Teaching Syrian Refugees Students

   Dealing with more than 30 Syrian refugee students in the same class, it was challenging for me to teach them English as a second language. The one gap I faced was to assess that huge number of kids. I guess what I did was a real disaster. After accomplishing one theme in the book, I usually prepared tests or quizzes to evaluate students to take grades and submit them to the administration. I wasn’t conscious that all that I’ve mentioned was called the assessment of learning or summative assessment. Later then, I became aware that I should implement the following concept in my student’s assessment. First, I must set a clear assessment purpose by indicating who will use the assessment results and how it will be used. I believe that to have a sound assessment, I should have a clear and measurable purpose. The refugee students are usually really weak in the English language especially for their speaking skills, so my main concern is to improve that skill. For me to do that, I will count on assessment for learning or what is known as a formative assessment. For example, if I’m teaching my 1st graders about the steps they should perform when “Waking up To School”, I will perform an oral pretest to figure out what students know before I start my lesson. Next, I will provide them with the necessary material by displaying posters, videos,... Then, inquiry-based learning will take place through open-ended questions and oral discussions regarding the material. At this point, I will be using the lesson’s information to help students improve their learning skills during the learning process. After several sessions of oral practice, students will prepare a 1-minute speech about what they do when they wake up as an assignment. This formative assessment will help me identify if the students were able to improve their speaking skills or not. If some didn’t, I will keep my eyes open towards improving the speaking skills of those students in the upcoming lessons.