Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    A new wave of migrants in our classrooms: teenage refugees from south Sudan and their perceptions of learning English in Australia
    Beattie, Jane Marion Alison ( 2005)
    Worsening civil conflict in Sudan since the turn of the century has directly led to a dramatic increase in the number of Sudanese refugees arriving in Australia. Teachers are now faced with the challenge of creating an effective learning environment for a new group of migrants with whose needs, experiences, attitudes and approaches to learning they are largely unfamiliar. New and ongoing research is imperative so that teachers may appreciate the learning needs of a people whose individual and cultural experiences are so different from those of migrants from Eastern Europe and Asia who have preceded them in their move to Australia. This study aims to investigate and gain insight into the ways in which teenage refugees from south Sudan, now living in Melbourne, experience the learning of English as a second language (ESL) in Australian classrooms. The research also aims to understand their major cultural and individual characteristics, and to ascertain how these qualities shape their perceptions of learning ESL. The research takes the form of qualitative study, which involves observation of the student participants in their natural classroom setting, followed by individual interviews with seven Sudanese learners and two of their classroom teachers. Through a collection of individual case studies, this research explores the perceptions of the English language learning experiences of the seven participants. Adopting a grounded theory approach to the study allows the researcher to follow leads presented by the data, without being bound by rigid hypotheses. Based on relevant literature and previous studies, a number of initial assumptions about the Sudanese as learners were identified at the outset of the study. The findings of this research, however, contest and therefore problematise these earlier conclusions. Results indicate the observed learning behaviour of participants, as well as the insights gained through their interviews, may not be not consistent with the current stereotype of the Sudanese learner in Australia. In other words, findings indicate that the classic stereotype of the Sudanese learner is not accurate for this age group. Because of this, a disparity exists between students' expectations of pedagogy, and their teachers' actual styles and practices. It is intended the findings may offer teachers a better understanding of the Sudanese experience. Further, it is hoped that these new insights will and identify areas of classroom pedagogy that can be improved in order to create a more effective learning environment which addresses the needs of their newest group of students.