Integrating Migrants in Schools

My name is Mariella Brunazzi. I live in Crema, a small town in the north of Italy.I am a teacher
of English Language and Culture in a local vocational school called "P. Sraffa".

I teach in the course for health and social care technicians and culinary arts technicians.
In my school I am responsible for the following Projects: CLIL, Language Courses, Foreign
Language Assistants, European Projects.

I am used to working in teams and collaborating with my colleagues in order to make our
students get positive results but also to enjoy school time and learn to learn, be respectful and
open-minded.
My colleagues and I are interested in changing our teaching approach to meet the
requirements of our changing society.

P.Sraffa Secondary School is a large vocational and technical institute in the town of
Crema in the north of Italy. Attended by nearly 900 students, 123 teachers and 20 support
teachers for students with special needs, it offers courses to get vocational qualifications
(regional culinary arts courses) and practical or technical diplomas in five different areas:-
Culinary Arts and Hospitality- Health and Social Care- Commerce- Tourism- Graphics and
Communication Design. The school focuses on professional skills and in each course school
lessons alternate with periods of vocational training in local facilities to enable students to
acquire methodological and operative skills to be used in promotional, organisational and
managerial activities.

The students attending the school come from various backgrounds: working-class, middle
class, migrants, people with special needs. The classes always include pupils from different
nationalities and cultures.

MODULE 1

1.1. Challenges and Opportunities

In the second video, Prof.Dr. Hans Anand Pant of the Deutsche Schulakademie
makes the point that the integration of refugees in our school actually provides
a good opportunity to rethink schools in general and that the work required to
integrate them can be a powerful driver for innovation at schools. Do you agree
with this statement? Why (not)?

I think that the integration of refugees can be an opportunity to reflect on our teaching
methods and on how we can introduce changes to make our students better help each other,
cooperate, exchange ideas, and debate so that they can learn to take into account different
points of views and cultures. Working on projects could stimulate students to work
collaboratively, newly arrived students could have their role in the groups and having to
communicate in small groups they could be more willing to use the language of the host
country than if they were asked to speak to the whole class. Moreover while working their
peers would use their native language and they would in a certain sense teach it
spontaneously to their new mates.

1.2. Meeting the needs of newly arrived migrant students

What do you feel are the main needs of your students? Where do they and you
require support in addressing their needs? Is it dealing with trauma? Or is it
about language support? Do you also have experiences where students have
very basic needs such as those outlined by Amber? And how do you meet those?
Share your ideas and views here.

The main need of migrant students at my school is to learn the Italian language better. They
usually know some Italian but for some of them its not enough to be able to understand
lessons where specific vocabulary and language structures are required. They have some
specific Italian lessons in small groups of migrant students while their classmates have other
subjects that would be too difficult for them because of the language. Sometimes they also
need psychological support due to family problems derived from the difficulties the parents
have to find a proper job or due to living conditions that are not up to their expectations. In
this case we can meet their needs because we have a psychologist at school.

We dont have experiences of students with very basic needs such as those outlined by
Amber.

1.3 Models of school integration

How is the integration of newly arrived migrant students organized in your school? What are
 the advantages/ challenges related to the way your school organizes integration?

At my school we have students from different nations but not exactly newly arrived migrant
students. They are mainly students that have been in Italy for 1 or 2 or more years. Anyway
they need help to integrate.

The main advantage at my school is that we cater for students from various realities and
every student is used to staying with non-Italian mates so we may say as a whole the school is
open to diversity. We also have a lot of students with special needs and everyone is used to
helping the way they can. This is true in case of foreign mates as well.

The main disadvantage is that we need more support from stakeholders to be able to organize
further activities and create a stronger connection with the community.

1.4 Organising support at school level

What support do you receive from your school for your work with the newly
arrived migrants? What additional support do you need?

At my school we dont have newly arrived migrants but migrant students that have been
living in Italy for some years.

To better integrate them we would need support from

- the town councils of the villages they come from (most of them dont live in the town where
the school is and get to school by bus every morning) to organise events in their villages and
make families meet. This would help the integration of the students but also of their families;

- the town council of the town where the school is to organise events to make the local
community know about the work that is being done to integrate migrant students and create
cooperation to improve the school action;

- associations that work in this sector to get advise on how to enhance the activities at school
and outside it;

- sports organisation so that to promote sport because of the opportunities it offers to meet,
play together, and socialize.

1.5 Community-based projects

Do you have any ideas for your own community development project, inspired
 by Janas video? Could you easily adopt the RespAct project ideas at your
school? Please share your ideas and responses here.

We have projects that involve the community at school and we are reinforcing our ties with it.
Cooperation has gradually being built for years and we know the importance of strengthening
it.

MODULE 2

2.1 Preparing for arrival

Some preparation about understanding newly arrived migrant students background is

crucial to making them feel welcome and helping them learn. So to help us imagine this
diversity and as an incentive to learn more about your students' backgrounds, share here
more about your newly arrived migrant students. How many are they, where are they from,
what languages do they speak? How do they feel about being at your school? Did any of them
share their individual story with you? Of course please share your students story BUT at the
same time make sure to respect their privacy and only share what you feel he or she would be
comfortable sharing with a larger audience.

There are no newly arrived migrant students at my school but there are a lot of students from
different countries whose families migrated to Italy recently or a few years ago. These
students are from Eastern European countries, Africa, or Asia mainly India. Usually their
families leave their home countries to look for job opportunities and better life standards.
Most of the students say they miss their friends in the home country, but they wouldnt like
to go back and live there. During lessons we take advantage of the diversity we have in our
classes to organize activities where the different customs and traditions may be discussed
and compared (preparation of traditional dishes during cooking lessons its a hotel school)
or where migrant students can teach some basic vocabulary in their own language and talk
about significant aspects of their culture.

2.3 Supporting specific needs

Did you experience that your newly arrived migrant students had difficulties
you struggled helping them with? Would you know where to find help for them
or is that difficult to organize in your school/country? Share your stories here.

At my school if students have problems because its difficult for them to integrate and the
change has resulted in a sort of trauma for them there is a counsellor who has been working
with migrant students for years who supports them. We also ask for help to the religion
teachers. They know each students story and also their family problems because they work
in strict connection with the local parishes and are always willing to collaborate.

2.4 Classroom activities

Share at least one concrete ideas for classroom activities that you either already
tried or would like to try in your own classroom. In addition, can you think of
an activity that could help your regular students to be prepared to learn
together with newly arrived migrants? You can also take inspiration from
Erikas webinar on the topic.

Here are some activities we had to learn aspects of the culture of our migrant students:

1 students from the same countries prepared a lesson to teach basic vocabulary of their
mother tongue to their classmates;

2- students talked about festivals in their countries and a comparison with Italian festivals
was made;

3- migrant and Italian students interviewed their parents to discover games from the past.
Italian and foreign games were compared and a lot of similarities were found. Students
realized they have common roots.

2.5 Supporting language learning

There is a lot of material available online to teach Italian to migrant students:

http://www.robertosconocchini.it/l-2/1162-italiano-per-stanieri-materiali-didattici.html

http://italianoperstranieri.loescher.it/materiale-didattico/video-didattizzati

http://parliamoitaliano.altervista.org/studiare-italiano/

http://parliamoitaliano.altervista.org/studiare-italiano/

2.6 Classroom community building

We have an Erasmus+ project about the educational value of sport and a lot of activities we
are testing to help student feel part of a team and cooperate are suited to helping migrant
students to integrate. Sport is great to try to build your classroom community.