Adaptation of Conventional Technologies with Refugee Language Learners: An Overview of Possibilities

The Smartphone as a Personal Cognitive Artifact Supporting Participation in Interaction

“…On the other, the possible uses of the phone are also defined by the applications downloaded on it. The touch screens and flexible keyboards of smartphones have been identified as affordances that facilitate the use of smartphones by users with emergent literacy (Artamonova & Androutsopoulos, 2020; Smyser, 2019). Pettitt (2017) has also shown that in a classroom context, the pictorial and video resources as well as the spoken‐language applications of the smartphone were central for L2 students with emerging literacy.…”

An Overview of Mobile Learning for Refugee Students: Juxtaposing Refugee Needs with Mobile Applications’ Characteristics

“…Such heterogeneity adds to the complexity of refugee education and needs to be taken into account. Several researchers have introduced various factors that challenge refugee education [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. In this article, a selected number of factors, including a prior model (see Figure 1) associated with refugee learning, were reviewed and summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Place of residence [22,25] Lack of language literacy in their native language [26] Mental health issues and psychological situation [22,24] Cultural background [22,32,33] Absence of a coherent curriculum and non-qualified teachers [26] Health issues [23] Lack of acquisition of the host-country language-Language barrier [21,22,24] Dealing with traumatic experiences [30,31] Issue of lost documents and difficulty in recognizing prior educational award papers [21] Low levels of acquisition of English language [22] Lack of family and social network support [24] Family's educational and socio-cultural background [34] High academic requirements of school subjects-Inappropriate educational material and texts for students with low levels of literacy [35] Lack of digital literacy skills [27][28][29] High socio-cultural requirements of school subjects [30,35] All the gathered factors were classified into five key categories (a. living conditions, b. learning needs, c. emotional needs, d. socio-cultural differences, and e. educational system of the refugee host country), all of which will be analyzed below (see Table 1).…”

“…The "language barrier" is particularly challenging for students, who usually are accepted in the host country's formal educational system, but with no or little knowledge of the instruction language in schools, the chances of falling behind are rising [21,24]. Lastly, although digital literacy skills seem to be essential in the 21st century, refugee women and children may lack such proficiency [27][28][29]. Due to socio-cultural and financial reasons, some refugee families may have only one mobile device, which usually belongs to their male heads.…”

“…Learning based on students' needs and interests can be cultivated, since students' levels can be detected through mobile learning applications, and students can make progress at their own pace [20,85]. In refugee students, understanding their lack of specific skills and knowledge and providing help in scaffolding during their effort seems to have beneficial outcomes [29].…”