Some countries initially place immigrant students in specific preparatory reception classes within regular education institutions before entering the mainstream classroom. These classes often focus on language learning and are used in about half of European OECD countries as well as in Japan. The idea is to teach late arrivals a minimum level of the language of instruction and to help them adapt to their new school environment before they transit to the mainstream classroom. Other countries immediately place recently arrived immigrant students into mainstream classrooms but ease their integration by providing additional language and content support beyond the regular curriculum. Poland, for example, provides up to five weekly hours of remedial instruction in Polish language and other core subjects to migrant youth with limited Polish language skills, for a maximum of 12 months following their arrival. Similar schemes exist in Hungary and Luxembourg. In Portugal, for instance, students with Portuguese language needs enrol in Portuguese as a second language classes and schools can benefit from additional teaching staff for this purpose. In cases with less than ten students with Portuguese language needs at a given school, students attend regular classes, but follow a specialised curriculum and benefit from support language classes. Besides, the Ministry of Education, in partnership with schools and the Portuguese Language Cyberschool, has developed distance courses in Portuguese as a second language (OECD, 2018[2]).
Postponing teaching of the curriculum until students master the language of instruction is controversial. Critics suggest that immigrant students fall even further behind their non-immigrant peers in such a settling and that language learning integrated in academic education is more efficient (Nusche, 2009[35]; Karsten, 2006[36]; OECD, 2010[5]). However, a certain adaption period is generally necessary for students who do not speak the language and/or face other obstacles. Fixed maximum durations of reception classes and tailored approaches ensure that immigrant students do not get stuck. Reception classes can, for example, start as a full-time support programme and phase out as students gradually integrate into mainstream education. In Sweden, for instance, migrant youth undergo an assessment of their level of academic knowledge within two months of arrival. Based on this assessment, the school decides on the student’s grade and placement in either introductory (separate) or regular classes. Further, the school designs an individual education plan covering Swedish language and core academic subjects. The transition to mainstream education follows on a subject-by-subject basis. Foreign-trained mother-tongue tutors or language teachers are more and more common as teachers in reception classes, including recently arrived migrants themselves. This approach, a part of Sweden’s ‘fast-track’ integration pathways for certain professions, enables migrant teachers to obtain employment while their foreign teaching qualifications are being assessed for official recognition. A similar programme exists in Norway.
Outside of reception or language classes, several countries provide targeted support offers of a more generic orientation type. In Canada, schools run school readiness programmes, such as a ‘Newcomer Orientation Week’ (NOW) for immigrant and refugee high school students and ‘Welcome & Information for Newcomers’ (WIN) for elementary and junior high school students. The programmes introduce newcomer students to facilities, routines and policies, and provide contacts and support before the academic year starts. Teachers, settlement workers and peer leaders provide mentorship to build relationships, reach academic goals, enhance social and language skills, and connect with the broader community. A similar programme exists in Australia, where newly arrived immigrant students can take part in a peer-led youth orientation called ‘Settle Smart’. The programme connects newcomers with peer educators of the same age, who inform about education pathways and social life in Australia.
In addition to language of instruction and orientation support, some OECD countries also enable students with migrant parents to learn their parents’ native languages at school. Austria, for example, provides systematic training in some origin languages. Instruction of the language of the origin country of the parents is offered as an optional subject voluntarily at primary and secondary schools and taught between two and six hours per week. In the school year 2015/16, 32 900 students participated in such instruction. The vast majority were in primary school, where more than a quarter of all students with another mother tongue than German attended instruction in the language of parental origin. In Belgium, key origin countries support the extra-curricular language training. The programme ‘Opening to Languages and Cultures’ (OLC) enables children to study Chinese, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese and Romanian two hours per week in addition to the regular curriculum. Courses are open to all students in primary and secondary schooling irrespective of their nationality and cover language and culture of the origin country. Parental origin countries recruit and pay for teachers. This, however, results in limited possibilities for oversight of the host-country educational institutions.
