Immigrant students fare best heading quickly into classroom, OECD study shows
2015/12/18 Leave a comment
No surprise. Canada has always done well, both absolutely and in relation to other OECD countries, in immigrant education outcomes:
A sweeping new study of immigrant students around the world shows they do best in countries that bring them into regular classrooms as quickly as possible, where teachers feel comfortable working with children of different backgrounds and where extra help is offered to immigrant families — all hallmarks of GTA schools.
The 124-page report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), to be released Thursday, looks at how immigrant students in some 30 countries, including Canada, performed on a standardized test in the “3 Rs” in 2012, and concludes their success depends largely on how the host country helps them integrate in school.
“Immigrant students perform better and report feeling more accepted in some countries than others, which suggests education policy has an impact on integration,” said the report, “Immigrant Students at School: Easing the Journey towards Integration.”
It suggests the countries that best help immigrant students succeed move them into regular classrooms while giving them a crash course in their new language, rather than segregate them until they have mastered the language, as happens in some countries.
In Ontario, schools must place newcomers in a regular classroom for at least part of each day, noted Paula Markus, the Toronto District School Board’s co-ordinator of English as a Second Language (ESL).
“We don’t want to segregate children, even from the first days, because while we’re giving them English language support we know it’s important for them to get to know English-speaking peers and make friends and that helps their adjustment,” she said.
Nor should teachers in the diverse GTA be intimidated by the wave of refugees Canada is expecting, she said, “because we have the most amazing, diverse classrooms in the world here. “As Justin Trudeau said, this is 2015.”
Source: Immigrant students fare best heading quickly into classroom, study shows | Toronto Star
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Multicultural Meanderings 