Case Studies

Name of the teacher

Asta Jankauskienė

Email:

Country:

Lithuania

Subject taught:

Lithuanian language

Years of experience:

22

Name of the School:

Gedminai progymnasium

School Typology:

Lower Secondary School

Country:

Lithuania

City:

Klaipeda

Web site:

Background and Context:

Klaipeda Gedminai progymnasium is located in a port city. 888 students study in this school and 17 students who came from foreign countries. It is mainly children of mixed marriages (Lithuanian and foreign citizens).

Factual Description:

Since I did not have any experience working with students who came from abroad, it was a challenge to teach the 5th grade boy who came from the United Arab Emirates to learn Lithuanian language in which he almost could not speak.
I wanted the boy to learn as soon as possible to communicate in Lithuanian language because it could help him adapt in the school that has different physical, cultural, linguistic and social environment than it was in his native country. I realized that the first thing is to get to know the student's previous environment, experience, and understanding.

Activities carried out:

Individual lessons were designed to achieve this objective. As neither colleagues nor I did not have the experience of working with a student of foreign origin, I have itself been looking for methods and a system how to influence the teaching. I have been reading the educational pedagogical literature and was very interested in other countries teachers' experiences. I really contributed to the fact that first I tried to get to know the boy, his former sociocultural environment, his needs, interests and aspirations. He has learned new words, grammatical forms by telling about himself a lot - we used a mind map to make it easier to express thoughts. During these lessons, I taught the topics related with the child's former residence and learning environment, at the same time I familiarized the students with our school culture. We discussed communication norms, customs, traditions, daily life, human relations, and the originalities of non-verbal expressions that are common in Lithuania. I paid the particular attention to language etiquette, culture, as the differences of linguistic expressions differences (in English and Lithuanian languages) were initially difficult to understand. So personal, cultural, social cognition has been integrated into the Lithuanian language teaching. The following methods were also very useful: interviews, concept maps, channel switching, treasure, ladybird, name history, alphabetical dialogue, and role-plays. When the student have learned to speak Lithuanian, he, like other class members prepared presentations about his hobbies, family, country, school, and demonstrated them to his classmates who asked many questions, because they wanted to know more about a new friend.
To make his integration more effective, the pupil was invited to participate in the international program Erasmus + project "We are children, we are the world." The student had the opportunity to get to know our country's culture and make friends participating in informal activities and at the same time to learn more about other European countries (Greece, Croatia, Romania), Turkey, their history, their culture; to participate in learning activities, to interact with peers from the other countries. During the project 3 progymnasium community events were held (which were attended by students, their parents, teachers, administrators), where students presented their country's history, traditional cuisine, the most interesting facts about the country, folk songs, dances and games in the various forms.
- Individual lessons.
- General lessons.
- Participation in various activities of the international project.

Assessment and lesson learnt:

All selected measures have helped the student very quickly and easily integrate into our school learning in a completely different education system and successfully communicating and collaborating with peers, teachers, engaging in school events as well. The student has learned the language (freely to express himself verbally) within two months. The boy’s mother also helped him achieve these excellent results because she actively communicated with the teachers, she supported and promoted the son and participated in the organized school events herself.
It was a great experience, in order to maximize the impact while teaching children who come from abroad.

Description of the Case Study in National Language: