Padenghe School Supports Non-EU Students with Tailored Integration Program
The first school support experience carried out by the Gruppo di sostegno socio scolastico per stranieri for a group of young non-EU residents living in Padenghe has recently concluded. An initiative promoted by the municipal administration in collaboration with the principal and teachers of the Scuola Media to provide meaningful assistance to these children born abroad.
The City Council, led by Giancarlo Allegri, decided to address the issue to enable these students to integrate into the school system successfully. It is indeed challenging to place a 10-year-old foreign student in fifth grade without at least some basic knowledge of our language.
Therefore, the councilor responsible for Services, Albino Zuliani, aimed to support these students in easing the difficult phase of integration into the educational environment. Five students attended this kind of “after-school” support program.
The students involved in the project
D. H. B., a 14-year-old from Burkina Faso (Africa), has been in Italy for about a year, is attending first year middle school, and started the support course on December 1, 1999. Both parents are foreigners.
E. R., 12 years old, from Morocco, has been in Italy for ten years; both parents are foreigners.
B., 13 years old, from Thailand, with a Thai mother and an Italian father, has been in Italy for 8 years.
M. E. and S., two siblings aged 12 and 11 from Kosovo, with both parents of Kosovan nationality, have been in Italy for six months.
H. A., 13 years old, from California, in Italy for six months, with an Italian mother and an American father.
C. R., 6 years old, from Colombia with both parents foreigners.
Methodology and objectives of the course
“Each student attending the course,” explains support teacher Elena Di Benedetto, “was individually assessed to determine their level of understanding of the language, as well as to identify any gaps in their overall school profile. The course aimed, and continues to aim, not only to provide support but also to offer genuine help in learning the subjects.”
Essentially, a tailor-made course for each student, as it varied according to their knowledge of Italian and their relationship with studying and the class grade.
“The only common goal for everyone,” concludes Elena Di Benedetto, “was to facilitate the integration of these children into Italian society through learning the language and general culture.”
Follow-up courses are planned to start next autumn. It is worth noting, to the teacher’s great satisfaction, that in just over six months of work, one student managed to enrich their personal vocabulary by as many as five hundred words.
And this is no small achievement, considering that the average daily vocabulary consists of about one thousand words.