"Immigrant mums: The importance of parent involvement for student success" door Wytzia Raspe

 For my course in teaching I have to write essays every fortnight. This is essay no 2

All illustrations are sheets from the course Foundations of Teaching for Learning 8: Developing Relationships by the Commonwealth Education Trust https://www.coursera.org/learn/teacher-relationships/home/week/4

Introduction

Normally I teach about immigration and immigration law to grown-up students so the part of the course about the relationship between the teacher and the pupil's parents did seem not that useful for me. However I realised that our Dutch society has now many families in which one or even two of the parents are immigrants. The mum's mostly raise their young children but have not mastered Dutch themselves so what they do is they teach their children their own native language and then wait for the school to teach them proper Dutch. This can result in a huge learning disadvantage for children. Another aspect is that especially refugees will not that easily find themselves a job and thus be less a role model for their children proving education is a useful tool and working hard at school might land you a fun job later.

Languagetraining

In our homework of this week we saw that we learn most of our words very early on and before we go to school.

What can parents do?

Of course the parents can go (and should go) to language lessons. But one does not learn a language properly in a year. It is said it takes up to seven years to be able to speak it like a native. So what can the parents do to make sure their children are not starting school with difficulties because they hardly speak the language?
A) Read to your children in Dutch
By doing that you can kill two birds with one stone, or as we say in The Netherlands “kill two flies with one bang”. As for most immigrant mums their level of Dutch reading will be children's books so reading those they will be able to manage. By hearing those stories their children can absorb the Dutch language. At the same time the parent will teach his or her offspring that reading a book is fun. Helping your child to enjoy reading will help him or her to become successful in school.
When a home has books around – even if they are novels in the mother language of the parents and children's books in Dutch – for the child reading will seem a normal thing to do. It will also help the child later on with enlarging their vocabulary in Dutch by reading.
B) Invest in reading material
I have been reading my Donald Duck comic-magazine to my young Turkish neighbour for years and at school they saw him improve. His parents invested a lot in buying him age appropriate books and his own subscription on Donald Duck. Now he is one of the best in his class.

What can schools do?

Nowadays a lot of the Dutch elementary schools are situated in the same building as the local library (Brede School-concept). I can see whole classes being marched to the library to borrow books. What however the local school also did was offer language courses to the mothers who had children in that school.

What can libraries (in cooperation with the local government or Refugee Aid) do?

A library could start a bookclub for young mums where they can borrow and discuss books in basic Dutch or their own language.

Get a job

School really like to see parents involvement. They can use the benefits of that as a carrot to get parents involved in schools.
As for some of the migrant-parents getting themselves a paid job might prove a bit difficult at first, then see if you as a migrant can land yourself a nice volunteering spot. Maybe at the school of their children or maybe somewhere else. But it will create stability at home and act as a role model for the children and the parent will benefit from it as it will help to land that paid job.
You can hear a lot of dropouts say “Why would I study as I will not get a job”. Prove them wrong and show that to children!

iAll illustrations are sheets from the course Foundations of Teaching for Learning 8: Developing Relationships by the Commonwealth Education Trust
https://www.coursera.org/learn/teacher-relationships/home/week/4

Hier staat het artikel: https://lnkd.in/ewcYi3d

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