Inclusive School Organization for Foreign Students in the Host Language
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: We are constantly rehearsing effective teaching approaches that may give coherent educational responses to the changing needs of our students. An inclusive education experience is presented here adapted to the specific needs detected among the compulsory secondary school foreign students that, with little or no competence in the language of instruction, are incorporated into the education system of the receiving country. Here I described language immersion classrooms as an educational resource through a practical experience carried out in a secondary school in Oviedo (Asturias, Spain). In this classroom, 108 foreign students from 12 different countries have been educationally attended in the last 7 years. In the frame of a school organization that promotes a curriculum design based on inclusive education, the classroom works on didactic strategies that reproduce practical life experiences around interculturality, co-education and the progressive autonomy of students. The pedagogical objective pursued is that pupils can join, the sooner the better, to their ordinary classrooms with a sufficient Spanish language proficiency to enable them to continue their studies properly. The results of progress prove it. The teaching methodology, based on project-based learning (PBL), generates educational synergies of cooperative learning among the students that transform this classroom into a true experience of inclusion and life. This socio-educational practice also warns about the initial and continuous training needs of teachers dealing with diversity in the classroom and the evident need for Faculties of Education to train future teachers on inclusive competences.
Source: Science Journal of Education
Author: Eduardo Dopico
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2782369059