There is a considerable consensus among practitioners about the causes of such
children not reaching their potential and broad agreement to the types of solution
which have been tested and in some cases embedded in policy and practice.

What are the factors working against migrant children achieving their
potential?
The evidence here broadly confirms earlier research published by the Commission that
the factors which inhibit children without the language of instruction achieving their
potential are:
ƒ Schools without sufficient resources and staff with competencies to support the
learning of children without the language of instruction;
ƒ Assessment tools and assessors with negative perceptions of migrant children’s
abilities which allocate more of them to lower ability tracks and special
education classes;
ƒ A lack of opportunities to develop their mother tongue competences to higher
levels.
ƒ Although the segregation of migrant children occurs widely in the EU, this is
not by itself a factor.

What brings about higher attainment and reduced gaps in achievement and
progression?
There is conclusive evidence here that ECEC for children without the language of
instruction not only increases language competences but also long term educational
achievements; that language competences are related to achievement in other
competences; and that targeted and continued support in language learning enables
this.

There is indicative evidence supported by practitioners that the following contribute to

raising the attainment of children without the language of instruction:

ƒ Supplementary education (both formal and non-formal) in school and out of

school which includes help with homework, language learning (including
mother tongue learning), and mentoring during activities;
ƒ Immersion in mainstream classrooms with support from specialists and with
teachers who have the competences and experience to tailor teaching to
children in the class without the same level of competency in the language of
instruction;
ƒ Increasing their parents’ support and encouragement in their education,
including their development of language competences;
ƒ Developing their mother tongue competences.

There is no conclusive evidence about the length of time that children without the
language of instruction should spend in preparation classes but there is indicative
evidence that this should be limited and should include a transition to immersion with
support. It should be greater for older children (NAMS) so that they make the
transition once thy have a basic competency.

What increases children’s development of their multi-lingual skills?

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There is indicative evidence that children without the language of instruction can
increase these skills to higher levels where:

ƒ ECEC enables them to learn their mother tongue as well as the language of
instruction;
ƒ Non-formal and informal learning opportunities enable them to use their
mother tongue;
ƒ Formal learning opportunities are available either in school or out of school to
develop their mother tongue skills which progress towards recognition in
educational achievements.

What improves inter-cultural education?

Practitioners strongly believe that intercultural education is more likely to be achieved
and achieved more quickly where schools are less segregated and children are more
rapidly immersed in mainstream classrooms. This is because this provides greater
opportunities for cultural awareness and valuing diversity through teaching and
learning.

There is indicative evidence that the following is beneficial:

ƒ Increasing all children’s cultural and linguistic awareness through both

language learning and other parts of the curriculum;
ƒ Engaging parents in the school’s activities and their children’s education;
ƒ Increasing teachers’ positive attitudes towards migrant children’s prospects and
their use of their mother tongues to learn.

Recommendations: What will facilitate making a difference?

For policy makers in national and local government, these are:

ƒ Establish a curriculum for language learning in ECEC and a curriculum in

primary and secondary education for second language learning of the language
of instruction;
ƒ Establish unbiased assessment tools for testing and monitoring competences
and cognitive skills of children without the language of instruction;
ƒ Enable the dispersal of children without the language of instruction to reduce
segregation and pressure on a small number of schools having large
proportions of children without the language of instruction;
ƒ Provide schools with core funding to cover extra costs of reception and
immersion of children without the language of instruction, a minimum of formal
mother tongue support, and in-service training that supports all teachers to
teach children whose competence in the language of instruction is lower than
native children;
ƒ Provide project funding assistance for out of school activities providing
additional education and support to children without the language of
instruction;
ƒ Establish language simplification in assessment tests;
ƒ Establish flexible policies towards foreign language learning which include the
most frequently spoken mother tongues and their recognition in school
qualifications and examinations of foreign language competences;
ƒ Establish an initial teacher training curriculum to prepare teachers to work in
multilingual classrooms and provide qualified mother tongue teachers.

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For policy implementers in national and local government and schools, these are:

ƒ Establish outreach to engage migrant parents in ECEC and in their children’s

education;
ƒ Recruit bilingual staff in ECEC, outreach, and reception as well as mentors and
teaching assistants;
ƒ Establish procedures to enable a rapid transition from reception classes to
immersion in mainstream classes with support which reflects children’s age and
the language competences they need to participate with support;
ƒ Provide additional teaching and allocate support from teaching assistants and
specialist teachers for children without the language of instruction;
ƒ Support out of school activities for children without the language of instruction
with trained mentors/volunteers;
ƒ Provide materials and resources for mainstream class teachers to adapt
pedagogies and for mother tongue learning;
ƒ Promote CLIL teaching approaches in multilingual classrooms and longer school
days/CLIL approaches to accommodate formal mother tongue learning;
ƒ Promote positive attitudes about the potential of migrant children;
ƒ Establish whole school approaches to learning cultural awareness through the
curriculum including language learning;
ƒ Support non-formal and informal learning of mother tongues where it is not
possible to provide formal learning;
ƒ Train staff in reception centres/schools to use good assessment methods which
cover language as well as other subject competences;
ƒ Ensure initial teacher training includes intercultural training, experience in
multilingual classrooms and approaches to teaching children whose
competence in the language of instruction is lower than native children;
ƒ Build the capacity and resources of classroom teachers through in-service
training and support from specialist centres, specialist teachers in second
language acquisition, and networking opportunities.

For the Commission, these are:

ƒ Disseminate the evidence brought together in this report of what works to

enable children without the language of instruction to reach their potential and
provide the benefits of increasing their mother tongue competences;
ƒ Disseminate the good practices which exist in many parts of the EU to address
these challenges successfully;
ƒ Support research which could fill gaps in the evidence base around assessment
approaches during and after reception and the extent to which children should
be educated in preparatory classes before immersion and the amount/duration
of support required for immersion;
ƒ Promote evaluative research which will provide a better evidence base in this
area of education policy and practice.
ƒ Use EU funding instruments to support cooperation between Member States in
order to develop any of the recommendations above.

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Introduction
For the children of migrants, learning the language of instruction and assessment so
that they can enter school or carry on their education is paramount. Education
authorities in many parts of the EU are faced with this challenge because of growing
levels of mobility. Enabling such children to access teaching and learning quickly is
critical to ensuring they can reach their potential and progress to higher education and
employment to the same degree as non-migrant children. In the process the children
themselves gain linguistic and meta-linguistic skills from learning the language of
instruction and assessment in addition to their mother tongue. This can be a valued
transversal skill.

Purpose of this research

The European Commission has developed a report on Language teaching and learning
in Multilingual Classrooms (RLMC) to provide more guidance on successfully meeting
the challenges posed by teaching children the language of instruction as well as
building on the opportunities they provide to broaden multilingual skills within the EU.
The present report will also prepare provide policy and practice recommendations for
discussion with the Member States' authorities.

As the basis for the RLMC, this research is designed to gather, analyse and synthesise
existing data and research on:

ƒ What works to enable migrant children who use a language at home different
to the language of school instruction to participate in learning, attain
proficiency in the language of instruction, and achieve results (qualifications,
progress to higher education, progress to employment) that match their
potential; and
ƒ What works to maintain and develop the multilingual skills of migrant children
which will enable them to use these competences for cultural and economic
purposes.

Context

EU policy
Council conclusions on the European strategy for multilingualism in 20081 noted that
significant efforts should still be made to promote language learning and to value the
cultural aspects of linguistic diversity. Supporting multilingualism is of particular
significance in promoting cultural diversity and linguistic skills as well as strongly
contributing to economic and cultural relations between the EU and the rest of the
world. Among other things, the Council conclusions invited Member States to increase
awareness of the benefits of linguistic diversity, provide training in the local
language(s) of the host country and show respect for their mother tongues. In this
regard the Council invited Member States to broaden the choice of languages taught in
schools to reflect personal interests of the learners and to value and make use of the
linguistic competences of migrants.

1
2008/C 320/01
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Council conclusions on the education of children with a migrant background in 20092

noted that more equitable education and training systems were needed to overcome
factors that were leading to educational disadvantage for the children of migrants and
that to create a society that is equitable and respectful of diversity some features of
education and training systems ought to be adjusted. The Council invited Member
States, among other things, to adopt inclusive approaches to learning the language of
instruction which are likely to be more effective in achieving equality and integration
and encourage migrant children to acquire or maintain knowledge of their mother
tongue because of the benefits these could bring in relation to cultural identity, self-
confidence and future employability.

These have not been superseded. Indeed, in the Strategic Framework for European
Cooperation in Education and Training (ET 2020) (European Commission, 2009), one
of the four common objectives to address education and training challenges is
‘Promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship’ (European Commission,
2014). This acknowledges that pupils from poorer social and economic backgrounds
have lower attainment rates compared to their peers and that children from immigrant
backgrounds also on average have lower attainment rates. It states that ‘Europe
needs more efficient but at the same time more inclusive and equitable education
systems, which give access to quality educational provision’.

Within ET 2020, there are four benchmarks which are of particular relevance to
children with relatively lower attainment, namely:

ƒ By 2020, the share of early leavers from education and training should be less
than 10%.
ƒ By 2020, the share of low achievement in reading should be below 15%.
ƒ By 2020, the share of low achievement in science should be below 15%.
ƒ By 2020, the share of low achievement in maths should be below 15%.

Eliminating inequities in achievement would help countries to meet these ambitions.

The Commission’s approach to Rethinking education called for ‘strong action to
support new approaches to teaching and learning’ which covers the ability to meet the
needs of disadvantaged learners including ‘those from a migrant background’
(European Commission, 2012) with the ultimate focus on improving learning
outcomes.

Commission guidance and support within the Open Method of Coordination

(OMC)
The Commission has supported Member States’ actions through the OMC with
research, guidance and best practice and funding for collaborative learning.

The Commission published a Green Paper in 2008 (European Commission, 2008) to

support consultation on the actions needed within the EU to address the education
needs of children with a migrant background. It recognised that education systems
had challenges in meeting the needs of a more diverse range of pupils and that this
required the skills of teachers and school leaders but that migrant children including
those from a second generation were generally more likely to be early school leavers
and less likely to progress to higher education. Research at the time identified that
causes of these inequalities included segregation in poorer performing schools, socio-
economic disadvantage, lower expectations of their attainment within schools, access
to ECEC, and insufficient proficiency in the language of instruction and assessment.

2
2009/C 301/07
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The Eurydice network updated its 2004 survey of school integration of migrant pupils
within the EU and Associate countries (EACEA, 2009). This included arrangements and
support for mother tongue teaching and learning. It found that mother tongue
learning is often supported by Member States but this is more generally outside
compulsory schooling and not part of the languages curriculum. Countries’ school
integration policies have tended to focus more on increasing migrant pupils’
proficiency in the language of instruction and assessment as it is key to educational
success and social and professional integration.

More recently the Commission supported a comparative research study on newly

arrived migrant pupils (NAMS) (PPMI, 2011) to identify the types of educational
support policies that facilitate the integration of NAMS in education systems within the
EU: linguistic support; academic support; outreach and cooperation; and intercultural
education. The research identified five factors which appear to affect NAMS’ inclusion
and integration into education and their attainment. These are:

ƒ The quality of linguistic support;

ƒ Admission systems which place NAMS in schools with disproportionately high
numbers of similar pupils;
ƒ Ability tracking (streaming) which places a disproportionately high share of
NAMS in lower-ability streams which may reflect their lower initial levels of
educational attainment and/or linguistic capability;
ƒ Insufficient advice and guidance on choices and pathways to higher levels of
vocational or general education to prevent early school leaving;
ƒ Parent and teacher expectations and role models.

To improve collaboration, the Commission supported the creation of the SIRIUS

Network, a European Policy Network on the education of children and young people
with a migrant background to promote knowledge transfer on the subject. The
Network has published various reports and guidance on educational support for
migrant children.

Both the NAMS research and the SIRIUS network publications have provided
summative evidence for this analysis.

The educational achievements of migrant children

International comparisons can use the international test data available. Across the
OECD, migrant pupils3 as a whole scored on average 32 points lower in the PISA
mathematics assessment and 21 points lower after accounting for socio-economic
status (OECD, 2013) (see Table 1.1). The data also show that:

ƒ Migrant pupils are 1.6 times more likely than non-migrant pupils to perform in
the bottom quarter of the mathematics performance distribution;
ƒ First-generation pupils generally perform less well than second-generation
pupils (10 points lower on average) while there are no significant differences in
socio-economic status between first-generation and second-generation pupils
(all OECD);

3
These are classified as both first and second generation migrants (parents and/or
grandparents born outside the country of residence
18
Education and Training

ƒ There are considerable differences between pupils who speak the language of
assessment at home and pupils who speak another language at home. In
eleven countries (FI, BE, LU, CH, FR, AT, SI, HE, DK, NL, SE) migrant pupils
who do not speak the language of instruction at home are more than twice as
likely to score in the bottom quarter of the mathematics performance
distribution;
ƒ The older a migrant pupil is on arrival, the lower his or her score on the PISA
mathematics assessment;
ƒ Not all countries with relatively high proportions of migrant pupils who do not
speak the language of assessment at home have a high likelihood of pupils
falling in the bottom quarter. For the UK, the ratio is only a little over 1
whereas in many countries it is over 2.

Migrant pupils’ performance is more strongly associated with the concentration of

socio-economic disadvantage in schools than with the concentration of pupils who
speak a different language at home than the one in which they are taught at school.
While there is a 30 point difference between pupils in schools with high concentrations
of pupils who do not speak the language of assessment and those in schools where all
pupils speak the language of assessment, the difference is almost zero when pupils’
and schools’ socio-economic status is taken into account.

Countries with comparative test data and longitudinal data for large samples of pupils
have found similar persistent differences although in the UK they also show that:

ƒ The differences vary between areas of the country;

ƒ Schools can reduce the difference over the time pupils are in the education
system.

In the UK (England), for example, the results from examinations for lower secondary
education pupils (percentages with at least five A*-C grades including English and
Maths) showed a 2.7 percentage point difference between pupils without the language
of instruction and English native speakers which has narrowed slightly over time but
has been persistent (Hollingworth and Mansaray, 2012). This is shown below.

Figure 1. English first language versus other first language secondary school pupils
GCSE attainment (inc. English and maths) 2008-2011

Source: Hollingworth and Mansaray, 2012

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 Education and Training

However they also show that:

ƒ Pupils without the language of instruction and assessment do much better in

some areas of England, such as London;
ƒ Pupils from some ethnic groups (such as Chinese, Indian) perform better than
White British pupils in examinations at the end of lower secondary education
which indicates that second generation migrant pupils are not as educationally
disadvantaged as their parents.

Longitudinal data in the UK show differences in the gaps in literacy and numeracy
(Strand et al., 2015) at different ages. Using an Odds Ratio (OR) to allow a
standardized assessment of the size of the gap in attainment between native English
pupils and those without the language of instruction, Strand et al’s study found:

ƒ At the end of ISCED Level 0 only 44% of children without the language of
instruction achieve a good level of development, compared to 54% of native
English pupils. Thus the odds of achieving a good level of development are 0.67
(or 33%) lower for children without the language of instruction;
ƒ The association between lacking the language of instruction and attainment
decreases with age. The OR at age 7 rises to 0.73, at age 11 to 0.81 and by
age 16 it stands at 0.90;
ƒ Pupils without the language of instruction have better scores in maths
assessments than reading assessments at every age; for maths the gap is
almost eliminated by age 11 (OR=0.90) and by age 16 they outperform native
English pupils (OR=1.03).
ƒ Pupils without the language of instruction are also much more likely than native
English pupils to achieve a pass grade in the lower secondary education
examinations in a foreign language (OR=1.90).

This indicates that schools in some areas are more effective than in other areas and
that schools can be effective in narrowing the gap by the time children leave school.

20
Education and Training

Table 1. Mathematics performance, immigrant background and language spoken at

home (ranked by highest % of immigrant pupils who speak another language at
home) (OECD, PISA 2012)

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 Education and Training

The growth and extent of multilingual classrooms

With increased mobility between EU countries and continued in-migration to the EU,
recent years have seen increases in many Member States of the linguistic diversity of
classrooms and an expansion in the areas where schools have multilingual classrooms.
PISA data, for example, shows that on average, the proportion of pupils not speaking
the language of instruction increased by 1.0 percentage point (see Figure 2 below
extracted from Eurydice, 2012). In the UK, for example, the percentage of pupils in
English primary and secondary schools aged 5-16 who are recorded as not speaking
the language of instruction more than doubled from 7.6% in 1997 to 16.2% in 2013.
In the 2013 school census just over a million pupils in England are classified as not
speaking the language of instruction (Strand et al., 2015).

Figure 2. Change in the proportion of pupils not speaking the language of instruction
2006-9

Across the EU and Associate countries, on average 4.6% of pupils whose parents are
migrants speak another language at home but there is a wide variation between
countries ranging from 32.2% in Luxembourg to only 0.1% in Poland and Romania
(see Table 2 below) (OECD, 2013). In five countries this is over 5% with a further ten
between 2.5% and 5%.

As a consequence schools to varying degrees have multilingual classrooms. Table 3

shows that in many countries large numbers of pupils are in schools with a high
proportion of pupils who do not speak the language of assessment at home. In nine
EU countries more than 10% of all pupils are in schools where there are more than
25% of pupils who do not speak the language of assessment at home (OECD, 2013)
(AT, BE, BG, CY, ES, IT, LU, LV, SE). By contrast, in countries such as Poland and
Hungary more than four-fifths of pupils are in schools where all pupils speak the
language of assessment at home. The approach to language learning in Luxembourg is
described below.

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Education and Training

Luxembourg
In Luxembourg native children speak another language at home
(Letzeburgesch/Luxembourgish). Pupils start to learn French and then German during
primary education and later a third language, usually English. Many pupils are from
migrant families who have many mother tongues although there are very large
numbers of Portuguese speakers.

The government provides two years of compulsory pre-school education for children
aged 4 to 6 which introduces language learning. The government is conducting
research on mother tongue support for pre-school children (notably in Portuguese) and
expanding bilingual education.

Language education is a large part of teaching and learning in Luxembourg. At the end
of compulsory education, language teaching comprises 43% of the time for teaching all
subjects. Pupils are expected to achieve high levels of competency in at least two
foreign languages (at least B2 on CEFR).

Table 2. Proportions of immigrant pupils from total pupil population (OECD, PISA
2012) (ranked by highest percentage of first-generation immigrants)

Percentage of immigrant
Percentage of frst- students who speak
Country
generation immigrants another language at
home

Luxembourg 17.4 32.2

Liechtenstein 13.4 11.4
Ireland 8.4 4.5
Spain 8.4 4.7
Belgium 7.2 6.9
United Kingdom 7.1 5.7
Switzerland 6.7 12.1
Cyprus 6.7 4.0
Greece 6.3 4.0
Sweden 5.9 8.4
Austria 5.5 9.7
Italy 5.5 4.4
France 4.9 5.5
Norway 4.7 5.8
Croatia 3.7 0.3
Portugal 3.6 1.8
Montenegro 3.1 0.2
Denmark 2.9 3.8
Iceland 2.8 2.7
Netherlands 2.7 4.7
Germany 2.7 4.8
Slovenia 2.1 4.6
Serbia 1.9 0.7
Finland 1.9 2.7
Czech Republic 1.8 2.0
Hungary 0.7 0.3
Estonia 0.7 1.7
Latvia 0.4 1.1
Slovak Republic 0.3 0.2
Turkey 0.2 0.2
Lithuania 0.2 0.4
Bulgaria 0.2 0.2
Romania 0.1 0.1
Poland 0.0 0.1

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 Education and Training

Table 3. Concentration of pupils who do not speak the language of assessment at

home (OECD, PISA 2012)

% in schools where the

% in schools where the
percentage of students who do
percentage of students who
Country not speak the language of
do not speak the language of
assessment at home is at or
assessment at home is zero
above 25% (high concentration)

Luxembourg 95.2
Belgium 32.3 10.4
Spain 26.1 34.0
Switzerland 22.7 8.6
Cyprus 18.9 11.3
Italy 17.4 11.6
Austria 16.7 26.8
Bulgaria 14.8 45.3
Latvia 11.3 40.3
Sweden 11.3 33.1
United Kingdom 9.5 43.7
Slovak Republic 9.1 55.2
Turkey 9.0 64.9
Germany 6.7 41.0
Slovenia 6.0 51.8
Norway 4.5 26.9
Netherlands 4.0 35.7
Greece 4.0 43.2
Serbia 3.6 52.5
Estonia 3.6 50.7
Finland 3.1 31.3
Denmark 2.8 43.8
Lithuania 1.8 65.2
Czech Republic 1.4 66.3
France
Hungary 80.6
Iceland 36.3
Ireland 43.5
Poland 86.7
Portugal 55.0
Croatia 75.5
Liechtenstein
Romania 76.8
OECD average 15.1 44.6

National data on the language of pupils’ parents and languages used at home indicate
that schools in some areas and specific cities, often country capitals, have very high
proportions of such pupils with a multiplicity of home/first languages spoken by pupils.
This is the case in London, Amsterdam and Berlin, for example, but it is much more
widely found than the country averages would suggest. It is also higher in primary
than secondary education because of the more recent increase in migration (see
Figure 3 below).

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Education and Training

Figure 3. Pupils without the language of instruction by year group (ages 5 to 15),
England

Source: Strand et al (2015)

National policies and responses

Approaches to teaching/improving competences in the language of
instruction and assessment

Two models exist (Eurydice, 2012). These are:

ƒ Pupils are quickly integrated within the normal class for their age group (or in
lower age group in some cases) and receive special support; or
ƒ They are kept separate until their language skills are greater and receive
tuition according to their needs.

In EU countries (see Figure 4 below taken from Eurydice, 2012)4 direct integration can
be commonly found in nine countries (and BEnl) while separation is common in two. In
the remainder separate teaching for migrant children is provided for limited periods
(although these are variable in length) or for limited periods of the school timetable.
Direct integration with additional assistance in the language of instruction or relatively
short periods of separation is slightly more common in primary education.

4
It should be noted that in some countries, regional, local or school authorities are
entitled to use their autonomy in order to decide on the best ways to meet local needs
and circumstances as, for example, in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the
United Kingdom so these models will vary.
25
 Education and Training

Figure 4. Models of provision for immigrant children learning the language of

instruction as a second language in primary and lower secondary education, 2010/11
(extract from Eurydice, 2012)

Support for mother tongue learning

In many Member States mother tongue learning is supported by education authorities.
As the Eurydice study shows (EACEA, 2009) this is generally provided outside the
curriculum (lessons are out of school hours with attainment not generally recognised
towards lower and upper secondary qualifications) and dependent in many cases on at
least one of the following: private and voluntary providers (often cultural groups using
untrained teachers), bilateral agreements with migrants’ home countries, and
sufficient numbers of learners.

There are some exceptions. In Austria for example, mother tongues are available in
school time and can be studied towards examinations. In the UK (England and Wales),
some mother tongues are available for examination at the end of lower secondary
education.

Method

Broad assumptions
As a starting point for this study, three broad assumptions were drawn from the
contextual material above.

Learning the language of instruction

It is widely accepted that competence in the language used for instruction provides for
children to achieve their potential, participate in and be integrated into wider society,
and offer a wider choice of better paid employment. Children with poorer language
skills tend not to achieve their potential with more migrant children leaving school
early and fewer migrant children progressing to higher education. There are in most
countries significant gaps between the educational achievements of migrant children
(even to a second generation) and those of non-migrant children.

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Education and Training

Migrant adults with poorer language skills tend to have lower paid jobs and more
frequent unemployment. They also tend to be less involved in wider society and less
able to draw on public services.
Learning languages
Learning and achieving higher competences in several languages (bilingualism) is
widely believed from physiological studies to provide cognitive benefits which include
the ability to learn, higher intellectual capabilities, and higher abilities into older age.
There is evidence from bilingual learning and from Content and Language Integrated
Learning (CLIL) that there are wider benefits in terms of attainment in other subjects,
motivation and other skills for employability from learning through a language which is
not the mother tongue as well as learning the mother tongue.

There is widely believed to be a ‘proficiency transfer’ from language learning as

hypothesised by Cummins (2007) as people with higher competences in several
languages gain greater intercultural competences from the greater knowledge and
awareness of other cultures they have gained through language learning. It is
recognised that Erasmus pupils achieve this and have the social and cultural skills to
be mobile. Equally they gain a greater ability and confidence to learn another
language.

Barriers affect outcomes

There are barriers which children without the language of instruction face to achieving
their educational potential. These are broadly related to:

ƒ The ability of schools and the teachers within them to provide effective support
for learning the language of instruction;
ƒ The resources in schools and education authorities to provide support to
children and the opportunities to learn their mother tongue and other
languages;
ƒ The school systems which disproportionately allocate them to lower ability
streams ad special needs education;
ƒ The relative lack of migrant parents’ knowledge and understanding of education
systems to make choices and engage with their children’s education (coupled
with their language skills);
ƒ The lower expectations teachers have of children without the language of
instruction.

Considerations
To meet the needs of the study to identify what works to enable pupils without the
language of instruction and assessment to achieve their potential and develop their
multilingual skills, an initial view of the material and the evidence underpinning found
that:
ƒ There is a considerable academic literature on theories around cultural
integration and the wider benefits of language learning which is widely
accepted though not necessarily supported by unequivocal empirical evidence;
ƒ There is a considerable grey literature on what is considered to be good
practice and good practice materials collected and developed by practitioners.
This can be accepted as evidence of what works if the process of reviewing
practices which are used is systematic and widely engages practitioners
especially if transnational;

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 Education and Training

ƒ There was no systematic search of academic literature and grey literature to

identify evidence led practices and the extent that policy and practice is
supported by research showing relationships between policy actions and
practices and benefits for migrant children;
ƒ There is considerable published analysis of data which shows the significant
differences between the achievement of migrant children and non-migrant
children at all stages in their education, with both quantitative and qualitative
evidence assessing the causes of these differences.

As a consequence this study has focused on the second and third of these to identify
evidence based solutions which will address the set of questions in the box below.

Research questions

What determines lower attainment among migrant pupils who speak a language at
home different to the language of school instruction, fully or partly, – i.e. what are the
relative roles of language competency, overall school performance, concentration of
socio-economic disadvantage in schools, streaming and other factors?
How and to what extent does speaking a language at home different to the language of
school instruction affect overall school attainment, school integration, participation to
the end of ISCED 3 and higher education, pupil confidence, early school leaving, and
employability?

What are effective policies and measures for receiving and integrating children and
young people without proficiency in the language of instruction and assessment in
teaching and learning?

What are effective policies and measures for enabling children and young people whose
home language is not the language of instruction and assessment to access the
curriculum and achieve their potential?

What are the barriers and enablers to implementing policies and measures for
supporting children and young people who use a language at home different to the
language of school instruction and assessment?

What are effective policies and measures enabling children who use a language at
home different to the language of instruction and assessment to develop their reading,
writing, listening and speaking competences in the home language?

What are the intercultural benefits of multilingual classrooms?

How and to what extent does development of language skills in both a first and a host
country language support other language learning and the attainment of other learning
outcomes?

Approach
To address these questions, the study has comprised:

ƒ A literature review drawing on academic research and grey literature;

ƒ A series of round table discussions involving practitioners and experts; and
ƒ A study visit to Cologne to see what is happening on the ground and to have
further discussion with practitioners and experts.

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Education and Training

The research protocol for the literature review can be found in Annex 1. All material
sourced from these searches was checked for quality and relevance. In particular it
was important for the study to include research which was based on empirical
evidence and practitioners’ experiences provided that:

ƒ The methods and their limitations were understood so that the strength of
evidence could be assessed;
ƒ The context was known so its transferability could be considered; and
ƒ Practitioners’ experience was drawn on in a systematic way (such as through
workshops and action research).

The searches found a total of 136 publications which met the search criteria, of which
94 were research or practitioner reports from research, governmental or educational
delivery bodies, and 42 of which were academic journal articles. After screening and
review, 55 of these were useful for the analysis using the criteria set out above. Annex
2 contains a bibliography of the material included in this report. These cover all the
research questions and draw on a wide range of contexts in the EU.

In using the material brought together to address the research questions posed, it
needs to be noted that:

ƒ The academic and government sponsored research does not cover all of the
study’s research questions to the same degree;
ƒ Nor is the research always of the same depth and quality. Longitudinal
research with comparative groups, which provides stronger evidence of
relationships between policy actions and outcomes in this area, is not common.
Where it has been carried out, largely in the United States (US), the context is
not always similar to the EU and may need to be treated with caution5;
ƒ The research is based on contexts which existed when the diversity and scale
of multilingual classrooms was not as great as it is now;
ƒ The academic research does not always provide a consistent set of results.
Where there are differences, the conclusions of research based on meta-
analyses and comparative studies have been used where they are available;
ƒ Equal weight has been given to the views of practitioners and experts working
in the field for many years so that best practice developed, adopted, codified
and widely accepted in areas where there has been longer experience of multi-
lingual classrooms has been treated as supporting evidence.

A framework for the review of evidence and this report

With the focus on identifying policy relevant approaches and measures that are
effective in delivering positive educational outcomes for children without the language
of instruction, policy measures and activities have been grouped around learning the
language of instruction sufficiently to be integrated into schooling (chapter 2);
improving language and other skills to access the curriculum (chapter 3); and
developing mother tongue competences to improve proficiencies in language learning,
intercultural awareness and cognitive skills (chapter 4).
What they cover and the outcomes they would be expected to achieve for children
without the language of instruction is broadly set out below.

5
In the US, studies focus on Spanish mother tongue first and second generation
migrants.
29
 Education and Training

Reception and integration

This includes:
ƒ Access to early education and child care;
ƒ Admission processes to schools for compulsory education;
ƒ The assessment of language competences in the language of instruction and
stages reached in other curriculum subjects;
ƒ Preparatory learning of the language of instruction before integration;
ƒ Allocation to teaching groups;
ƒ Parental engagement.

These would be expected to raise children’s confidence and motivation to learn; their
ability to catch up in mainstream classes with their age group; their learning
behaviours; and their access to high quality education and training.

Access to the curriculum

This includes:

ƒ Out of class/school support;

ƒ In class/school support for learning;
ƒ Adapted teaching practices and approaches.

These would be expected to raise children’s motivation to learn and attend school, the
progress they make and their attainment not just in the language of instruction but all
subjects, and the progress they make to upper secondary education and beyond.

Developing mother tongue competences

This includes:

ƒ Formal learning of the mother tongue;

ƒ Recognition of mother tongue competences;
ƒ Encouraging use of the mother tongue in school and other settings.
These would be expected to raise children’s motivation to learn their mother tongue;
and to improve children’s mother tongue skills and their other language competences,
their cultural education, and the cultural awareness of other children.

Teacher education
This includes:

ƒ In service teacher education and initial teacher training to enabling children

without the language of instruction to be transitioned to mainstream classes;
ƒ In service teacher education and initial teacher training to enable children
without the language of instruction to be effectively support and developed
once they are in mainstream classes with native pupils so they can reach their
potential.

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Education and Training

Theme 1: Reception and integration

In this section measures associated with the reception and integration of children
without the language of instruction from ECEC onwards towards increasing their
attainment as set out above in section 1.4.1 are systematically examined to identify:

ƒ Any evidence that the measures have any of the outputs and outcomes
expected;
ƒ What practitioners say about the value of the measure and put into practice in
some places with illustrative examples;
ƒ What are believed to be the ingredients of success in terms of policy and
practice drawn from the evidence and accepted best practice.

Participation in early childhood education and care

Participation in early education and child care (ECEC) should be expected to bring
benefits to migrant children as it has been widely shown that high quality ECEC
produces long-term educational benefits, such as increased reading and maths scores
on various achievement tests through age 14 or 15, reduced enrolment in special
education classes, and reduced early school leaving (Karoly, 2001; Schweinhart,
2004). Overall, there is empirical evidence which shows that ECEC can have positive
learning and progression outcomes for children without the language of learning and
assessment.

Research evidence
Spies, Büchel and Wagner (2003) found that attending kindergarten in Germany
substantially increased the likelihood of migrant children attending higher level
secondary schools. They examined the relationship between kindergarten attendance
and the type of secondary education which children had in the former West Germany.
Using information from the German Socio-Economic Panel to compare the children of
German natives and migrants, they found that while kindergarten attendance by the
children of German natives had some effect, it had a more significant effect for the
children of migrants. Just over half (51 %) of migrant children who attended
kindergarten progressed to a Realschule or Gymnasium, compared to only 21%
among those who had none. For German natives’ children it was 73% compared to
60%.

Schofield’s (2006) review of research evidence in the US suggests that ECEC can help
to address the problem of migrant children who often start school well behind others
because of their language skills. This draws on experimental programmes as well as
large-scale public programmes which have had positive (although not always
sustained effects) on school readiness and educational achievement. Espinosa’s
(2013) assessment of research on ECEC and childcare approaches for children without
the language of instruction also concluded that it could increase their levels of
language and literacy development and improve their school readiness and later
achievement. These effects can be considerable. For example:

ƒ Gormley, Gayer, Phillips, and Dawson (2005) showed that part- and full-day
ECEC for four-year-olds from a wide variety of groups (White, African
American, Hispanic and Native American) and income brackets in the state of
Oklahoma increased letter-word identification scores by 53%, spelling scores
by 26%, and applied problem scores by 18%;

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 Education and Training

ƒ Gormley (2008) compared Spanish mother tongue children who had completed
ECEC in Tulsa with similar children who were about to begin the programme.
Children primarily speaking Spanish at home benefited more than other groups
of children with gains of 12 months in pre-reading, four months in pre-writing,
and 10 months in pre-maths;
ƒ Schofield (2006) also found that longer programmes of early education have
greater effects, as do programmes directed by qualified staff and classes with
lower child-staff ratios and small group sizes are more successful (evidence
from Barnett, 2004; Nelson, Westhaus, and MacLeod, 2003), as well as having
a systematic curriculum for acquiring language skills in early education. For
example, the Success for All programme in Philadelphia (in the US) combined
group instruction and individual tutoring which enabled children from low-
income Asian families to read nearly at grade level by the end of first grade
(Slavin and Yampolski, 1992, cited in Nusche, 2009).

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners widely believe that ECEC for children without the language of instruction
is of paramount importance in developing their language skills before compulsory
primary schooling begins. However, their parents are generally least likely to take it
up so even where it is free, it is necessary to have outreach workers and bilingual staff
to encourage participation.

The European Commission Policy Handbook on Language Learning at Pre-Primary

School Level (European Commission, 2011) contains a set of guidelines and
recommendations derived from national experts. These reflect examples of good
practice and academic evidence on how to ensure the quality, effectiveness and
sustainability of language learning in pre-primary settings. It highlights the following
proven approaches for early language learning with children from a migrant
background:

ƒ Promote initiatives that help migrant families to gain a real appreciation of the
importance of learning the language of instruction in the formal education
system as early as possible, and of their role in this process;
ƒ Link language learning to the promotion of intercultural awareness for both
pupils and staff (e.g. encourage engagement of migrant community groups
with civil society, attract and engage staff who are second-generation migrants
in the early education workforce, encourage and motivate children from a
minority or migrant background to use their language knowledge and
intercultural experiences in the school's daily activities);
ƒ Stimulate interest in the language of instruction as well as the mother tongue
through appropriate motivation methods, particularly play-based interaction;

Ideally, staff should have a solid grounding in how language acquisition works,
particularly with respect to young children without the language of instruction. Staff
should also be trained to monitor language development.

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Education and Training

Austria
In Lower Austria, the provincial government set out to increase intercultural awareness
and improve the language of instruction of migrant children. The project trained
migrants to assist pre-primary staff in the management of multilingual and multicultural
groups of pre-primary children (Intercultural Advisors). The Intercultural Advisors
helped children not just to learn their mother tongue but also to learn German.

They also assisted by advising staff on dealing with intercultural issues in relations with
children and parents and in pedagogical approaches, acting as interpreters at parent-
teacher meetings, and disseminating information to parents.
The Netherlands
Opstapje works with the 2-4 age group to help prepare children without the language of
instruction for primary school (Nesse, 2008). It aims to strengthen the cognitive, social
and physical competences of the children and their learning of the language of
instruction6. Opstapje trains mothers to improve mother-child interactions and to initiate
systematic learning processes. The trainer of the mother is from the same ethnic group
as the family.

Samenspel is an ECEC programme for migrant children (around three years old) and
their mothers. Two educators (one with the same background/mother tongue as the
participants) support children to improve both their competences in both languages. The
mothers receive learning and play resources and instruction in how to play with their
children and develop their language skills which they can use and practise at home
(Nesse, 2008).

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Participation in ECEC by children without the language of instruction helps their

language development and their readiness for schooling;
ƒ Active outreach to migrant parents is needed to encourage them to take
advantage of ECEC and to see the value of their children learning the language
of instruction before they go to school. It helps if this is carried out by staff
who speak their mother tongue;
ƒ Parents often need to be enabled to develop their children’s learning of the
language of instruction at home. Parents should not be discouraged from
developing their children’s skills in their mother tongue; and
ƒ Teaching staff in ECEC need to be prepared for teaching children without the
language of instruction both in their initial training as well as from in-service
training. Teachers need to be trained in language acquisition and apply this in
their work.

6
German version of the programme has been evaluated (Sann 2004). Sann,
Alexandra 2004: Frühförderung für Kinder aus sozial benachteiligten Familien.
Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung des Programms "Opstapje - Schritt für
Schritt". In: DJI-Bulletin, München: DJI Verlag (2004); Nr. 69; S. 3
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 Education and Training

Placement and admission

Migrant children often attend schools with higher concentrations of other migrant
children which are found to have relatively poorer levels of educational attainment.
There is stronger evidence that supporting these schools to achieve better results for
migrant children can narrow gaps in attainment than of reducing segregation through
admission arrangements.

Research evidence
Nusche (2009) points to regression analyses (e.g. Schnepf, 2004; Scheeweis, 2006)
using cross-country data from studies such as TIMMS, PIRLS and PISA which shows
that across OECD countries a higher degree of segregation is associated with a higher
unexplained test score gap between native and migrant pupils. This relationship is
believed to arise from the greater effect that socio-economic status has on children’s
attainment and school performance than the migration status of their parents (Brind
et al., 2008, cited in Nusche, 2009).

There is no research evidence that managing school admissions to reduce segregation

or encouraging children without the language of instruction to attend schools with high
proportions of children with the language of instruction makes any difference to
migrant children’s educational attainment. This fits with the wider evidence that it is
the quality of teaching and school leadership which makes a difference to individual
attainment, not admission policies.

In the US, Callahan et al (2009) found that first generation migrant children had lower
attainments in schools with lower proportions of pupils whose mother tongue was not
English7. Using longitudinal data to measure a range of attainments (maths and
science, grades achieved in lower secondary education, and progression), they found
that in schools enrolling relatively few children without the language of instruction
migrant children performed less well than in schools with large numbers without the
language of instruction, especially in relation to progression (to graduation). They
attributed this to better resources and better qualified teachers to provide support as
well as greater help from children with the same background/mother tongue able to
help them to overcome a variety of social, linguistic and academic obstacles. This did
not translate into better progression to employment and higher education.

Field, et al. (2007) shows that migrant parents may be less well informed about the
available school options. This may be because of language barriers, resource
constraints, and lower levels of education or lack of knowledge of the school system.
This means parents have a lesser capacity to make informed choices about the most
appropriate schools. Providing information and logistical support to migrant parents
may therefore be beneficial (Nusche, 2009), although there is no outcome evidence
for such measures.

Practitioners’ views and experience

While segregation is not believed to have a detrimental impact on migrant children
(PPMI 2013), policy makers have sought to reduce it generally to alleviate the
pressure on a few schools in the system and to increase social and cultural mixing in
the provision of education.

7
Students are required to attend intensive English as second language course before
being integrated. School placements can be directed by the authorities
34
Education and Training

Various countries have done this for one or both of these reasons at various times
through dispersing migrant children (such as Denmark and Belgium (nl)), adjusting
catchments, and restricting choices to give migrants a better chance of entering what
are considered by parents to be popular schools. They have generally reported that
whereas setting caps on migrant children in a school has reduced levels of
segregation, other measures affecting parents’ choices have not.

Denmark: pupil dispersal

In Aarhus, there is a system for the dispersal of pupils with Danish as a second language
(PPMI, 2013). No year group can have more than 20% of pupils with linguistic support
needs to improve their learn Danish in each school. Pupils are spread among the 19
‘receiving schools’, which all have experience of supporting children with specific
linguistic needs

In many countries, efforts are channelled into improving the quality of teaching and
management in schools which face the biggest challenges with migrant children. In
many of these schools the education authorities also provide support services
earmarked for schools and pupils without the language of instruction which
supplement their teaching resources.

Switzerland: Putting Quality into Multi-Ethnic Schools

Putting Quality into Multi-Ethnic Schools (QUIMS)8 is a programme focused on schools
which have more than 40% or their pupils who are not native German language
speakers. It aims to raise the standard of education in these schools for all pupils, so
that they will be equally attractive to native Swiss parents and pupils and migrants, and
to close the gap between the achievements of different social groups (as reported by
international PISA scores). A third goal is to improve pupils’, parents’ and teachers’
satisfaction with the school environment.
QUIMS offers extra financial and professional help to these schools. All QUIMS schools
customize local programming based on three obligatory areas of action:

ƒ Language support: including promoting literacy for all pupils using language
competence assessments, creative work for oral and written proficiency as well
as support for integrated “native language and culture lessons;”
ƒ Attainment support: using a variety of learning methods to support cooperative
learning, problem solving and to increase the involvement of parents and
mentors; and
ƒ Integration support: Building a shared culture of appreciation, respect and
understanding through the use of intercultural mediators to liaise between
parents and teachers; and the establishment of parent councils.

In some countries additional funding is used to assist schools with the education of
children without the language of instruction. In the Netherlands the Educational
Priority Policy assigned different levels of additional funding to schools depending on
their pupils' background characteristics (Nusche, 2009). For funding purposes, each
native Dutch pupil was counted as one, while pupils from an ethnic minority pupils
counted as 1.9. In Belgium Flanders, funding in Antwerp schools enables more
teachers to be employed so that class sizes are reduced to manage the needs of
migrant children and other pupils with special needs (Severiens, 2013).

8
http://citiesofmigration.ca/good_idea/putting-quality-into-multi-ethnic-schools-quims/
35
 Education and Training

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Schools with high proportions of migrant children require teaching and

leadership that can respond to the challenges of multilingual classrooms.
Raising the quality of these schools and providing additional resources and
funding per pupil is necessary if these children without the language of
instruction are not to be disadvantaged;
ƒ Where schools meet these challenges, children without the language of
instruction can make progress to achieve their potential;
ƒ Where migrant parents have choices of schools, education authorities should
assist them to make informed choices;
ƒ High levels of segregation between native and migrant children do not support
social and cultural education and the valuing of diversity. For these reasons
education authorities need to take steps to reduce the impact of parental
selection.

Assessment of language support needs

There is strong evidence that children without the language of instruction are more
likely to be allocated to special education and, where there is streaming/ability
tracking, to lower ability streams as a result of the assessment which takes place.

These decisions can partly explain why more migrant children are early school leavers
and participate in vocational education tracks in upper secondary education across the
EU. Practitioners broadly agree on the ingredients of better assessment but there is
little research evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of the different approaches
used for assessment.

Research evidence
Various studies have found a significant bias in migrant children being found in special
education (OECD, 2007; Lindsay et al, 2006; Werning et al. 2008). This is ascribed to
assessments not distinguishing language difficulties from learning difficulties and the
perceptions of assessors.

For example, a study conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland of nearly

2,000 pupils in the second year of primary school (Kronig, Haeberlin and Eckhart,
2000) showed that migrant pupils were over-represented in ‘special classes’ (i.e.
classes for children with specific problems, such as learning difficulties) compared to
normal classes: 55% of children in special classes were migrant children. A
longitudinal analysis of 54 migrant pupils indicated that those with poorer
competences progressed more rapidly in normal classes than in special classes9. A
study in Bordeaux focused on a cohort of NAMS between 1998 and 2002 (Schiff et al.
2004). It showed that 20% of NAMS were directed to ‘pedagogical integration units’
for pupils with learning disabilities, and that the majority of children were directed
towards short-cycle professional paths in upper secondary education.

9
http://www.skbf-csre.ch/information/publikation/tb9_fr.pdf
36
Education and Training

The European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE, 2010)
concluded from its study of migrant children and special education across 25 EU
countries that to reduce the proportion of children without the language of instruction
education authorities and schools need: better assessment tools and processes
(practitioner competence in assessment, understanding special needs, standard
measures) and assisting parents to understand and contribute to assessment
(bilingual staff available, involvement in decisions).

Equally migrant children may not develop the linguistic and culturally relevant skills
necessary to perform to their potential before being assigned to an ability track within
the school they attend (Nusche, 2009). Early ability tracking (before the age of 13)
has a clear impact on the educational attainment of pupils from disadvantaged
backgrounds, and an especially negative effect on children from families with low
socio-economic status (Wölfmann and Schütz, 2006 cited in INCLUD-ED, 2009).
Migrant pupils are disproportionally grouped into lower ability tracks which have
negative impacts on their potential attainment (Nusche, 2009). General studies of
tracking show that the earlier tracking starts, the greater the differences in attainment
between pupils on different tracks (INCLUDE-ED, 2009, OECD, 2007, cited in Nusche,
2009).

Practitioners’ view and experience

Practitioners believe that effective language support must involve an accurate
assessment of children’s language skills (in both the mother tongue and the language
of instruction) and other competences at the time of entrance into the education
system (Nusche, 2009; PPMI, 2013; Sirova and Essoemba, 2014).

A well-developed system of reception of migrant pupils and initial assessment of their

education background can help to place migrant children into the correct age group
and ability level (PPMI, 2008) as well as determining the support they need for
learning the language of instruction.
A qualitative study in UK (England) (Arnot et al, 2014) based on case studies of
schools in different settings admitting children from other EU countries found from
practitioners that it was background knowledge on prior attainment and the curriculum
taught that they most needed to make appropriate decisions about support and
placement. Schools receive very little formal information on this so need to piece this
together from the children and their parents.

Thürmann et al (2010) believe that a better assessment framework to assess verbal

and cognitive skills at different ages tailored to children without the language of
instruction would help practitioners in determining their needs. To develop a
systematic and reliable cognitive and linguistic profile of each individual learner
requires highly complex observational and diagnostic skills. Some steps have already
been taken in that direction in several countries, such as the Netherlands
(Nederlandse Taalunie’s ‘Framework of Reference for Early Second Language
Acquisition’) and Norway (Reyen et al, verbal).

In Oslo, an assessment tool with levels equivalent to those in the Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was developed to enable more tailored
and systematic second language training and a better assessment of children’s
language skills. Challenges in implementing the tool were around increasing teachers’
knowledge as to how second languages are acquired and skills in assessing pupils’
language skills. In the US, systems of assessment have been integrated with that of
measuring the progress of all pupils in ECEC (e.g. California’s pre-school desired
results development profile).
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 Education and Training

Many countries have standard approaches for the reception of children without the
language of instruction within schools which includes assessment. For example, the
reception facility in Luxembourg, CASNA (Cellule d’accueil scolaire pour eleves
nouveaux arrivants) is a central system responsible for welcoming and placing children
in a particular school based on existing education records and tests administered for
language skills, and mathematics. CASNAV (Centre Académique pour la Scolarisation
des Nouveaux Arrivants et des enfants du Voyage) in France is similar, where upon
arrival pupils are given diagnostic tests in mathematics in their native language, test
comprehension and written production in French.

Screening and assessment is becoming more commonplace in schools in many

countries. In Germany, several Länder have introduced screening processes to identify
pre-school children in need of additional language support. In Belgium (nl) schools are
expected to screen all pupils with a choice of assessment tools. Practitioners argue
that tests should be designed and validated for children without the language of
instruction. If they are language dependent, they can disadvantage migrant children.

Denmark: system of reception and integration

There is a strong focus on learning Danish which is usually carried out using
supplementary instruction (Jorgensen, 2014). Children without the language of
instruction undergo early language screening at age three and receive language
stimulation in a day-care institution if the screening shows that they need it (Sirova and
Essoemba, 2014). Even children not receiving day care receive 15 hours of language
stimulation each week. Teaching in Danish as a second language is also provided when
necessary to children without the language of instruction in pre-school class and in
school levels 1-9. Children undergo an assessment test before being placed in a school
and when admitted to school, after first having up to six months in a ‘welcoming’ class,
may receive supplementary instruction in Danish as a second language in the regular
classroom.

Others who have insufficient language skills may be placed into a reception class for up
to two years, but they are able to participate in subject teaching in the mainstream
class to aid their transition.

The national Bilingual Taskforce (Tosprogs-Taskforce) (from 2008)10 in Denmark

headed by the Education Support Authority offers instruments, knowledge and guidance
to schools and municipalities that want consultation and help in language instruction
(Jorgensen, 2014; NESSE, 2008). Teachers have access to special assessment material
for bilingual pupils that can be used by teachers to assess their language proficiency
and development needs in the language of instruction at different ages.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ To avoid migrant children being disproportionately found in special education

and lower ability tracks, education authorities and schools must use tailored
assessment systems from their entry to ECEC and school and their reception at
school if NAMS. These need to reflect what may be their limited language
competences and cultural differences;

10

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=da&u=http://www.tosprogstaskforce
.dk/indsatsomraader/dansk%2520som%2520andetsprog.aspx&prev=search
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Education and Training

ƒ Children without the language of instruction should have their skills in the
language of instruction as well as their mother tongue and other key areas of
the curriculum tested;
ƒ Migrant children should have both initial and ongoing assessment to monitor
their development in both the mother tongue and the language of instruction;
ƒ Suitable approaches and tools for screening and assessment are widely used by
practitioners to provide appropriate support and make decisions. Mixing tests
with observation and interviews to understand children’s capacity to learn as
well as their language skills are features of these;
ƒ Ability tracking should be delayed for children without the language of
instruction if this is a feature of school systems.

Learning the language of instruction for integration into the school

system
Overall, the evidence points to the greater value of targeted and continued language
support provided in mainstream classrooms rather than lengthy periods of separate
language learning with instruction in other subjects in a mother tongue. This is
because integration in mainstream classes with other pupils provides for mutual
learning, cultural integration and valuing diversity. It also provides for the practice of
the language of instruction to gain access to the curriculum (Callahan et al. 2009) and
the mastery of academic language through the curriculum (Little 2010). There is less
agreement around the extent of intensive language learning before or after admission
to a school although it is more generally accepted that this needs to be very little for
children under the age of six and greater for children of secondary school age (NAMS).

Research evidence
Studies in the US indicate that separate classes should be short term and the
transition from specialist separate classes to mainstream classes should be smooth
(i.e. not immediately leading to a significant reduction or elimination of support) to
enable children without the language of instruction to progress towards the
educational attainment achieved by other children.

Flores et al. (2009) demonstrated the significant value of children without the
language of instruction transitioning to mainstream English classrooms as soon as
possible11. Their longitudinal study based on the results of 28,000 pupils in Los
Angeles who were aged 11-12 years old in 1999 over their time in school in maths and
reading, attainment in the school exit examinations and early school leaving, and
progression to advanced courses found that:

ƒ Those who transferred to mainstream classes from preparation classes more

quickly had better results in all the indicators selected as did those who were
transferred before they reached the eighth grade (aged 13-14);
ƒ Those who transferred earlier in their schooling had better results. Those who
transferred by fifth grade (10 to 11 years old) had reading test scores about 10
points higher and maths test scores about five points higher (average score for
the whole cohort on both exams was around 36) than those who had not.
Those who transferred as late as eighth grade (13 to 14 years old) had
improved academic outcomes compared to those who had not – they had two-
thirds the odds of failing the ninth grade, and half the odds for dropping out.

11
In the US children without the language of instruction are commonly taught
separately until they are English proficient.
39
 Education and Training

In San Francisco (Fong, 2015), a programme of achieving earlier transition to

mainstream classes increased the proficiency of children without the language of
instruction in English (average level improvement a year of 28% before the
programme compared to 52% after the programme was introduced). This was
attributed to the access to subject teaching and other speakers of English in class.

Practices vary between EU countries in relation to the length of time children have
separate language learning before they are immersed, the extent that separate
language learning continues after immersion, and the extent that subjects are taught
separately in the mother tongue until immersion. The research evidence does not
compare systems to indicate which are better than others about the point at which
children are integrated and learn the language of instruction through immersion.

Loewenberg and Wass (1997) compared the approaches adopted and the measures
taken to develop the linguistic competence of children without the language of
instruction in France (Toulouse) and UK (England, London Borough of Brent) at the
time. In London specialist teachers were brought into the mainstream classroom, so
that they worked alongside the mainstream teacher on a team-teaching basis for 2-5
hours a week. In Toulouse the children were placed for up to one year in one of three
categories of separate classes within schools (remedial classes at primary school;
reception classes at primary school and adjustment classes in secondary schools). The
separate classes did not provide much additional teaching time for the children,
required them to miss parts of the normal curriculum, had a stigmatising effect, and
were taught by less qualified teachers. In the UK (England and Wales), separate
classes for children with English as an additional language (EAL) were stopped
because they contributed to racial discrimination (Leung, 2004, cited in Nusche, 2009)
so the policy was to place learners in age-appropriate mainstream classes with
support as soon as possible.

There is some evidence of the value of preparatory classes for older children who are
recent migrants. In Norway, Thorshaug and Svendsen (2014) found that for pupils in
lower and upper secondary education who have arrived later in their education and
who have had little or no previous relevant schooling in their home country
preparatory courses provide an opportunity for educational provision to be tailored to
each pupil’s level in the various subjects. Their qualitative study showed that the
separate preparatory classes made it possible to work towards different levels of
achievement for each pupil, implement work assignments that cut across subjects with
a focus on language training, and use educational materials adapted to the pupils'
chosen programme subjects in upper secondary education. At the same time, clear
advantages of connections between such courses and mainstream schooling were
identified, such as possibilities for pupils to follow mainstream schooling and take
exams while attending the preparatory course.

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners largely agree that children without the language of instruction need
targeted and continued language support, and this is most effectively provided in
mainstream classrooms and integrated with the curriculum (AERA, 2004, cited in
Nusche, 2009, SIRIUS, PPMI, 2009). Sirova and Essoemba (2014) believe that
children benefit more from immersion with some kind of language support. They also
largely agree that older children need longer periods of preparation before they are
accepted into a school. Where they differ in practice is over the length of time that
they believe some children need separate teaching. In some countries in the EU, such
as Denmark and Belgium, this can be for up to a year, especially for older children.

40
Education and Training

A survey of primary school language policies and practices in 14 countries

(Christensen and Stanat, 2007) highlighted the value of immersion with systematic
language support but emphasised the need for programmes with explicit standards
and requirements in place. They suggested that for new migrants, especially those
entering secondary school, intensive immersion programmes with a preparatory phase
and continuous language support may help to facilitate the best possible transition to
mainstream instruction. Where there is immersion with a preparatory phase, it is
important to ensure a smooth transition to the regular classroom (i.e. gradual
participation) (Sirova and Essoemba, 2014), and to continue to provide language
support (PPMI, 2009).

Practitioners believe that assessment can help with judgements over the transition
where children are taught separately and over the support provided in mainstream
classes (Robinson 2011). In the US, schools generally provide specialist support to
pupils without the language of instruction, until they are reclassified as English
proficient and they have a reduction in or elimination of language support services.

Sweden: programmes for Swedish as a second language (SSL)

Children without the language of instruction who are NAMS learn Swedish following a
SSL curriculum with proficiency requirements similar to those for native Swedish pupils.
The number of instruction hours for SSL is the same as for mainstream Swedish
language courses for natives. Older children arriving in school without the language of
instruction may attend a preparatory programme (for between 6 and 12 months) that
introduces them to the language and the school system, but these do not have
frameworks or guidelines for the curriculum.
A study of practice in schools (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009) found that
many schools offered remedial SSL teaching for pupils whose Swedish needed to
improve. This included some second generation migrant children as well as NAMS.

France: system of reception and integration

At primary and secondary level, NAMS are registered in ordinary classes corresponding
to their level and age. In parallel, they can be grouped in special classes created to
further integrate them into ordinary classes by improving their French language skills.
These are called ‘initiation classes in French’ (Classes d’initiation en français - CLIN) at
primary level and ‘reception classes’ (Classes d’accueil) at secondary level. The time
spent in these classes depends on each pupil’s needs, but is normally less than a year.
Some academies have also developed more flexible language support services: after a
few months in CLIN/CLA, or because of geographical constraints (e.g. rural areas), non-
francophone pupils can benefit from integrated remedial courses (CRI) at primary level,
or temporary reception modules (MAT) at secondary level, before integration in an
ordinary curriculum.

A survey of the reception services provided to non-francophone pupils in private and

public schools (Ministry of Education, 2012) showed that the support provided to non-
francophone pupils has improved (at secondary level in 2011, 91% of the non-
francophone pupils are supported in their learning process), but differs between regions
(e.g. less than 70% of pupils benefit from a support in the academies of Poitiers and
Martinique, while all non-francophone NAMS are supported in the academies of Rouen
and Paris).

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 Education and Training

Germany: preparatory education for newly arrived older children

In North Rhine-Westphalia, vocational training institutions, such as Berufskolleg Deutzer

Freiheit BK-Deutz, take in newly arrived migrants aged16 to 23 for preparation classes
because they often have little German and a relatively poor disrupted education. These
classes concentrate on enabling the participants to learn German as the language of
instruction (about 50% of the work load), identify skills, interests and aptitudes and
provide thematic information about German society. The courses start with a joint trip of
all pupils and 16 teachers to the Netherlands to team build and to start to focus the
pupils on conflict prevention, civic information, promoting a healthy life style and
prevention of addiction). These have been run for over 20 years and they have
successfully reduced drop out to around 10% to 15% with almost all continuing
education afterwards or integrate positively into work. Courses are adapted for those
who are severely traumatised or less motivated to attend school or need to learn Latin
script.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Children without the language of instruction are likely to benefit more from
being integrated into mainstream classes (immersion) with support than
staying in separate classes to learn the language of instruction. Younger
children should be quickly immersed;
ƒ Separate classes should have short term aims to develop children’s
competences in the language of instruction and have a special curriculum (with
explicit standards and requirements in place) to transition children to
mainstream classes and monitor their progress in the language of instruction;
ƒ Immersion provides greater opportunities for children without the language of
instruction to learn from peers, develop the academic language required for
assessment, and increase their cultural education;
ƒ Other children can benefit from their immersion through teaching which values
diversity.

Key summary points

Participation in ECEC
There is conclusive research evidence which shows that ECEC can have positive
learning and progression outcomes for migrant children which gives them the start
they need to develop their skills in the language of instruction. Practitioners believe
that better results are achieved where there is outreach to ensure migrant children
take up free provision of ECEC and where ECEC providers have a systematic
curriculum for language learning.

Placement and admission

While migrant children are segregated and schools with higher proportions of migrant
children have lower attainment, there is no conclusive research evidence that
segregation is a cause and that reducing it will improve attainment. Practitioners
believe that reducing segregation does however help schools to manage and that the
greatest benefit of this comes from increasing cultural awareness of all children.

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Education and Training

They also believe that it is more important for education authorities to ensure that the
quality of leadership and teaching in schools with children without the language of
instruction can meet the challenges of multilingual classrooms and that such schools
need to have additional resources and funding.

Assessment of language support needs

There is conclusive research evidence that poor measures of assessment on entering
the school system have a detrimental impact on migrant children. This is because they
are more likely to be allocated to special education and lower ability tracks.
Practitioners have developed better systems for assessing children’s language skills
and other knowledge and competencies during the early stages of their reception into
the education system. These address the causes of poor assessment that have
adversely affected children without the language of instruction.

Learning the language of instruction for integration into the school system
There is indicative research evidence that children without the language of instruction
should be quickly moved to having targeted and continued language support provided
in mainstream classrooms (immersion) rather than in separate classes. The amount of
time needed in preparatory education should be linked to age and previous education.
Practitioners strongly support a speedy transition with teaching support because they
believe this supports integration, learning the language of instruction and learning
other subjects. Where separate classes are required children without the language of
instruction should be enabled to make a transition to mainstream classes with a
special curriculum and support from specialist teachers.

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 Education and Training

Theme 2: Access to the curriculum

In this section, measures associated with the teaching of children without the
language of instruction once they are integrated in schools towards increasing their
attainment and progression in line with their potential as set out in section 1.4.2 are
systematically examined to identify:

ƒ Any evidence that the measures have any of the outputs and outcomes
expected;
ƒ What practitioners say about the value of the measures and put into practice in
some places with illustrative examples;
ƒ What are believed to be the ingredients of success in terms of policy and
practice drawn from research evidence and accepted best practice.

Support in the classroom for language and subject learning

Classroom support from teachers, specialist teaching assistants, specialist language
teachers for migrant children and volunteers is vital for children without the language
of instruction to reach their potential. The extent that children have additional support
during their education until their language skills match those of native children
appears to be a strong influence on matching their educational attainment with those
of native children.

Research evidence
An evaluation of a programme in Wales to increase the level of support in the
classroom (as well as other support and training) for secondary age children without
the language of instruction (ICF and Arad, 2014) found that this contributed to the
children’s improved attainment as well as their English language ability. The study
found that:

ƒ Most children continued to improve their language competences while being

given classroom assistance from a teaching assistant who often had the same
mother tongue;
ƒ Pupils receiving the support and teaching staff generally believed that it made
a difference. Over 80% of pupils interviewed felt that the support they received
had helped them to improve their English language and around three quarters
believed it had helped them achieve better results in class and in tests;
ƒ During the programme, children without the language of instruction improved
their attainment in lower secondary education examinations (GCSEs) and the
gap between them and native children achieving five GCSE passes including
English and Maths narrowed from 9 percentage points in 2010 to hardly any
difference in 2012 in the programme area. There was no similar narrowing of
the gap in the areas of Wales without the programme.
ƒ
Supplementary classes and tutoring in school for migrant children can improve their
attainment and educational development. In Germany, Stiftung Mercator12 provided
pupil teachers to lead supplementary afternoon classes for upper secondary school
pupils at 29 sites in 11 federal states. These included tutoring in language and other
subjects in small groups for 2-4 hours once a week. The pupil teachers were paid.
Over five years, around 7,700 pupils were supported by 1,300 pupil teachers. The

12
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.mercator-
foerderunterricht.de/&prev=search
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Education and Training

evaluation examined the progress of pupils in four waves as well as surveying their
motives and attitudes towards education. The evaluation found that:

ƒ Remedial classes contributed significantly to the improvement of school

performance. Improvements were seen in at least one of the main subjects
(German, mathematics and English) for 40-50% of the pupils;
ƒ Pupils benefited from support by teachers of the same ethnic origin (40% of
these pupils improved their German marks by at least a grade level, compared
with 25% of pupils who were taught by teachers without a migration
background);
ƒ Pupils had more positive attitudes towards education and progression.

Bulgaria: Accelerating Progress in the Social and Educational Integration of

Children - Asylum Seekers and Refugee

For two years (2011 to 2013), volunteer tutors provided individual support to the
children of asylum seekers and refugees in learning the Bulgarian language, other
subjects through the medium of their mother tongue, and the preparation of
homework. This took place five days a week from 14.00 to 16.00 in the Integration
Centre.

The volunteers were trained and led by two coordinators. They generally spoke one of
the mother tongues of the children, Farsi, Kurdish and others. They were able to give
more individualised help and instruction than the Bulgarian language teachers at the
Integration Centre of the State Agency for the Refugees. The volunteer tutors worked
with three groups of children:
ƒ Those attending an initial three-month Bulgarian language course;
ƒ Those who had basic skills necessary to read and count;
ƒ Those who had advanced to study in Bulgarian public schools.
The outcomes reported included improved educational progress, social integration and
Bulgarian language skills which helped their integration into school.

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners widely acknowledge that specialist teachers and teaching assistants not
only support migrant children’s language development but they enable them to access
the curriculum and assist classroom teachers with the teaching of other subjects (PPMI
2013, Arnot et al. 2014). Learning assistance to one or several children in a class
several times a week and providing resources to teachers (ICF and Arad, 2014) are
believed by classroom teachers in Wales to have a considerable impact on whether
children can cope with lessons and learn the academic vocabulary. They can also
engage other children with the same mother tongue but better language of instruction
skills to provide peer support.

These practices are widely found in EU countries.

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 Education and Training

UK (Wales)

The Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) in Wales consists of teams of

experienced teachers who work in partnership with schools, parents and communities to
address the educational needs of minority pupils and to raise their attainment. Among
other things they monitor the progress of ethnic minority pupils, help schools in setting
targets for educational progress, work with families and give advice in linguistic and
cultural matters. They are generally organised and managed by the local education
authorities and include teachers as well as teaching assistants.

Sweden

In Sweden, specialist support for children with language needs is provided by the local
education authorities. In the City of Gothenburg, the Language Centre organises classes
in mother tongues and modern languages, provides study guidance in mother tongues
for children who cannot access the curriculum in Swedish (mainly in English and maths),
and provides assessment testing of language competence (at reception) for schools in
the city area. There are no standard tests used in Sweden but some areas follow the
practice in Gothenburg and have a common system.

Germany

ZMI, Zentrum für Mehrsprachigkeit und Integration, Centre for Multilingualism and
Integration13 is built around a cooperative agreement between the City of Cologne, the
Regional Government and the University of Cologne to support schools and integrations
centres in the area. This includes projects with individual schools as well as identifying
resources to support language learning including mother tongues.

While practitioners believe children without the language of instruction need classroom
support depending on their proficiency compared to children with the language of
instruction at the same age, a variety of means are used to assess how much support
is needed and when it should be reduced or removed. These decisions are often made
on the basis of resources available though practitioners have developed language
assessment tools and frameworks to assess progress and benchmarks to indicate
when they can manage without support or with reduced support.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that children without the language of instruction benefit
considerably from:

ƒ Continued support during immersion from specialist teachers, teaching

assistants and trained volunteers to reach their potential. These also help
classroom teachers;
ƒ Additional instruction such as longer school days with supplementary guided
learning;
ƒ Opportunities to check out understanding in school with teachers, teaching
assistants, other pupils and volunteers who have the same mother tongue; and
ƒ Continued systematic monitoring of their language development linked to
assessing any continuing need for additional support.

13
http://www.zmi-koeln.de/
46
Education and Training

Education authorities and schools need to be prepared to use some of their funding for
the education of migrant children to provide these resources.

Support outside the classroom

Extra support outside the classroom to children without the language of instruction,
such as homework assistance, additional subject coaching, and mentoring in relation
to careers, further education and employment, is believed to make a difference to
their attainment and ambitions. Many countries have schemes to support learning
(PPMI, 2013) often provided by individuals, welfare organisations, different kinds of
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and by publicly employed social workers
(NESSE, 2008).

Research evidence
Homework assistance provided by trained volunteers in Denmark was found to have
improved many of the children’s attitudes to learning and their ambition to complete
their education14. In Denmark too, role models have successfully contributed to
campaigns to raise migrant children’s ambitions.

14
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-
integration/index.cfm?action=furl.go&go=/intpract/danish-ministry-of-integration-
support-for-homework-cafes-2006-2009
47
 Education and Training

Denmark: We Need All Youngsters

The Danish Ministry of Integration ran a programme, We Need All Youngsters (Brug For
Alle Unge), to support migrant children to complete their education. The programme
provided homework clubs and ran activities to engage migrant children and their
families in further education. They recruited two types of role model: young role models
and parental role models. The young role models were migrants who had successfully
progressed in their education. They visited graduating classes in elementary schools
around the country. Parental role models organised meetings with migrant children’s
parents in schools and community associations.

An evaluation of the project (LXP Consulting, 200815) found that:

ƒ From 2003 to September 2006 We Need All Youngsters organised 80 homework

assistance cafés and supported approximately 900 volunteers, who every week
helped around 1,600 children and young people.
ƒ 32% of the target group of young people with non-Danish ethnic backgrounds
believed that We Need All Youngsters to a great or very great extent has
improved their possibilities of completing an education.
ƒ 50% of the target group of young people found that the role model visits to a
great or very great extent have inspired them to enrol in or complete an
education.
ƒ 27% of the young people in the target group found that their participation in
homework assistance or clubs for girls have improved their possibilities of
completing an education.
ƒ Over 8,000 people have visited the education and company bazaars, and this
has to a great or very great extent inspired 44% of the young people in the
target group to enrol in or complete an education.
ƒ The development of courses for contact teachers and advisers has led to
innovative programmes with well-functioning tools and methods, which have
been adopted by schools.

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners generally believe that migrant children benefit from additional help not
least because their parents have greater difficulty in providing help in their education
and language skills outside school and are more likely to be on lower incomes. Crul
and Schneider (2014) (SIRIUS) advocate the use of pupils in higher education and
young adults from the same backgrounds who can act as role models and coaches for
younger pupils, often playing the part of an older sibling. They are believed to help
children to progress in their learning.

15

http://www.brugforalleunge.dk/~/media/BFAU/Filer/PDF/Evalueringer/121128%20Eng
lish_Summary_evaluation_BFAU.ashx
48
Education and Training

Denmark: Homework Cafes16.

The project addressed the educational underachievement of migrant children, in

particular boys, who were at risk of failing to complete upper secondary education.
Between 2006 and 2009 the Ministry of Education funded 41 projects and a total of 342
homework cafés for approximately 3,000 children on a weekly basis.
The cafés were run by volunteers – on average 8-9 for each café. Some cafés had a
paid coordinator. Large NGOs, such as Dansk Røde Kors, Ungdommens Røde Kors, Red
Barnet and Dansk Flygtningehjælp played a large role in many of the projects. Some
projects had outdoor facilities and also ran other activities such as excursions.
The educational achievements of the participants improved, including their grades, as
well as their competence in Danish. This meant they were better prepared for upper
secondary education.

Germany: RAA (Regionale Arbeitsstellen zur Förderung von Kindern und

Jugendlichen aus Zuwandererfamilien)

RAAs were after school clubs providing not only academic, but also cultural and sports
and migrant community group facilities. The participants were young children and
adolescents aged from 6 to 17 (NESSE, 2008).

New Zealand: Out of school centres

Out-of-school centres provide migrant and minority pupils to receive individual help and
feedback with completing homework assignments between 15.00 and 17.00 daily. The
mentoring is done by teachers and some qualified voluntary parents. (Drexler, 2007).
The pupils choose to participate though many tended to be referred and encouraged by
teachers.

Mentors, coaches and club leaders can with training handle emotional, cognitive, and
social problems in a holistic manner— for example, by reaching out to a pupil’s
parents—in a way teachers are mostly unable to realise within a school environment
as well as providing independent support. It is believed that mentors can perform a
role which parents and older siblings cannot. The approach is informed by the fact that
children from migrant families who have older siblings perform better in school than
those who are only or first-born children.

There are numerous examples of mentoring, coaching and out of school projects which
practitioners in many countries believe to be effective in supplementing formal
education.

16
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-
integration/index.cfm?action=furl.go&go=/intpract/danish-ministry-of-integration-
support-for-homework-cafes-2006-2009
49
 Education and Training

The Netherlands: The Foundation for Knowledge and Social Cohesion

The Foundation for Knowledge and Social Cohesion (Stichting voor Kennis en sociale
Cohesie – SKC) operating in Amsterdam17. It is designed to provide positive role models
for primary school migrant children (particularly Turkish and Moroccan).
The SKC currently has 300 mentors, of which 20% are volunteers and 80% are interns.
The interns are recruited through agreements with universities of applied sciences, and
receive ECTS credits for their work. Mentors come from diverse backgrounds, about half
of them have a migrant background themselves. The project trains the mentors to
engage with young people and understand their environment as well as to acquire
pedagogical skills so that they can work with the children to gain the learning skills and
social skills necessary for the successful transition from primary to secondary school. 1
500 mentees are currently assisted through this project, over 90% of which come from
a migrant background. SKC only works with schools in lower socio-economic
neighbourhoods, and where 60% of the school population has a migrant background.
The mentor project is completely funded by the local government in Amsterdam.

Germany: Young Role Models

Junge Vorbilder (Young Role Models) in Hamburg (Schneider and Crul, no date) targets
pupils in grades 8 to 11 (lower secondary school) with a migrant background. Mentors
are university pupils who come from migrant backgrounds and often share a similar
cultural background and school experience to their mentees. Mentoring is held at the
homes of the mentees to help them to get to know the family environment of the
mentees and to build a good relationship with their parents. Mentoring consists of
tutoring, social-emotional support as well as educational and vocational orientation. In
2013, Junge Volbilder had 50 mentor-mentee pairs. Additionally, since 2011 the project
has offered group mentoring in the form of tutoring courses in several secondary schools
in Hamburg.

Germany: Education coaching for young migrants

The European web site on Integration18 highlights Education Coaching as an example of

best practice19. In Steinbach the Caritas Association for the District of Upper Taunus e.V.
in cooperation with the city administration of Steinbach Taunus ran the project from
2010 to 2013. The aim is that through one-to-one coaching young migrants from
Steinbach (14 to 23 year olds) will receive qualified educational certificates and manage
the transition from school to work.

Qualified volunteers (mostly pupils, academics, retirees) are trained and matched with
the young migrants. There is regular contact with parents, young people and volunteers,
individually and in groups. The young migrants also received group tuition (max 5
persons per group) in maths, English and German, as well as targeted application
training. Assistance covered skills assessment, education and career guidance and help
with applications.

In schools, the project has helped to reduce numbers leaving school only with a leaving
certificate while other pupils were helped to improve their school grades. It has also
helped schools to move them forward to placements with employers and further
education.
17
http://www.sirius-migrationeducation.org/involving-the-community-in-education/
50
Education and Training

According to NESSE (2009) the success of mentoring rests on the quality of mentors,
the cooperation of schools and the engagement of parents as well as children. Mentors
from similar backgrounds as the mentees appear to be an advantage. They are able to
use their mother tongue to communicate knowledge about the school and education
system and understand the family situation and problems children face.

Crul and Schneider (2014) (SIRIUS), drawing on practitioner experience, make the
following recommendations for developing sustainable and effective out of school
mentoring projects:

ƒ Embedding the project within the school system or an integral part of a well-es-
tablished social welfare or migrant organisation, which can help to build
opportunities for long-term funding and develop professionalism;
ƒ Fostering good relationships with the school and teachers and engaging
parents;
ƒ Establishing clear roles for mentors and ensuring that they work with both
complex cases as well as children who are motivated to take part in the
project, and need some extra support or a role model to achieve higher and
more ambitious goals, such as access to higher education;
ƒ Supporting mentors in the long term through good preparation and continuous
training and offering rewards and benefits even if they are volunteers;
ƒ Ensuring sustainable support through regular funding.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that children without the language of instruction benefit
from:

ƒ Extra support outside the classroom which supplements what schools and
parents can do to raise their ambitions and their achievement;
ƒ Activities provided by trained volunteers as well as paid staff, such as
homework clubs, extra-curricular activities, and mentoring;
ƒ Some of the volunteers and staff having the same mother tongue and cultural
background as the children who can win their trust and get parental support for
their children taking part.
ƒ Education authorities and schools need to be prepared to use some of their
funding for the education of migrant children to provide these resources.

Adapted teaching approaches by class teachers

There is strong evidence in the general literature on educational attainment that the
quality of teaching has a significant effect on the attainment and progression of
children throughout their schooling (OECD, 2005; cited in Nusche, 2009). Class
teachers who adapt their approaches to teach children whose language skills are not
as high as others are believed to be better able to ensure they can participate in the
learning and make the same progress as other children.

18
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/
19
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-
integration/index.cfm?action=furl.go&go=/intpract/education-coaching-for-young-
migrants-in-steinbach
51
 Education and Training

Research evidence
A project in the UK (England), Raising the Achievement of Bilingual Learners in
Primary Schools, worked with pilot schools in 21 local education authorities over three
years (2004-7). It aimed to increase the confidence and expertise of classroom
teachers to meet the needs of children without the language of instruction who were
integrated in the class and close the attainment gap between these children and those
whose first language was English.

The project consisted of:

ƒ Providing local authorities with key tools and processes and professional
development materials to use with schools;
ƒ A diagnostic visit to the schools to evaluate the existing provision for children
without the language of instruction;
ƒ The production of a Raising Achievement Plan which identified changes needed
and an action plan to meet them
ƒ A series of up to eight Professional Development Meetings in the school,
additional support in the classroom and observation, and advice to school
leadership teams.

The evaluation (White, et al., 2006) found from qualitative interviews and visits to
schools and local authorities that:

ƒ Teachers gained insight into the difficulties encountered by pupils without the
language of instruction; an understanding of second language pedagogy; an
ability to apply new teaching models and techniques into the classroom; and
(with a better understanding by school leaders of the practical difficulties) the
sharing of ideas and resources, and increased motivation to innovate;
ƒ Pupils were reported to have higher expectations of themselves; to be more
confident; to ask more questions and ‘expect to understand’; to be more
prepared to use their mother tongue in school; and to be more ‘on task’ and
focused.

Using two years’ of end of primary school attainment data, Benton and White (2007)
explored whether the pilot schools had achieved any discernible improvement in the
progress of their pupils in literacy and numeracy over one year (by 2005) or two years
(by 2006) compared with schools not involved in the programme. This found that:

ƒ Schools involved in the programme made more progress in their English results
between 2004 and 2006 than similar schools not involved in the programme;
ƒ There were no significant differences in the rates of progress in relation to
pupils’ results in mathematics and science.

Abedi et al. (2003) investigated the extent that accommodating for the lower
comprehension of children without the language of instruction in teaching science
could improve their attainment. This was through teaching approaches and
assessment. Their study of a sample of over 1,800 US Grade 4 pupils and around
1,600 US Grade 8 pupils drawn from 40 schools measured their science knowledge
and English reading proficiency. They found that:

ƒ Some of the accommodation approaches used were effective in increasing the

performance of pupils without the language of instruction and reducing the
performance gap between them and the native pupils;

52
Education and Training

ƒ Accommodation approaches did not have a significant impact on pupils’

performance in Grade 4 but did do in Grade 8. This is believed to be because at
higher grade levels, complex language may interfere with content-based
understanding and assessment. For example with Grade 8 pupils, a linguistic
modification version of the science test helped the pupils without the language
of instruction to increase their performance without affecting the performance
of the native pupils.

Kieffer et al’s meta-analysis of accommodations (2009) for formal assessment in

maths and science found that only providing (English) dictionaries and glossaries had
a statistically significant effect on the performance of children without the language of
instruction in tests. This effects were generally positive but equated to only a small
reduction in the average score gap between these children and natives. The authors
argued that because accommodations have limited effect, teachers should focus on
improving children’s academic language vocabulary because this would be as effective
in improving attainment.

Qualitative research into practice has found that:

ƒ Common strategies for teaching children without the language of instruction

include simplifying the language, providing translated terms, visualising
explanations, using peer support (buddies) and these can be well used within
schools (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009);
ƒ Different approaches are used even in the same schools (Arnot et al. 2014);
ƒ Some teachers have no strategies and some are resistant to adapting their
teaching approaches (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009).

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners believe that classroom teachers have to adapt their teaching approaches
and work with specialist teachers and teaching assistants to enable children without
the language of instruction to progress in all curriculum areas (SIRIUS). These echo
teaching methods used in CLIL settings which are considered to be effective
approaches (ICF, 2014), such as scaffolding instruction to aid comprehension,
adjusting speech and language to ensure understanding, and using interactive
elements in learning more frequently to ensure children use the language of
instruction more and get help from their peers in the completion of tasks.

Practitioners believe it is important for children without the language of instruction to

gain subject specific vocabulary so that they can better understand what is being
taught.

53
 Education and Training

The ECML project, Language descriptors for migrant and minority learners’
success in compulsory education20 addressed the issue that migrant children need
highly developed competences in the language of schooling. This is technical specific
subject area language. The project identified language competences required in the
language of schooling in order to achieve educational success and reduce the support
required in the class. By identifying language requirements in curriculum subjects and
linking these to the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference, educators
have a resource to meet the specific needs of children without the language of
instruction which should enable them to succeed in learning and assessment tests.

The "Step Together" project in Hungary, for example, developed content based
language teaching material to assist primary school classroom teachers with the teaching
of children without the language of instruction. These provided suitable learning material
in four areas of the National Core Curriculum (NAT) with the aim of building language
competences trough learning content that follows topics in the wider curriculum
throughout the whole school year. It recognised that classroom teachers do not
necessarily have special language teaching skills.

Many practitioners also believe that it is not just about adapting approaches but
having positive attitudes to what migrant children can be expected to achieve and how
they can make progress to achieve their potential (Schofield, 2006). This was also
supported by White, et al., 2006 who found that schools could make a difference to
teaching children without the language of instruction when they:

ƒ Set out an action plan which sought to raise the level of achievement of all
pupils (not just children without the language of instruction
ƒ Caused reflection on, and subsequent action on, other aspects of the
curriculum and school life which could support children without the language of
instruction more effectively (e.g. contact with parents);
ƒ Trained teachers to reflect on their practice and develop new ways of teaching.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Classroom teachers who have adopted practices as a result of training and

whole schools addressing the challenge of teaching children without the
language of instruction are more confident to teach in multilingual classrooms
and better able to adapt their pedagogical approaches;
ƒ Children without the language of instruction make better progress in their
competences in the language of instruction after teachers have adapted their
practices;
ƒ Making adaptations for the lower comprehension to children without the
language of instruction in teaching approaches and assessment makes some
difference to their attainment. This supports adaptation of teaching to provide
academic vocabulary in mother tongue translation as well as simplifying
language in tests, and using visual explanations which are techniques that are
found to be effective in CLIL settings in developing language skills as well as
maintaining progress in subject knowledge;
ƒ Online resources are available to support these activities.

20

http://www.ecml.at/Thematicareas/Migrantlanguageeducation/tabid/1624/language/e
n-GB/Default.aspx
54
Education and Training

Parental engagement
There is strong general evidence that parental engagement is associated with
improved educational outcomes for children (Jeynes 2005, 2007; Fan and Chen, 2001;
Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003; Schofield, 2006, cited in Nusche, 2009). This
appears to extend to engaging migrant parents.

Research evidence
St Clair and Jackson (2006) found that equipping migrant families with abilities to
develop their children’s language skills in ECEC leads to positive language outcomes
for their children. They conducted a small quasi-experimental study (based on parent
self-selection) which examined the effects of a parent involvement programme in
kindergartens in the USA on children’s English language skills. They found that by the
end of first grade, children from families participating in the parent involvement
training programme scored significantly higher on language measures (overall English
ability and in terms of verbal reasoning, letter and word identification and writing)
than children in the control group. On the overall broad English score, children whose
families participated in the training achieved a mean standard score of 104 by the end
of first grade, whereas children whose families did not participate scored a mean of
95.
In France, a pilot project, Ouvrir l'École aux parents pour réussir l'intégration (OEPRI)
(Opening school to parents to facilitate integration), which covered over 400 schools
across the country demonstrated some positive outcomes from parental engagement.
Migrant parents, mainly mothers were given 120 hours of training in free workshops
to21:

ƒ Acquire a better knowledge of French themselves;

ƒ Present the principles and values of the French Republic and information on the
school system; and
ƒ Provide guidance on how they could help their children during their schooling.

The evaluation found qualitative evidence drawn from the workshop leaders and
participating schools that22 relations with parents were better and this improved the
school environment. The parents were more engaged with teachers and more involved
in other types of activities, such as school trips. Teachers reported improvements as a
consequence in their children’s behaviour and attendance. Teachers were more aware
of the cultural and linguistic barriers they had to overcome. Trainers observed
linguistic progress in 70% of the participants. Maintaining parents’ attendance for the
whole course was a common problem. In 2012-2013, the average attendance was
73%.

21
Ministry of Education: http://eduscol.education.fr/cid49489/ouvrir-l-ecole-aux-
parents-pour-reussir-l-integration.html
22
Ministry of Education:
http://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/47/62/9/8228_annexe1-
synthese_evaluation_dispositif_377629.pdf
55
 Education and Training

France: OEPRI

In the Jean Moulin primary school in Nimes, the evaluation of the OEPRI initiative
highlighted a real improvement in the school climate (relations between pupils,
teachers and parents) owing to the enhanced involvement of parents in school life. The
positive effects observed were23:

ƒ On parents: motivation to learn French; enhanced knowledge of the school

system; better school-parents relations; concrete involvement of parents in
their children schooling, who become key actors in their success; better school
accessibility for the majority of participants; mutual confidence between school
and parents; real progress in French for assiduous participants; better
understanding of activities taking place in class;
ƒ On teachers’ practices: teachers adapted their methods to the pupils needs and
accepted a dialogue on their practices, considering parents as key partners in
children’s success;
ƒ On the school itself: improved school results; enhanced school climate;
increased well-being among pupils and teaching staff.

Practitioners’ views and experience

The SIRIUS Network highlighted that ‘family support and involvement is critical to
success. ‘For policymakers, initiatives should focus not on the content of learning
(such as homework) but on building confidence…. parental involvement is less about
the detail of pedagogy and more about the emotional support and encouragement
afforded to children’ (Crul and Schneider, 2009).

The Eurydice report, Integrating Immigrant Children into Schools in Europe report
(2009) set out measures which are commonly used by authorities and schools to
engage migrant parents. These include:

ƒ Providing written information on the school system in mother tongues for the
parents of NAMS;
ƒ Appointing outreach staff to welcome and guide migrant children and liaise with
their families.

Siarova (2013) underlines the importance of ensuring home-school cooperation and

the education of migrant parents, e.g. through parenting classes. She argued that
supporting parents would help them to better understand the challenges that their
children face at school, and would also enable them to adapt more easily to the host
culture. The advantages of reaching out to migrant parents as important stakeholders
are often not realised in European countries (Degler, 2014).

Castellotti V., and Moore, D. (2010) provide examples of various activities to bring
migrant families, school and social partners closer together.

23
Library of pedagogical experimentations of the Ministry of Education:
http://eduscol.education.fr/experitheque/consultFicheIndex.php?idFiche=8743
56
Education and Training

Switzerland: The Odyssea handbook

This provides a teacher-training tool based on a series of migration-related scenarios,

including suggestions to facilitate the reception and integration of the new pupils in the
class. The objective of the handbook is to encourage teachers to better understand the
implications of migration and of status in the new country (refugee, asylum seeker,
etc.), and to adapt their teaching practices accordingly.

Ireland: Home School Community Liaison Scheme (HSCL)

This was established in 1990 to develop partnerships between schools, parents and
local communities. Through the scheme, both host and migrant communities are
involved, alongside local agencies, in the daily life of the school, with the objective of
enhancing pupils’ learning opportunities (OECD, 2009). In 2005, it concerned 150,000
families with children in approx. 470 schools.

Netherlands: Platform for Ethnic Minority Parents and Education

This was a four-year project financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and
Science. The platform offers workshops for teaching and administrative staff on how to
systematically improve cooperation with migrant parents and communities.

Program for Preschool Youngsters’ (HIPPY)24

In countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, HIPPY was set up to enhance
immigrant parents’ awareness and capacities, by making available tutors from within
their communities. Regular evaluations have demonstrated that, thanks to this
initiative, the cognitive abilities of participating children have significantly improved
compared with control groups (cited in Sirius, no date).

UK: INSPIRE

Schools may also encourage parents to become engaged in school-based activities

(Nusche, 2009). The INSPIRE project conducted in Birmingham (UK) involved local
authorities providing training, materials and funding to schools to prepare them to
work alongside parents. The approach taken in this project was to target one class per
school where each child would bring a 'special' adult from home or from the community
to work together with them and the teacher on activities related to the maths
curriculum. Over 40 000 parents become involved every year, including those who
have been hard to engage such as ethnic minority parents (Brind et al., 2008; cited in
Nusche, 2009). Staff and parents reported a 70% increase in educational activity at
home and 60% of teachers reported increased achievement among involved pupils
(Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003; cited in Nusche, 2009).

Practitioners believe that building relations with libraries and enabling parents to
support reading are essential in supplementing formal learning.

24
http://www.hippy-international.org/
57
 Education and Training

The ECML Collaborative community approach to migrant education

(EDUCOMIGRANT) project explored new ways to enhance young migrants' education
by developing links between schools, the home and local partners in education, such as
public libraries. New ways of teaching were explored by producing multi-modal texts.
Online resources as well as accompanying documents were developed in cooperation
with libraries and other local partners.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Improving parents’ language skills and their involvement in their children’s

development of language skills makes a positive difference to their children’s
progress in ECEC;
ƒ Engaging migrant parents in the school and their children’s education is
believed to improve their children’s attendance and behaviour and attitudes to
learning. It also increases teachers’ and parents’ mutual understanding and
trust;
ƒ Through targeted communication, outreach activities, parenting classes,
collaboration in learning projects and public library resources, parents can
make a positive contribute to their children’s learning.

This is supported by the conclusions of several reviews (PPMI (2013) and Bainski et al
(2010).

Key summary points

Support in the classroom

There is indicative research evidence that the availability and level of support
improves migrant children’s educational attainment and that additional learning
activities and support in school for children without the language of instruction can
improve their progress. Practitioners strongly believe that classroom support has to be
maintained to develop their language skills as well as access to the curriculum with
the support of teaching assistants, specialist teachers and resources.

Support outside the classroom

There is indicative research evidence that formal and informal learning led by trained
staff and volunteers outside school enhances migrant children’s interest in education,
their language skills and their aspirations. This is through a variety of measures:
homework clubs, out of school activities, mentoring, coaching and advice. Practitioners
believe that these help and can be targeted at children who need extra support which
include migrant children. It helps to achieve positive outcomes if some of the
staff/volunteers have the same mother tongue/migrant background as the children
and parents.

Adapted teaching approaches by class teachers

There is indicative research evidence that adapting teaching approaches to
accommodate children without the same level of language ability as native children
has a beneficial effect. The adaptions they effectively employ are similar to those used
in CLIL settings. There is some evidence that providing children without the same level
of language competency as native children with tools and materials assists them to
achieve their potential in assessment tests.

58
Education and Training

Simplification of the language used in tests has been found to be beneficial.

Practitioners believe that teaching approaches need to be adapted in multilingual
classrooms, teachers need to be aware of this, and have strategies and resources to
manage. Practitioners also believe that teachers need to have positive attitudes
towards migrant children if they are to achieve their potential and overcome language
barriers. There is evidence that not all teachers have these positive attitudes.
Parental engagement
There is some indicative research evidence that equipping migrant families with skills
to develop their children’s language skills in ECEC helps to accelerate their learning.
Practitioners believe that engaging migrant parents is necessary throughout their
children’s education to build their emotional support for their children and their
cooperation with the school. These are believed to improve their children’s attendance,
behaviours and attitudes to learning as well as mutual trust and understanding
between teachers and parents.

59
 Education and Training

Theme 3: Developing mother tongue competences

In this section we examine the different ways in which mother tongue competences
are developed and used, how this can be done effectively, and the benefits they are
found to bring to children without the language of instruction.

Recognising and developing mother tongue competences in informal

and non-formal learning
All migrant children have mother tongue skills when they come into the school
system. For those under the age of 5 these are largely acquired and developed by
informal learning provided by parents and peers. Practitioners believe these are not
generally valorised or developed to higher levels unless informal parental education is
supplemented by formal and non-formal learning. In some places, education
authorities and communities provide additional opportunities for non-formal and
informal learning of mother tongues which enable children to develop their
competences, gain some recognition of their skills, and enhance rather than detract
from their inter-cultural education.

Practitioners’ views and experiences

Ball (2011) argues that for children to successfully retain their mother tongue while
acquiring the language of instruction, they need continued interaction with their family
and community members on complex issues and exposure to positive parental
attitudes to maintaining the mother tongue. This should be in addition to ongoing
formal instruction in their mother tongue to develop reading and writing skills.

Practitioners believe that non-formal and informal learning opportunities ensure that
children see the equal value of their mother tongue skills in the absence of
opportunities for formal learning (or supplementing these).

In the first instance this comes from recognising the mother tongue skills that migrant
children have. Examples from Germany and France are presented below.

Germany: First Language Lesson Programme (FLLP) in Cologne Museums

A large network of schools in Cologne have developed a project to use pupils’ mother
tongue: the ‘First Language Lesson Programme’ (FLLP). Each year a group of schools
have worked with an external organisation on a project which also enables them to use
and develop their mother tongues within the curriculum of other subjects. The FLLP in
Cologne Museums project enabled pupils to become museum experts and then use their
language skills as guides at a family day in the museum. This also introduced them and
their parents to the museum.

These projects are believed to provide children with learning opportunities outside the
school curriculum, and enhance their self-confidence, cultural identity and mother
tongue skills. It is also believed that this helps to change attitudes to mother tongue
skills within schools and the wider community.

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Education and Training

France: Ministry seminar examples (2014)25:

In Villeurbanne (Lyon region), supplementary informal French language learning is

carried out using the mother tongue so that both languages are being learnt (From one
language to another, D’une langue à l’autre - DULALA) ‘as a round-trip between two
languages’;

In Aubervilliers (Paris region), a Bangladeshi association supports language learning

through cooking and dance workshops for children and their parents; and

In Marseille, one artist created Flying Carpet Radio (Radio Tapis volant), which gathers
migrant children with different mother tongues to participate in workshops where they
create and play games based on different languages. The objective is to use bilingualism
to promote the cohabitation of languages.

ƒ Espinosa (2013) proposed a set of instructional strategies to support children’

to maintain and develop their mother tongue competences:
ƒ Creating visual displays representing the languages, cultures and family
practices of the children in the classroom;
ƒ Providing books and materials that represent the cultures and languages of
pupils and their families. Encouraging parents or volunteers to help understand
and read them; and
ƒ Asking parents to introduce key vocabulary and read stories in the child’s
mother tongue;

In the second instance it comes from enabling children to develop their mother tongue
skills and have means to recognise their progress and competences. Castellotti and
Moore (2010) highlighted that the following could enhance pupils’ self-awareness of
their own competences in their mother tongue:

ƒ A portfolio approach to the recognition of learning, which encourages pupils’

reflection on and commitment to their learning process. Examples include the
European Language Portfolio to record all their language skills (see Box below);
Language and learning biographies that list pluri-lingual experiences and
strategies and encourage learners to think about their linguistic and cultural
paths; and Autobiographies of Intercultural Encounters, which aim to create
awareness of cultural diversity by focusing on intercultural encounters and
dialogue, and on recognising experiences; and
ƒ Biographical journals and activities using different media (e.g. written, audio-
visual, photos) and forms (e.g. videos, blogs, school projects) to provide
opportunities for pupils to question their own pluri-lingualism, and pluri-
lingualism in general and in their relations.

Examples from the UK (McPake and Tinsley, 2007) and the Netherlands are set out
below.

25
French Ministry of Culture and Communication – URL:
http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/Politiques-ministerielles/Langue-francaise-
et-langues-de-France/Politiques-de-la-langue/Multilinguisme/Les-langues-de-l-
immigration-edition-2014-migrer-d-une-langue-a-l-autre
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 Education and Training

UK: Language Ladder

In the UK, the Language Ladder scheme26 has been developed, for both children and
adults, as one of the outcomes of the National Language Strategy for England. The
objective was to introduce a voluntary recognition scheme linked to the existing
national qualification framework and the CEFR. The scheme uses ‘can do’ statements
and offers discrete skills assessment for learners to focus on developing speaking skills,
for instance. The Language Ladder also includes possibilities of self-, teacher- and
external-assessment. The scheme offers accreditation in 23 languages, and additional
languages should be available in the future.

Netherlands: The European Language Portfolio in multilingual classrooms

Pupils in the Netherlands can use the European Language Portfolio (ELP) to report their
language learning activities undertaken outside the classroom (e.g. use of a mother
tongue at home which is different from the host language, or contacts with family or
friends in foreign countries), and can self-assess their competences. The ELP enables
children learning their mother tongue to obtain recognition for language competences
that are not acquired formally. A study on the ELP (Aarts and Broeder 2006) found that
mother tongue learners had positive attitudes towards it, because their language
competences were recognised and positively valued and they could assess and record
their progress. The study also showed that the ELP enables teachers to better
understand their multilingual classrooms and appreciate the strength of pupils’
language competences. The ELP has also been adopted in parts of Sweden.

Ball (2011) highlighted from his research that successful implementation of informal
mother tongue learning required:

ƒ Strengthening local capacity: training childhood practitioners who speak

children’s mother tongue so that they can play a key role in children’s
development and family support programmes, e.g. through advanced in-
service or pre-service training to become ECEC and primary school teachers;
ƒ Community involvement and community development: involving parents and
community members to develop successful initiatives for their children. The
willingness of community members to see programmes in their mother tongue
succeed in order to preserve their language and culture is a crucial success
factor;
ƒ Parent education and community awareness raising campaigns: promoting
successful projects and community-wide awareness raising campaigns enables
parents to see the added-value of mother tongue education and let their
children take part in it; and
ƒ Practitioners have argued that it is also necessary to have reading material for
different ages in mother tongues in schools and libraries so that parents and
other adults can support their children to read the mother language at home as
well as the availability of after-school or weekend activities in which the mother
tongue is the language medium. For some practitioners, ‘professionalising’ and
formalising mother tongue teaching is not always necessary for migrant
children to maintain and develop their skills alongside their formal education.

26
http://www.assetlanguages.org.uk
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Education and Training

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Non-formal and informal learning of mother tongues by schools, parents and

community groups provide opportunities for children to develop their mother
tongue competences, gain some recognition of their skills, and enhance inter-
cultural education;
ƒ Practitioners believe that migrant parents and children often have to be
encouraged to develop children’s mother tongue skills. Tools and resources are
available for recognising progression and competences achieved;
ƒ Providers of non-formal and informal mother tongue learning benefits from
support from schools, public libraries and online materials.

Developing mother tongue competences in formal learning

Formal learning provides structured education in mother tongue competences. This is
provided in various ways in different countries during ECEC and compulsory schooling.
Practitioners generally recognise the benefits of developing migrant children’s mother
tongue competences which are found in the research evidence and that there are
greater difficulties in providing formal learning where children have many different
mother tongues than where larger numbers of children share a mother tongue.

Research evidence
Enabling children without the language of instruction to develop their mother tongue
competences in ECEC is not detrimental to their acquisition of competences in the
language of instruction. Espinosa (2013) concluded from a meta-analysis that early
childhood education programmes in the US could support dual language learners –
typically Spanish and English – to continue development in the mother tongue and
achieve higher levels of competence in English in the long-term. Goldenberg (2012,
cited in Espinosa, 2013), for example, found that children without the language of
instruction in bilingual education performed better than children in English only
programmes to improve their English. Espinosa (1995) found that where there was
use of both the mother tongue and the language of instruction it led to better mother
tongue skills and at least equivalent language of instruction skills, compared to
children in English-only environments.

Slavin, Madden and Calderón (2011) compared the English and Spanish language and
reading performance of Spanish mother tongue children randomly assigned to either a
bilingual programme or an immersion programme from kindergarten for periods of up
to five years. They found that, on the vocabulary and reading tests, first graders in the
bilingual programme performed significantly better in Spanish and worse in English
than first graders in the immersion programme. Differences diminished in second and
third grades, and by fourth grade, when all pupils in the bilingual programme had
transitioned to immersion programmes, there were no significant differences in English
reading scores. The advantage of the children who participated in the bilingual
programme was that they had much stronger Spanish skills than children who were in
the immersion programme.

Other studies generally find no detriment to competences in the language of

instruction where there is formal mother tongue learning:

ƒ Burchinal et al. (2012 – cited in Espinosa, 2013) found that the academic
attainments of Spanish mother tongue children were higher when they
participated in Spanish/English CLIL programmes;
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 Education and Training

ƒ Slavin and Cheung (2005) found from a meta-review of 13 experimental

studies of reading programmes for English language learners, focusing on
comparisons of various bilingual and English-only teaching that in nine of the
studies the bilingual approaches brought about improved English reading
measures, and four found no differences. They also found that ‘paired bilingual
strategies’ that teach reading in the mother tongue and English at different
times each day worked better to develop reading skills.

Qualitative evidence from practitioners in Ireland, Germany and Sweden (see boxes in
section 4.2.2 below) who have introduced formal teaching of mother tongues indicates
that similar results can be achieved.

Thomas and Collier (1997, 2002) examined the educational trajectories of mother
tongue speakers from school entry through 11th grade in selected US schools. They
found that mother tongue instruction seem to have enhanced the educational
outcomes of these children:

ƒ Children with no mother tongue instruction finished between the 11th and 22nd
percentile nationally on average;
ƒ Children with one to three years of mother tongue instruction in the earliest
grades finished, on average, between the 24th and 33rd percentile nationally;
ƒ Children with six years of mother tongue instruction finished, on average, at
the 54th percentile (above national norms);
ƒ Children placed in CLIL classrooms with native English speakers (where
instruction was provided both in the mother tongue and English) finished, on
average, at the 70th percentile which is well above national norms.

Thomas and Collier (2012 – cited in Siarova, 2013) also found that continued bilingual
education over a longer period had the benefit of closing the achievement gap
between those without the language of instruction and English speaking children;
developing mother tongue competences; and acquiring proficiency in the language.
They suggested that such children had four to seven years in bilingual/CLIL
programmes.
CLIL programmes in general have been found in Europe to enhance not just foreign
and native language learning but other competences (ICF, 2014).
There are numerous examples where formal learning of mother tongues has wider
benefits:
ƒ Wright and Taylor (1999 – cited in Ball, 2011) found that Inuit pupils taught in
part in their mother tongue (Inuktitut) showed increased self-esteem and
cultural pride compared to Inuit children educated only in the official language,
i.e. English or French. They also had stronger competences in their mother
tongue.
ƒ Slavin and Cheung’s meta-review of studies developing reading skills (2005)
highlighted the following benefits of CLIL approaches to mother tongue
learning:
− Facilitating phonetic development;
− Enabling an easy transfer to decoding any alphabetic language, once text in
the home language can be decoded;
− Serving as a bridge between languages, as phonemic awareness, decoding,
sound blending, and generic comprehension strategies clearly transfer
among languages that use phonetic orthographies, such as Spanish,
French, and English; and

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Education and Training

− Encouraging native-English pupils to learn Spanish from an early age

ƒ Agirdag (2013) found that bilingual migrant children had higher future earnings
than monolingual children. Based on two different data-sets covering a total of
29,000 pupils in the US, regression analyses showed that at the beginning of
their careers bilingual pupils earn between $2,000 and $3,200 annually more
than native English pupils.

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners believe that introducing mother tongue teaching into the curriculum
and/or providing CLIL approaches recognise the skills of migrant children and develop
mother tongue competences (PPMI (2012). A Eurydice report (2009) emphasises the
crucial importance of mother tongue proficiency because it ‘can make it easier for
these pupils to learn the language of instruction and thus stimulate their development
in all areas. In addition, the manner in which their mother tongue is viewed in the host
community helps secure the self-esteem and identity of immigrant children and their
families’.27

Not all teachers are necessarily aware of the benefits of mother tongue support.
Agirdag et al. (2014) studied teachers’ beliefs about the use of the Turkish language
by Turkish children in Belgian primary schools, as well as the consequences of
language maintenance. He found no evidence that speaking Turkish – either at home
or at school – harmed pupils’ academic achievement (data from 2,845 pupils in a
sample of 68 primary schools in Flanders, of which 435 children in 48 schools were
from Turkish origin). Qualitative interviews of school principals and teachers found
that many of them believed that the use of their mother tongue was detrimental to
academic achievement and it was often discouraged. The Meridium (Multilingualism in
Europe as a resource for immigration) project in six Member States (ES, IT, MT, PT,
RO, SI)28 found from surveys in each country that in general there was little
awareness of the usefulness of mother tongue learning among teachers and parents, a
lack of preparation for teachers to cope with multilingualism, and a more general lack
of resources for them if they did.

Projects such as MARILLE have developed pluri-lingual approaches to learning the

language of instruction in primary education to ‘facilitate a more inclusive majority
language classroom environment, with the objective of recognising, supporting and
promoting pluri-lingualism’. Teachers elsewhere in France have observed that by
applying these approaches they enhance social cohesion between pupils, teachers and
their parents.29 This was reported as a strong outcome of mainstreaming mother
tongue teaching (both of Turkish and Italian) in primary schools in Cologne where it
made parents more interested in their children’s education and involved in the school.

27
See Eurydice 2009, Integrating immigrant children into schools in Europe, p. 51,
and Migrants, minorities and education. Documenting discrimination and integration in
15 member states of the European Union, Equality and diversity for an inclusive
Europe. EUMC comparative study. 2004, p. 78.
28
www.Meridium.unistrapg.it
29
http://centre-alain-savary.ens-lyon.fr/CAS/education-prioritaire/actualites-de-
leducation-prioritaire-1/forum-pedagogique-drome/demarches-d2019elaboration-
d2019imagiers-plurilingues-au-cours-preparatoire
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 Education and Training

France: Marille project

Learners need to develop skills of investigation and language use, skills in self-directed
(language) learning, and skills in interacting, networking and discussion. Teachers need
to gain knowledge and understanding of first and second language acquisition
processes and intercultural learning. The pedagogical skills required include
management of language diversity in the classroom, building on learners’ linguistic
experience and skills, flexible application of methods of teaching the language of
instruction as a first or second language, ability to promote autonomous learning and
support ownership of learning processes, language teachers’ ability to work together via
an interdisciplinary approach, and collaboration with other teachers in developing the
transversal role of language as a medium of teaching and learning other subjects.

Teaching is based on the structures and syntax of the pupils' mother tongue: basically
children learn French by comparing its structure to the structure of their mother
tongue. In schools with several pupils with various mother tongues, teachers are
trained and guided to develop their classes through activities which will transfer
understanding of different languages and enable a higher level of social interaction and
cooperation in the classroom.

This process has intercultural benefits, since everyone is expert of his/her language
(teacher and pupils) and discovers the system of the others. It develops empathy and
motivates children to discover and learn both their first and a second language.
Children also better understand the difficulties of other children to learn their language,
and therefore put their own difficulties into perspective. Some children were
interviewed after nine months in the programme, and indicated that it became easier to
learn other languages. Results showed that all the children are more active in the
learning process, are encouraged to use their language knowledge and skills and see
how other languages relate to French. They also all continue to develop their French.

There are many examples of effective practices in promoting pluri-lingualism in the

classroom in schools at all levels in EU countries within the curriculum. Some of these
are described below. Practitioners involved in these believe that they enhance cultural
awareness and integration because children appreciate sharing knowledge about their
cultures. This makes them and their parents more involved in school life and the
community.

Greece: In the world of folk tales

In Greece, early secondary level pupils in a multicultural and multilingual class were split
into groups based on their language background (Albanian, Ukrainian, Russian, English,
Polish, Urdu, Georgian and French) to choose a magic folk tale in its language, and then
present it to the other groups of pupils in a short film (in their language). After viewing
a video in a foreign language, each group must find out what the tale is about and then
re-write or re-tell the tale in Greek. The groups also compare the different tales in terms
of language structures and vocabulary used.

UK: Language of the Month

A primary school in the London area developed the ‘Language of the Month’ initiative:
each month, all pupils learn simple sentences in the 'Language of the Month' selected
from one of the 44 languages spoken by the school’s children.

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Education and Training

They found that pupils feel that their linguistic background is respected, and parents
become more actively involved in school activities. The project is based on free
downloadable web-based materials
(http://www.newburypark.redbridge.sch.uk/langofmonth/index.html), which have been
used throughout the school and in other schools in the UK and abroad.

France: Development of image-based multilingual approaches in pre-primary

courses

A pre-primary school in Valence where over two thirds of pupils have a mother tongue
which is not French developed several learning activities. These included:
ƒ Encouraging children to greet each other, count and list the days of the week in
their mother tongue. Their parents were also present in the class and so were
able to help their children to do this;
ƒ Asking pupils to read a short story prepared in their mother tongue; practicing
the pronunciation and then recording it so that the class could make comparisons
between languages and cultures.
Teachers observed positive results from the approach, which has helped develop their
knowledge, skills and competences as well as the children’s. It was found to be a
positive way of involving parents.

Belgium: Classes of initiation to languages and cultures of origin in primary and

lower secondary schools
Through a partnership between the Ministry of the French Community and eight
countries (China, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Turkey), primary
and lower secondary schools have organised classes to broaden understanding of
languages and cultures of pupils in many schools (cours d’Ouverture aux Langues et aux
Cultures – OLC) for their pupils. In 2013-2014, the project was run across 249 schools
in Belgium (fr).30 Two types of course are offered: (i) language courses, which are
available to all pupils whatever their origins and can be run with pupils from different
schools; and (ii) courses on intercultural openness, where the culture of the country of
origin is shared with all the children in the class.
These courses are delivered by a teacher from the selected country of origin. In the
primary schools, the courses are a weekly lesson.

Ireland: Together Towards Inclusion Toolkit for Diversity in Primary Schools

This toolkit was developed to help schools develop inclusiveness and an integrated
approach to language education – including both curriculum languages (English and
Irish) and migrants’ home language31. The toolkit was developed with practitioners in
schools in Ireland and the UK (Northern Ireland) based on three key principles: i)
learners’ involvement (engaging their interests); ii) reflection (self-management); and
iii) spontaneous and authentic use of all languages (interaction has a key role to play).
In applying the toolkit in primary schools, teachers have developed ways to engage all
children further developing their multilingual repertoire.

30
Le Programme d’ouverture aux langues et aux cultures (OLC) - Année scolaire
2013-2014, Belgium Ministry of Education – URL: www.enseignement.be/lco
31
IILT Together towards inclusion toolkit, 2007
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 Education and Training

In one Dublin area girls-only primary school where 80% of the children have a mother
tongue other than Irish/English and most of them have no or limited English proficiency
before starting school in the first years of schooling, pupils are encouraged to express
themselves in any language they prefer, then teachers gradually include all languages
present in the classroom. Later on, English, Irish and other languages are progressively
used (e.g. displays, vocabulary, games, worksheets to be completed using different
languages). From the emergence of language awareness in the first years of primary
education, through to more elaborate dual writing in the third and fourth years, and the
ability to write multilingual texts in the fifth and sixth years, children develop proficiency
in their mother tongue while gradually developing proficiencies in the language of
instruction and other languages. Being agents of their own learning, pupils become more
engaged in classroom interaction, all the more since their existing knowledge, skills and
interests are taken into account. The school performed above the national average in
the standardised tests of both English and Maths (2012-2013 and 2013-2014).

The ECML Maledive project32 has provided teachers with web-based resources to
enable them to enrich their teaching with plurilingual and intercultural approaches. The
materials and pilot projects developed as part of the Maledive project show how
linguistic diversity can be harnessed for the benefit of all learners and how teacher
collaboration across school subjects can develop a whole-school approach to plurilingual
teaching practices.

In other countries, children have access to formal mother tongue learning outside
school or as an additional class. Siarova (2013) highlighted some good practice
examples of countries offering these as modern foreign languages within the
curriculum. For example, in Cologne (Germany) a few schools offer Turkish which can
be studied for their Arbitur examination. This is also the case elsewhere in Germany,
Austria and parts of the UK.

Siarova (2013) also found that from an assessment of the availability and quality of
mother tongue provision for migrant children in 10 countries (BE-nl, DE, EE, EL, ES
(Catalonia), HR, IT, LT, LV and NL) that the support provided was limited mainly
because of financial restrictions and the lack of understanding about the benefits of
mother tongue support for learning the host language. In the Netherlands, for
example, mother tongue learning was more widespread but financial support was
stopped in 2004 (Driessen, 2005 – cited in Söhn, 2005) although there were believed
to be evident benefits.

Sweden

In Sweden, pupils who do not have Swedish as their mother tongue have the right to
receive tuition in their mother tongue. This separate syllabus also covers the literature,
history and culture of the country of origin as well as learning the language. Education
authorities must organise mother tongue tuition if a minimum of five eligible pupils apply
for it and if a teacher with sufficient skills in both languages can be found. Pupils cannot
study these towards their school leaving examinations.

32
http://maledive.ecml.at/Home/tabid/3598/language/en-GB/Default.aspx
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Education and Training

Most of the teaching takes place outside the normal school day. Not all children take up
their entitlement which reflects in some cases children’s reluctance to learn the mother
tongue (time, perceived value of the language by peers/school/parents, no
qualification/value towards leaving certificate unless the mother tongue is a foreign
language such as Spanish which is a recognised language in the upper secondary
assessments) and the school’s recognition of its benefits (so they do not necessarily
encourage and support).

Challenges faced in meeting demand for mother tongue learning include recruiting (and
retaining) qualified teachers (pay, permanent/full time contracts, difficulties with
recognition of qualifications from different countries,) and meeting needs of pupils in
groups which are likely to be mixed ages/standards reached.
Positive benefits are believed to be: improved facility in learning Swedish and other
languages, better grades, and self-confidence as well as a competence in the mother
tongue which can be of wider use.

Belgium Flanders

There is no explicit policy on mother tongue provision but schools have some flexibility
within the community’s linguistic policy. Since September 2014, schools are able to
choose themselves any additional foreign languages to be taught (beyond the
compulsory requirement of French as the first and English as the second) and these can
be covered in the leaving certificate. Also, schools can use CLIL (for up to 20% of
teaching) for French, English or German. Twenty-five schools have taken this up in the
school year 2014-2015.

Austria

In Austria, migrant pupils’ mother tongues can be taught as optional subject or

exercises, either in separate classes or integrated into the regular curriculum. Twenty
four languages are available. In such a case, the class or subject teacher works
alongside a mother tongue teacher. They are employed by Austrian school authorities
like all other teachers. Until recently, mother tongue was available in the following
languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Chechen, Chinese, Croatian, Farsi,
French, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Romany,
Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish and Turkish.

United Kingdom (England)

The HoLA Home Language Accreditation project in Sheffield developed approaches to

record progress and accredit mother tongue learning to increase the proportion of
children without the language of instruction with higher level competences and a
qualification in their mother tongue. This was developed by a consortium consisting of
Languages Sheffield, King Edward VII Language College and Sheffield City Council. Most
teaching is out of school and the project built relations between schools and the
community organisations providing mother tongue learning so that the teachers had
pedagogical support and access to materials for teaching towards qualifications and
accreditation.

Less commonly, mother tongues are taught in schools through their adoption as a
foreign language for children to learn. In some schools this is through formal language
learning classes as well as through CLIL. Germany has a quite a number of such
primary and secondary schools in its larger cities with opportunities for children to

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progress from primary to secondary school learning a mother tongue. The languages
are varied but include Portuguese, Italian and Turkish. Practitioners recognise that the
extent of linguistic diversity poses challenges for offering bilingual education in many
areas unless there are large numbers of first and second generation migrants as well
as qualified teachers.

Germany: Mother tongue learning in Cologne

Over ten years or so, over 20 primary schools in Cologne have developed the learning of
an additional foreign language which is a mother tongue for many of the children. This
has brought mother tongue learning which had been offered outside the curriculum into
the school’s timetable (albeit a longer school day; one hour more).

At one school, the Katholische Grundschule Vincenz-Statz http://kgs-vincenz-statz.de/

in Ehrenfeld, an area where many Italian migrants have settled bilingual German-Italian
classes are provided along with German and Italian-lessons in small groups every
morning. This has required one additional full-time teacher and collaboration between
German and Italian teachers. The language teaching is connected to inter-cultural
learning, music and sport. The teachers report that the school has greater parental
involvement and that Italian mother tongue children have increasingly progressed to
higher educational attainments than before the changes were made.

At the Katholische Grundschule Sankt Nikolaus

http://camerafriends.com/nikolaus/?page_id=2311 in Zollstock, the school has
implemented dual language learning of German and a mother tongue (Turkish) as part
of the KOALA pedagogy. This involves German and Turkish being taught as languages
but also team teaching in other subjects such as history where for part of the lesson, the
subject is taught through German for a whole class then through Turkish for the Turkish
learners. Teachers in the school and ZMI staff all reported that the KOALA approach and
the general openness to multilingualism make children more open and tolerant to other
languages and cultures as well as contributing to successful educational progression.
Where this is applied, evaluation has found that after three years there is a significant
improvement in overall performance of the children concerned.

At Katharina-Henoth Gesamtschule in Höhenberg, one of the districts of Cologne with a

very high percentage of families with Turkish origins: http://www.igs-
kathi.de/aktuelles/Aktuelles.html , the secondary school offers Turkish as a second
foreign language which allows children to progress from primary schools teaching
KOALA. Pupils in 10th or 11th grade (16-17 years old), reported that learning their
mother tongue had provided a richer understanding of their heritage and culture and
opportunities to read and keep abreast of Turkish life as well as self-confidence in their
identity and their ability to achieve their ambitions in a multi-cultural society. The
teachers reported that the programme depended on having teachers of Turkish in the
school, all certified with at least one additional subject from the teacher academy of the
University of Essen.

Materials for reading and other lessons in mother tongues are needed by schools. In
the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Education supported publishing and distributing
textbooks and dictionaries in Vietnamese, Ukrainian and Russian.

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Education and Training

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Where mother tongue learning is part of the curriculum for children without the
language of instruction it has no negative effect on their progress in the
language of instruction. In some cases it has been found to enhance other
educational outcomes. In all cases it has been found to develop their mother
tongue competences more than would be achieved by informal learning;
ƒ Not all teachers are aware of these benefits; some positively discourage the
use of mother tongues;
ƒ There is indicative evidence that CLIL programmes to teach mother tongues
are effective and bring wider benefits to educational achievement and language
learning;
ƒ Opportunities for schools to use bilingual/CLIL approaches for teaching are
available where many children have the same mother tongues which are not
the language of instruction and education systems allow schools the flexibility
to adopt these approaches for all or some of their pupils;
ƒ Equally pluri-lingual approaches to language learning are believed by
practitioners who use them to facilitate inter-cultural education as well as
parental engagement;
ƒ Having qualified mother tongue teachers in schools and mother tongues
included in language curricula and examinations encourage mother tongue
learning.
− This is supported by research carried out into good practices by McPake and
Tinsley (2007) and Ball (2011).

Key summary points

Non-formal and informal learning of mother tongues

Practitioners believe that informal learning of mother tongues should be provided and
encouraged both in the absence of formal learning opportunities and where formal
learning of mother tongues is available. The opportunities for children to use and
develop their mother tongue skills enable them to gain recognition for these skills and
see they are of equal value to other language skills. Children need to be stimulated to
develop and use their mother tongue skills. Parents, schools and the community have
been shown to play an effective part in this. Resources are available for non-formal
and informal learning.

Formal learning of mother tongues

There is conclusive research evidence that learning mother tongues alongside the
language of instruction enhances not only their mother tongue competences but also
their competences in the language of instruction.

There is indicative research evidence that this has:

ƒ Longer term benefits for educational attainment and reducing the gap between
migrant children and native born children;
ƒ Wider benefits in enhancing children’s confidence and their cultural awareness
and pride in their culture;
ƒ Longer term benefits in increasing employment opportunities.

Practitioners generally support the benefits of mother tongue learning although

teachers are not always aware of these. Some schools and teachers continue to
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discourage speaking in mother tongues. Bringing mother tongues into language

learning and the language curriculum as well as offering formal learning of mother
tongues as foreign languages through language classes and CLIL throughout primary
and secondary education appear to be efficient and effective approaches to achieving
the benefits described in the research evidence. This is facilitated where pluri-lingual
approaches to language learning are adopted, qualified mother tongue teachers are
available and mother tongues are recognised in the curriculum and school
examinations.

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Education and Training

Theme 4: Teacher education

In this section we examine the how teacher education can meet the needs of multi-
lingual classrooms and how initial teacher training and in-service training improve the
attainment of children without the language of instruction.

Developing language development skills and cultural competences

Linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom presents a major challenge for
teachers. Teachers need specific development and learning programmes to be able to
teach pupils who are learning the language of instruction, especially in primary
settings and with NAMS. Practitioners believe that teachers need to receive training to
meet migrant children’s language needs when they are admitted and once they are
immersed (Sirova and Essoemba, 2014) as well as training in cultural competences.

Practitioners’ views and experiences

Teachers who provide language support should receive training in second‐language

acquisition that is aligned with the approaches implemented in practice (Christensen

and Stanat, 2007). The most effective training covers implicit and explicit language
support. Explicit language support requires teachers to have strong linguistic
knowledge, so that they can effectively teach grammatical structures. They must also

be aware of the language structures that present the main hurdles in second‐language

acquisition and how these can be overcome.

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 Education and Training

Resources and approaches to achieving this have been developed by the

ECML.ECML: Developing pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures
The Majority Language Instruction as a Basis for Plurilingual Education (MARILLE)
project33 provides tools for language of instruction teachers to provide a pluri-lingual
curriculum. It describes the core content of such a curriculum for language education;
teacher knowledge and skills required; and strategies to enable schools to make the
change.
The Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures
(FREPA)34 (Candelier et al. 2012) project presents teachers, teacher educators and
school managers with descriptors of the knowledge, attitudes and skills considered
necessary for plurilingual and intercultural education; training to develop teachers’
language awareness, Integrated didactic approaches, inter-comprehension between
related languages, and intercultural approaches; and teaching materials (in various
languages) to use in the classroom.
The ConBaT+ (Plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in content-based teaching) training
kit35 provides material for combining plurilingual and pluricultural approaches with
content-based instruction. It shows how the languages and cultures present in the
classroom can be developed as a cross-curricular resource at primary and secondary
level, and offers 26 content-based didactic units in English, French and Spanish to be
used in classrooms.

Anderson et al (2010) state that supporting language acquisition and development

should not be confined to those who specialise in teaching the language of instruction
to learners with diverse language backgrounds and those who support pupils’
continued progression, including, often, their acquisition of literacy, in their mother
tongue. All teachers in multilingual schools need enhanced awareness of the linguistic
demands of the curriculum and skills to make it accessible to pupils from a variety of
language backgrounds.

Spain: HOLA Online Network

HOLA 2.0 [HELLO 2.0] started in 2007 in response to the growing number of migrant
children coming to the Madrid region. It was developed by teachers, counsellors,
remedial class teachers, pupils and families to support practitioners and pupils without
the language of instruction. The project has its own website, a collaborative wiki and a
social network; it also includes a collection of useful resources produced by the team of
participating teachers to develop the Spanish competences of children with little
Spanish, undertake an initial assessment and assess their progress. Pupils can learn
Spanish online with guidance from the teachers.

Many practitioners argue that all teachers need cultural competences to successfully
teach pupils from other cultures because culture plays a central role in learning.
According to the US National Education Association (2015) this should include valuing
diversity, being culturally self-aware, and adapting to diversity.

Hamburg: Intercultural education for teachers

33
http://marille.ecml.at/MARILLE/tabid/2316/language/en-GB/Default.aspx
34
http://carap.ecml.at/
35
http://conbat.ecml.at/TrainingKit/tabid/2488/language/en-GB/Default.aspx
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Education and Training

A training course was devised for teachers in Hamburg, Germany, a city with many
children without the language of instruction and many mother tongues to ensure that
prejudices and bias were eliminated and the diversity was valued and exploited.
Teachers generally welcomed this because they had not been prepared for the scale of
multicultural pupils in their training and teacher education. The authorities also
developed materials for classroom use and encouraged school leaders to engage parents
better and employ mentors to support teachers.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:

ƒ Language teachers of children without the language of instruction need to have

specialized training either during their initial studies or through in‐service

training so that they can teach the language of instruction as a second

language.
ƒ All teachers require training to teach children without the language of
instruction and to be able to value diversity by incorporating cultural diversity
within their teaching. This should include intercultural training.

Developing skills for teaching children without the language of

instruction
For many teachers classrooms with pupils without the language of instruction are a
relatively recent phenomenon and they benefit from in-service training. There is
qualitative evidence that this helps teachers to realise the challenges and adapt their
approaches (the benefits of which were shown in section 3.3 above). Practitioners
believe that initial teacher training as well as in service training can support all
teachers to develop their teaching approaches to meet the needs of children without
the language of instruction.

Research evidence
Classroom teachers in primary schools and subject specialists in secondary schools
benefit from training to enable them to teach children without the language of
instruction more effectively.

Part of the aim of the Minority Ethnic Language and Achievement (MELAP) project in
Wales was to build the capacity of both the specialist workforce in EMAS teams and
the classroom subject teachers to teach pupils with EAL needs more effectively and
introduce systems for monitoring progress. For the classroom teachers in one local
education authority area, a large group of history and maths teachers in secondary
schools had short training sessions mixed with observation/feedback from the trainers
to see how plans to change practice were implemented over 10-12 weeks. Teachers
completed before and after questionnaires and a sample was interviewed. The
evaluation (ICF and Arad, 2014) found that:

ƒ Teachers believed that the training made them review and revise their
practice: how they explain, the words they use, and how they allowed pupils to
speak in their own language to obtain help and understanding;

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 Education and Training

ƒ Teachers reported gains in knowledge and understanding and they appreciated

the feedback and the support/assistance from specialists;
ƒ They worked more closely with specialist support;
ƒ They were more positive than teachers in other areas who had much shorter
training.

White et al (2006) found from qualitative interviews and visits to schools and local
authorities that participated in a training and development programme focused on
schools with high levels of migrant children that:

ƒ Teachers gained insight into the difficulties encountered by pupils without the
language of instruction; an understanding of second language pedagogy; an
ability to apply new teaching models and techniques into the classroom; and
(with a better understanding by school leaders of the practical difficulties) the
sharing of ideas and resources, and increased motivation to innovate;
ƒ Children were reported to have higher expectations of themselves; to be more
confident; to ask more questions and ‘expect to understand’; to be more
prepared to use their mother tongue in school; and to be more ‘on task’ and
focused. In schools which participated in the training programme, children’s
attainment in literacy was greater than in schools which had not (Benton and
White, 2007).

Practitioners’ views and experience

Practitioners strongly believe that initial teacher training as well as in service training
is vital for teachers to be able to work effectively in multilingual schools. Teachers in
some areas have considerable experience of adapting their practice but find that new
teachers have little experience of teaching children without the language of
instruction.

Degler (2014c) indicated that all teachers should have training to respond to the
specific needs of migrant pupils so that they are aware of specialist help and resources
and how to adapt teaching to the different levels of children’s language skills.
This needs to be supplemented by in service training. Degler (2014c) believes that
school leaders need to recognise this need so that teachers are not just enabled to
undertake appropriate training but also encouraged. Various practitioner led reviews
(OECD, 2005; Field et al., 2007; cited in Nusche, 2009) recommend the introduction
of a minimum requirement for teachers to undertake professional development in this
domain, linking participation to promotion or recertification. In practice, for many
schools this is a mix of longer training and short courses with one to one and small
group training led by specialists in teaching in multilingual classrooms to build
teachers’ capacity and that of schools as a whole. Some examples can be found below.

Germany: Language Support Coaches

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Language Support Coaches (SprachFörderCoaches) act as

training advisors in schools with an above-average proportion of children without the
language of instruction (Thürmann and Vollmer (no date). About 100 senior teachers
have undergone comprehensive training as advisors for schools (run by universities of
Essen and Cologne in eight 1.5 day modules (seminars). The coaches are working with
schools to establish their own whole-school language learning programmes and policies
with related training and support.

Norway: National Centre for Multicultural Education

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Education and Training

The Norwegian National Centre for Multicultural Education (NAFO) provides direct
support to schools that are specifically assigned to NAFO (‘focus schools’) because they
need support with the education of children who have no or limited Norwegian language
skills (Severiens, 2013). Support is provided in the form of training for schools and
teachers, organizing network events for the schools and providing resources for teachers
through its website.

Czech Republic: Teaching Assistants for Migrant Pupils

Teaching Assistants for Migrant Pupils36 was run by the Society for Young Migrants (Meta
o.p.s., společnost pro příležitosti mladých migrant), an organization dedicated to the
long-term education and integration of pupils from different cultural and linguistic
backgrounds in Czech schools, from 2012 to 2014. It supported migrants with some
pedagogical education experience to obtain employment and qualifications so that they
can work as teaching assistants to migrant pupils in ECEC and primary schools.
Participants took specially developed qualification courses on pedagogy and Czech
language. Teachers in target schools were also supported through training on teaching
Czech as a foreign language and how to work with the new pedagogical assistants.

Austria: Intercultural training

This project in 26 primary schools in Lower Austria trained people with a migrant
background to work in schools as intercultural employees (IKM)37 38. The certified
training over two years provided them with practical training in schools with high
proportions of migrant children alongside formal training. The project has brought adults
with skills but no formal experience in teaching into schools to be teaching assistants.

Degler (2014c) (SIRIUS) reports that capacity building of teachers and school leaders
is quite commonplace in countries. For example, in Austria school leaders are required
to complete additional training courses in diversity management; in Estonia the
Estonian Integration and Migration Foundation has co-ordinated teacher training to
increase intercultural competences and didactic skills39; in Ireland, the DICE Project
has supported teacher education colleges by integrating intercultural education into
their curricula and ensuring future teachers can cope with cultural and linguistic
diversity40; and in Lithuania an online platform, My pupil is a foreigner, has been
developed to enhance teachers’ (and others’) intercultural competences and diversity
management skills.

Germany: The Network of Teachers with Immigration History in North Rhine-

36
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-
integration/index.cfm?action=furl.go&go=/intpract/teaching-assistants-for-migrant-
pupils
37
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/
38
https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-
integration/index.cfm?action=furl.go&go=/intpract/intercultural-training-and-
deployment-of-staff-in-40-lower-austria-lower-primary-schools-identified-via-a-study-
undertaken-by-the-committee-of-the-regions
39
http://www.meis.ee/eng-haridus-kultuur
40
http://www.diceproject.ie/

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 Education and Training

Westphalia

This Network in North West Rhine-Westphalia has served as a role model for the
creation of similar networks in other federal states in Germany (Baysal-Polat, 2014). It
was formed in 2007 and was developed at inter-ministerial levels between the regional
Ministry of School and Further Education and the Ministry of Labour, Integration and
Social Affairs. The network now has more than 630 members from over 40 different
countries of origin. Two full-time coordinators are provided by the regional Ministry of
Education, while the regional office is financed by the Ministry of Integration.
The Network is designed to enable teachers with a migrant background to:
ƒ Motivate others to go into teaching and give more credible advice about career
choices;
ƒ Contribute to and increase the quality of intercultural education in schools;
ƒ Use their mother tongue competences in schools;
ƒ Use their language skills and cultural experience to make an easier connection
with migrant families.

The Network supports migrant and ethnic minority teachers by:

ƒ Promoting the teaching profession and giving professional advice to pupils with a
migrant background;
ƒ Supporting network activities;
ƒ Working with universities for teacher education and ensuring recognition of
teacher diplomas form other countries;
ƒ Providing in service training to existing teachers;
ƒ Working with community bodies and industry bodies to promote transitions from
school to work.

Anderson et al (2010) argue there is a need to make the connection between pupils’
developing competence in the language of instruction and their broader educational
progress and attainment. It should not be assumed that when pupils without the
language of instruction achieve a satisfactory level of competence in the language,
their educational attainment will then match that of their peers with the language of
instruction. Subject and specialised language teachers must work together so that
instruction in academic subjects and the host country-language is coordinated (Sirova
and Essoemba, 2014).

Practitioners support in-school and between-school networking by teachers to embed

these practices. Duany (2015) reported that in the US New York schools that had
developed formal communities for teaching migrant children and developing CLIL
approaches had supported formal training and increased children’s attainment. The
schools had developed network teams in some schools, communities of practice, and
ongoing teacher education programmes.

A SIRIUS survey of national coordinators and a set of peer reviews (Severiens, 2013)
identified the following good practices to build capacity in schools for teaching in
multilingual classrooms:
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Education and Training

ƒ Professional learning communities to support teachers to collaborate and

observe each other’s classrooms as well as to reflect on and improve their
practices;
ƒ Forming networks of schools as well as relationships with centres of expertise -
to teach and assess children without the language of instruction.

Lessons for policy and practice

The evidence above indicates that:
ƒ Teachers who have received in service training believe they have benefited and
adapted their teaching practices. These have been found to improve the
language competences of children without the language of instruction;
ƒ It is also the case that teaching assistants and volunteers benefit from training
to support migrant children;
ƒ Newly qualified teachers may not have experience of teaching in multilingual
classrooms. This has to be taken account of by schools and education
authorities in the in service training they provide;

ƒ Schools and teachers benefit from the resources, networking and training
provided by specialist centres in many countries and cities in the EU;
ƒ Networking between and within schools facilitates non-formal learning by
teachers to support migrant children’s learning.
This is supported by Mägi and Siarova (2014) from their examination of support for
migrant children in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Key summary points

Teacher education in language teaching skills and cultural competences

Practitioners believe that teachers who provide language support should have

specialist training and qualifications in second‐language acquisition that is aligned with

the approaches implemented in practice. Alongside this practitioners believe that all
teachers require training to teach children without the language of instruction and to
be able to value diversity by incorporating cultural diversity within their teaching. This
should include intercultural training.

Teacher education to develop skills to support children without the language

of instruction in the classroom
There is some indicative research evidence that in-service training helps teachers to
build their capability and resources to teach children without the language of
instruction which improves the attainment of children without the language of
instruction. Practitioners strongly support this and also believe that initial teacher
training ought to be adapted given the significant and growing proportion of teachers
who will work in multilingual classrooms.

Schools and teachers benefit from the resources, networking and training provided by
specialist centres in many countries and cities in the EU. Practitioners have found that
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networking between and within schools facilitates non-formal learning by teachers to

support migrant children’s learning.

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Conclusions
In this section the key points emerging from the research literature, the advice and
practice of those working in the field, and the round table discussions of policy
makers, experts and practitioners are brought together to consider what the evidence
shows to be critical to enabling children without the language of instruction to achieve
their potential and what policy measures can make a difference. This addresses the
original research questions set out in Box 1.1 to inform this report.

Research evidence gaps

It is clear that the evidence is not always conclusive or clear cut which is a
consequence of both the methods used and the coverage of research. In all areas
where the evidence is indicative, it would be beneficial to have evaluations of policy
measures which compared children who have been subject to the measure with those
who have not over time. Where this is not ethical within a national education system
then such studies need at least to measure change. All too often the measurement in
studies is qualitative and not triangulated.

Specific gaps in the evidence are around assessment approaches during and after
reception and the extent to which children should be educated in preparatory classes
before immersion and the amount/duration of support required for immersion.
What makes a difference
While the research evidence is not comprehensive in covering all the aspects of the
educational system which can improve migrant children’s educational achievements, it
goes a long way to supporting measures targeted at children without the language of
instruction to enable them to reach their potential. There is a considerable consensus
among practitioners about the causes of such children not reaching their potential and
broad agreement to the types of solution which have been tested and in some cases
embedded in policy and practice.

What are the factors working against migrant children achieving their
potential?
The evidence here broadly confirms several of the conclusions reached in earlier
research published by the Commission (see paragraph 1.4.1 above) that the factors
which inhibit children without the language of instruction achieving their potential are:
ƒ Schools without sufficient resources and staff with competencies to support the
learning of children without the language of instruction;
ƒ Assessment tools and assessors with negative perceptions of migrant children’s
abilities which allocate more of them to lower ability tracks and special
education classes;
ƒ A lack of opportunities to develop their mother tongue competences to higher
levels.
Although the segregation of migrant children occurs widely in the EU, this is not by
itself a factor.

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What brings about higher attainment and reduced gaps in achievement and
progression?
There is conclusive evidence here that ECEC for children without the language of
instruction not only increases language competences but also long term educational
achievements; that language competences are related to achievement in other
competences; and that targeted and continued support in language learning enables
this.

There is indicative evidence supported by practitioners that the following contribute to

raising the attainment of children without the language of instruction:

ƒ Supplementary education (both formal and non-formal) in school and out of

school which includes help with homework, language learning (including
mother tongue learning), and mentoring during activities;
ƒ Immersion in mainstream classrooms with support from specialists and with
teachers who have the competences and experience to tailor teaching to
children in the class without the same level of competency in the language of
instruction;
ƒ Increasing their parents’ support and encouragement in their education,
including their development of language competences;
ƒ Developing their mother tongue competences.

There is no conclusive evidence about the length of time that children without the
language of instruction should spend in preparation classes but there is indicative
evidence that this should not be lengthy and should include a transition to immersion
with support. It should be greater for older children (NAMS) so that they make the
transition once thy have a basic competency.
What increases children’s development of their multi-lingual skills
There is indicative evidence that children without the language of instruction can
increase these skills to higher levels where:
ƒ ECEC enables them to learn their mother tongue as well as the language of
instruction;
ƒ Non-formal and informal learning opportunities enable them to use their
mother tongue;
ƒ Formal learning opportunities are available either in school or out of school to
develop their mother tongue skills which progress towards recognition in
educational achievements.
What improves inter-cultural education?
Practitioners strongly believe that intercultural education is more likely to be achieved
and achieved more quickly where schools are less segregated and children are more
rapidly immersed in mainstream classrooms. This is because this provides greater
opportunities for cultural awareness and valuing diversity through teaching and
learning.
There is indicative evidence that the following are beneficial:
ƒ Increasing all children’s cultural and linguistic awareness through both
language learning and other parts of the curriculum;
ƒ Engaging parents in the school’s activities and their children’s education;
ƒ Increasing teachers’ positive attitudes towards migrant children’s prospects and
their use of their mother tongues to learn.

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What facilitates making a difference

The table below sets out what the research evidence and practitioners point to as
enabling migrant children to achieve their potential, gain multi-lingual skills, and
become integrated. Policy makers are defined as officials and politicians in national
and local governments with responsibilities for funding education and setting legal
frameworks and standards for children’s education. Policy implementers are in schools
and education authorities who provide education to migrant children.
Table 4. Policy enablers for effective multilingual classrooms
Policy makers Policy implementers
Reception and Curriculum for language Outreach to engage migrant parents
integration learning in ECEC in ECEC and in their children’s
education
Training of staff in reception
Assessment tools for testing
centres/schools to use good
and monitoring competences
assessment methods which cover
and cognitive skills of
language as well as other subject
children without the language
competences
of instruction without bias

Bilingual staff in ECEC, outreach, and

Dispersal of children without
reception
the language of instruction to
reduce segregation and
pressure on small number of
Rapid transition from reception classes
schools
to immersion in mainstream classes
with support
Access to the Core funding for schools to Additional teaching available and
curriculum cover extra costs of reception support from teaching assistants and
and immersion of children specialist teachers
without the language of
instruction
Out of school activities with trained
mentors/volunteers
Project funding assistance for
out of school activities
providing additional Bilingual mentors and teaching
education and support assistants

Curriculum for second Materials and resources for

language learning mainstream class teachers to adapt
pedagogies

Language simplification in
assessment tests Promotion of CLIL teaching
approaches in multilingual classrooms

Promote positive attitudes about the

potential of migrant children

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Policy makers Policy implementers

Increase migrant parents’
engagement in schools and their
children’s education
Developing Flexible policies towards Longer school days/CLIL approaches
mother tongue foreign language learning to accommodate formal mother
competences which include mother tongues tongue learning
and their recognition in
school qualifications and
examinations of foreign Material and resources for mother
language competences tongue learning

Qualified mother tongue Whole school approaches to learning

teachers cultural awareness through the
curriculum including language learning

Funding for schools to

provide formal mother Support for non-formal and informal
tongue learning learning of mother tongues where it is
not possible to provide formal learning
Teacher Initial teacher training Initial teacher training to include
education curriculum to prepare intercultural training, experience in
teachers to work in multilingual classrooms and
multilingual classrooms approaches to teaching children
whose competence in the language of
instruction is lower than native
Funding for in-service children
training that supports all
teachers to teach children
whose competence in the Building the capacity and resources of
language of instruction is classroom teachers through in-service
lower than native children training and support from specialist
centres, specialist teachers in second
language acquisition, and networking
opportunities

It is recognised by practitioners that there are substantial challenges to making the

changes needed to create the conditions for migrant children to achieve their potential
because it squeezes existing resources for education and could in some Member
States require changes to curricula and assessment, admissions and teacher training.
There is also the scale of the problem which is currently growing. Against this Member
States must recognise that failing to address these challenges has longer term costs
both to society and the economy.
Where positive outcomes are being achieved this often comes from education
authorities and schools taking steps at little additional cost and then sustaining them.
These include in the examples set out in sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 above:

ƒ Drawing on the resources of specialists in education authorities to develop tools

for assessment, resources, materials and in-service training;
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ƒ Adapting classroom practice;

ƒ Offering mother tongue learning as a foreign language;
ƒ Integrating mother tongue learning into the languages curriculum and using
CLIL approaches within schools;
ƒ Training volunteers as mentors;
ƒ Encouraging young people from migrant backgrounds with mother tongue
competences to train as teachers and teaching assistants.

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ANNEXES
Annex 1 Research protocol
The tables below set out the criteria for study inclusion (Table A1), the sources to be
consulted, and the English terms used to search for journal articles held on databases
(which were translated for searches to be undertaken in French, German and
Spanish).
Table A1. The criteria for study inclusion

Characteristics of Inclusions
the literature
Time period To be agreed to build on any existing published meta-reviews
(likely to be 1995-2015)
Geography EU-28, EEA and Associate Countries, countries in North
America and Australasia with family migration and asylum
seekers
Type of publication Major Commission project reports and other Commission
outputs (e.g. legislation and Staff Working Documents)
Peer reviewed articles
Un-peer reviewed papers
Publications of research organisations / think tanks /
advocacy bodies
Member State research outputs
Population groups First and second generation immigrants who speak a
different language at home before entering the school
system
First generation immigrants who speak a different language
at home and have previously received instruction in that
language in another country
Learning settings Early education/pre-school
Formal learning at ISCED 1 to 3 (general and vocational)
Non-formal mother tongue learning
Type of policies/ Assessment and setting/streaming
interventions in scope
Outreach and intercultural education
Family interventions
Pedagogical development
Specialist linguistic teaching and classroom support
Building on mother tongue knowledge and skills
Teaching and learning Pupil overall learning outcomes (attainments)
outcomes
Pupil competence in the language of teaching and
assessment
Pupil confidence
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Education and Training

Participation in education and training to the end of ISCED 3

Participation in higher education
Employability
School integration

Table 1. Sources of material

Type of source Sources to be consulted

Journal databases EBSCO journal database, Scopus, Google Scholar;
Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC)
Specific journals Multilingual Education
International Journal of Multilingualism
International Multilingual Research Journal
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Educational Review
European Journal of Education
European Journal of Language Policy
Journal of Linguistics
Journal of Language Teaching and Research
Educational and learner OECD, PISA 2012 Results
data
OECD, Family database
Eurydice, Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in
Europe 2012
Eurydice, Key Data on Education in Europe 2012
Eurostat
Research institutions, The European Commission
networks and projects
The Lifelong Learning Programme
Sirius Network
Languages in Urban Communities, Integration and Diversity
in Europe (LUCIDE)
Languages in Europe; Theory, Policy, Practice (LETPP)
European Centre for Modern Languages - Council of Europe
eg the MARILLE project
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
The Migration Policy Group
Network for the exchange of information that serves to
motivate language learners (MOLAN)

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Type of source Sources to be consulted

The Language Centre, London School of Economics
The Languages Company, London
Zentrum für Mehrsprachigkeit und Integration (ZMI)
(Centre on Multilingualism and integration) - Köln, Germany
The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
(CARLA) – US
Centre for Language Learning Research (CLLR) – UK
Centre for Language Education Research at Aston (CLERA)
– UK
The Research Centre for Foreign Language Education
(ReFLEct) – Finland
Language and Speech Laboratory (LASLAB) – Spain
Institute of Foreign Languages – Latvia
Education interculturelle – Belgium (fr)
Developing school skills through heritage languages – City
of Gent, Belgium (nl)
VALIDIV and MARS projects – Belgium (nl)
Government and Education Ministries and educational/curriculum agencies in
government agencies TWG countries
Other stakeholders TWG delegates
Languages Database, government website and other web searches will
be conducted in relevant languages

Initial database search terms (each primary term will be combined with each
secondary term, and in turn each secondary term will be combined with each tertiary
term)

Primary AND AND

Multilingual* Teach* Integrat*
Bilingual* Educat* ‘Early school leaving’
Immigrant AND language Learn* Competenc*
Migrant AND language Instruct* Outcome
‘Foreign born’ AND language Class* Achieve*
‘Mother tongue’ Pedagog* Progress*
‘Home language’ Support Academic
Tuition Participat*
School Skill*
Pupil Confidence

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Education and Training

Child* Attain*
Young Segregat*
Assess* Stream*
Track*
Disadvantage*
Qualification
Employ*
Higher*
Perform*

89
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Annex 2 Bibliography

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English Secondary Schools: A Scoping Study, A report for Arvon by The Institute for
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96
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