What we want to do now is to examine the key elements for understanding literacy with a focus on teachers. In this session, I want to focus on the profile of teachers and language services. In our project arrival we have interviewed teachers from four different receiving countries, Spain, Poland, Italy and Germany. The recruitment of teachers and their profiles as well as the teaching styles and the language services are surprisingly similar in the four countries examined, regardless of the specific differences of each country. The main objective of the session is to present an overall view of the profile of the teachers and language services for migrants and refugees and the receiving societies. But also to summarize which teaching styles are highlighted by the educators of the different countries. When teachers with experience and language services for migrants express what they believe to be the best qualities for good teaching, they make clear they share similar views. Regarding recruitment, we have found that teachers and language services for migrants and refugees come in the majority from educational provisions. And from activism and volunteering in the areas of migration and integration. Most of them have had some training in language teaching but not all of them have had this kind of training, especially when the service depends on a large number of volunteers. Probably because of this less formal way of recruitment. The service attracts a kind of professional who's sensitive to the students needs and critical of the structural inequalities affecting migrants and refugees. However, teachers and language services for migrants and refugees also show insecurities because of a lack of training and multilingual pedagogies. And then migration, which makes it more difficult to develop methodologies based on the query language strength. A stronger training in these aspects could better address issues such as the deficit perspective, which migrants often experience. On the other hand, this lack of training and migration can make them susceptible to adopting an ethnocentric approach. It is for example, common for there to be a gender blind approach and the language services. With not enough of Anna's of the Discrimination that women experience in the receiving country while focusing just on gender issues associated with the students on cultures. If you think about Parveen whose migratory experiences we have been discussed before. It seems obvious that barriers to socio economic integration are directly related to gender issues and the receiving country. But teacher training is extremely important because their performance can make a great difference to the students learning. As pointed in this quote teachers are among the most powerful influences in learning. Teachers initiate and accompany learning processes and therefore they are indispensable for language learners. Apart from the training and migration language teachers stress how important it is to have experience of teaching their mother tongue as a second language. And to also have taught literacy the same way, an academic background related to education and linguistics can be very helpful. Specific training and language teaching should make teachers aware of the problems of learning a foreign language. In line with this it can be beneficial if teachers have learned a foreign language themselves. That can help them be more sensitive to students needs and to better understand the difficulties in learning. If we think about our own difficulties and challenges learning a foreign language, we can empathize much more with the learning process. Being trained in didactics helps the teachers draw on a range of different teaching methodologies and create materials and methods according to the students needs. Structure is one of the most important things in language lessons in order for students to understand the structure of the language. Since language learning is not an assimilated process, language lessons need to be structured in such a way that they enable the opening of new cognitive patterns. If the content and the way it is taught are not reproducible, the learner will not learn adequately. For this it is also very important to create significant exercises connected with their daily life, which can project them into real situations and also give them the appropriate motivation. Participating in workshops to exchange experiences is therefore necessary to keep learning from others experiences. It is also very important to be aware of the particular aspects of the target language, which are not necessarily shared by the students languages. For example, to teach the Polish language and knowledge of phonetics is required. Or in order to teach the German language, teachers need to know the difficult phoneme graphing assignment. Knowing some, the general grammar or phonetic rules of students languages can also be very beneficial to understand some mistakes which could otherwise be easily interpreted from a deficit perspective. For example, the phonetic confusion among Arabic speakers of the Spanish E and I can be understood when it is known that this distinction doesn't exist in Arabic. If one doesn't know that, one may think that the person has some learning difficulty or even low motivation. However, probably just as important as experience and appropriate academic training is a compendium of personal qualities. For instance, in order to create an interesting and motivating lesson, it is also helpful to be an open and outgoing person. Being empathetic, expressive and creative enough to be able to prepare the teaching spaces with materials that help the learning processes. Probably the most important thing, equality is empathy, teachers need to know their students well and understand their needs. For instance, they need to know about the student's previous education to be able to assess learning strategies and pace. There's a wide range between students beginning with those who have not attended school or only for a short time. In their home country to those who have already have an academic background. Teaching students who have not learned the alphabet and their mother tongue is different to teaching students who have already learned a written language. Knowing this will help teachers to create an adequate setting, choosing valuable materials and methods. Which might help them to be aware of and address their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, teachers should know about their students living conditions. Often this helps them to understand certain behaviors in class such as the motivation nervousness or tiredness. A living conditions and backgrounds of the students also help to understand the student's aims, and why it is necessary for them to learn the language. And teachers can connect their learning contents to the student's living environment as you said before. Knowing about their backgrounds also makes teachers aware of people's fears and worries. They need to treat them with sensitivity and create a learning environment they feel comfortable with in order to facilitate learning. In order to understand the students attitude towards learning to write, teachers need to consider the following aspects. Fast. If almost everyone can write in a student's mother tongue, the students would see it as a deficiency, not to be literate and I would be very important to work in the self esteem and confidence Have that student. Second, if women have less opportunity to access literacy in their country of origin, they especially value the chance to learn, to read and so they might be particularly motivated. And third, it is also important to consider if there may have been traumatic experiences regarding learning, for example, if they've experienced punishments for making mistakes while learning in the past. Keeping these aspects in mind, might help teachers understand students learning behaviors and strategies. For overcoming linguistic barriers, and for building a relaxed atmosphere which helps students to feel in a safe environment. It is very helpful to show proximity, and to be expressive since the body is an instrument of communication. Teachers can and need to use it to explain unknown words, body language helps students to memorize contents, teachers also need to speak clearly. Finally, another important quality is creativity. Especially due to the lack of suitable material available, teachers need to be open, to exploring different materials at a multimodal approach, using visual materials, and different means of communication. For teaching literacy, that's often only material for primary school pupils. Some of this material cannot be used for teaching in adults, we talked about this no child has materials please. Therefore, it's important to be creative and restructure given materials. And methods or to develop new ones to work within class, according to the age group and their interests and goals. Let's now reflect on what the session has presented through the following questions. The more you know your students, the better you can prepare your lessons according to your students needs. Start by making a list and writing down at least two expects You know about each of your students. Age living conditions, previous knowledge, personal goals, professional goals, anything. Second, now note down topics for your lessons, that relate to the information on your students. This might help you to consider your students interests and needs. Third, can you now work out, vocabulary fields, based on the topics you found? Since body language is very important, take your vocabulary list and try to mean the words in front of a mirror. Also ask friends or relatives if they understand understand your means. And finally, reflect on the impact that a lack of training and migration and multilingual pedagogies can have on students learning. [MUSIC]
