Immigrant students are at risk of lower achievements in school, as they are confronted with obstacles in the school environment, which can lead to early drop-out of school and consequent limited vocational possibilities. Immigrant students are challenged with cultural and linguistic differences, at the same time, their parents are faced with the same issues as well. As the parents are usually not able to provide support to their children in terms of social adjustment and schoolwork, schools and schooling become the central factors of support in the new, host environment. National acts put few systems of support in place for immigrant students, however, there are differences and discrepancies between the actualization of these possible ways of support in practice, between different schools and institutions. As well as the students, the teachers and support staff in schools are confronted with obstacles and limitations when it comes to work with immigrant students as well – predominantly around language and communication. According to research, most teachers self-initiatively adapt the manner of teaching. Taking initiative and being proactive has been proven to be essential when working with immigrant students. At the same time, another valuable factor of successful work with immigrant students is the collaboration between teachers and support staff in the schools and including parents and partnership with them. The collaboration can happen in various forms. According to past research, teachers and school support staff express the desire for additional knowledge about teaching immigrant students.
The main goal of the research was to research the characteristics of help and support to immigrant students with learning difficulty in Slovene elementary schools on institutional and individual level (individual teachers and special education teachers), and find out, what are their points of view in terms of work with immigrant students with learning difficulties, what obstacles do they encounter, what is the collaboration between all involved like throughout the process of support and what sources of additional information do they use in connection to teaching immigrant students. We used causal non-experimental methods and descriptive methods of pedagogic research. We gathered data through a non-standardized questionnaire and interviews with primary teachers, subject teachers, and special education teachers. Research shows positive inclination and high value towards collaboration with parents of immigrant students, other professionals (other teachers, special education teachers, school psychologist and other school support staff), and immigrant students as well. However, the actualization of these positive inclinations oftentimes falls behind. The participants in the interviews emphasized the diversity between the (immigrant) students and the intertwinement of many aspects in within and outside of students, that either support or hinder progress of social integration and learning. Similar variety was encountered in terms of strategies and approaches the schools, and the teachers use to approach the immigrant students and their families. Participants report various obstacles throughout the work with immigrant students, and they use numerous ways to cope and overcome the hurdles along the way. Through the outcomes of this research, we confirm the (in literature emphasized) importance of initiative from the teachers and others involved, especially in terms of strategies at class-level and other approaches used by the schools as institutions. We conclude that teachers and special education teachers mostly collaborate with other teachers, however, there is less collaboration between teachers and special education teachers. The results point to positive orientation towards collaboration with parents of immigrant students (with learning difficulties), however, we recorded different expectations from participants towards the parents. Unfortunately, the collaboration between the teachers and special education teachers and parents mostly functions in one direction – sheerly through informing parents, without expected feedback or collaboration. In quest for additional information regarding teaching immigrant students, teachers and special education teachers mainly refer to support from other colleagues.
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