How can we make ‘International Women’s Group’ better? What insight can be gained from collecting informal feedback online from refugee learners of ESOL?

Smith, Amna (2024) How can we make ‘International Women’s Group’ better? What insight can be gained from collecting informal feedback online from refugee learners of ESOL? Language Issues, 34 (2), 67-69.

Record type: Article

Abstract

There is a focus on ESOL provision to educate women in vulnerable communities (Pennachia et al., 2018). The research in progress will investigate feedback data from an informal ESOL class in the east of England. This comes from a need for research on refugee ESOL learners and the barriers they face in education (Stewart & Schaffer, 2021). The class provides basic ESOL instruction for refugee and asylum-seeking women. Volunteer teachers, creche works and paid members of staff from a local charity run the service. Women who attend the group come from a BAME background, in the east of England. Approximately forty women meet each week, their ages range from 18 to 60 years old. It is notoriously difficult to gain feedback from refugee learners as individuals are reticent to criticise services that they receive for free. There is a great paucity of research on refugee learners and how to teach them (White, 2021).

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