18. The Needs of Low-Literate Migrants When Learning the English Language

Monica Mascarenhas’s chapter, ‘The Needs of Low-Literate Migrants When Learning the English Language’ (Ch18), offers an insider account of research into the lives of migrants attending a college English course, to see if such teaching could be made to better suit the needs of learners as the present system is ineffective, although utilitarian. She collects the life stories of a number of migrants and realizes that if teachers were able to focus on the individual there would be much greater opportunity to enable language learning. Importantly, she finds that those with limited prior literacy, lack the necessary grasp of concepts, contexts and literate thinking necessary to be able to learn English, rendering the classes ineffective and highlighting the need for change.