Abstract
Welcoming more than 1.7 million refugee and asylum-seeker children, Turkey has put a considerable effort in turning this tragedy into an advantage for these children in terms of their education. Language teaching has played a remarkable role in this effort. Turkey has offered both Turkish and English language courses to these people. Considering the significance of English as a global language for social integration and future studies, this study attempted to investigate young Syrian refugee students’ attitudes toward English language and their reasons to learn English. Moreover, their perspectives were compared with Turkish young learners. Thirty-eight Turkish and 26 Syrian 5th graders (aged 10–11) voluntarily participated in this study. The findings indicated that learning English makes Syrian students happy, whereas Turkish students enjoy the fun activities in English classes. Learning English is considered both relatively easy and important by both groups. Turkish and Syrian young learners’ reasons to learn English differed slightly. Suggestions were provided for refugee young learners to overcome the potential problems regarding language learning.
Highlights
The refugee crisis has been among the major recent issues dominating political debates in today’s world (Savaşkan, 2019)
Despite the abundancy of studies dealing with the general educational problems they are facing, their English language learning, which may be significant for their future life, has been neglected. Considering this fact, this study aims to investigate the attitudes of Syrian refugee students studying in a Turkish public school toward English language
The findings will be revealed under two subsections: learners’ attitudes towards English and their reasons to learn English
Summary
The refugee crisis has been among the major recent issues dominating political debates in today’s world (Savaşkan, 2019). It is still a considerable problem, since 27.5 million new people were forcibly displaced from their homes from 2009 to 2018, reaching a total of 70.8 million people around the world (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2019). Despite the best efforts of Turkey in increasing the number of Syrian refugee children that receive formal education to 684 253, 400 000 of them are still out of school (Regional Refugee & Resilience Plan, 2020). Considering the low school enrollment, especially in the upper levels, and the decreasing hopes of returning these refugee children to their home country, the need to take serious steps in order to meet their vital educational needs, as well as such basic needs as food and safety, has emerged (Soylu, Kaysılı & Sever, 2020)
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