Vocabulary Teaching in Refugee Children within the Context of the Greek Formal Education

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate vocabulary teaching in children with refugee backgrounds. The effectiveness of three vocabulary interventions—flashcards, pantomime, and use of contextual cues—is examined within the context of formal primary education in Greece. The improvement of the children’s vocabulary is also assessed in association with factors related to the students’ background as well as factors related to the words taught. Thirty-three pupils from the second to the sixth primary school grade attended the teaching interventions. Their first languages are Arabic, Farsi, and Kurdish. According to the results, flashcards and pantomime significantly improve children’s second language vocabulary skills, while this finding does not apply to the intervention involving contextual cues. Age is found to play a role only in the latter intervention, while the effectiveness of no intervention was influenced by word category.

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“…Online classes disrupted traditional curriculum delivery. As well, students were restricted from taking part in regular school activities (e.g., arts programs), which generally help second-language vocabulary learning (Olioumtsevits et al, 2022); they also lost their familiarization with nonverbal practices common in formal school settings, which also tend to promote rapid language acquisition (Simopoulos & Magos, 2020). Research has found that the in-person formal learning experiences of refugee children in Greece were among their happiest moments since arriving in the country.…”