EL Considerations for Refugee Students

Many advances have been made considering English learners within the US school system. Laws, policies, assessments, curriculum, and pedagogy have all been affected by the need to provide differentiated educational programs. Refugees are a distinct subset of EL students whose experiences have created a unique set of needs which prompted the study and assessment of approaches educators can use to meet them. This capstone conducted a comprehensive review of literature in the areas of poverty, trauma, and SLIFE to answer the question, What are effective practices for meeting the unique educational needs of refugees as EL learners? The results of the review were then compiled together to identify ideas held in common between all three topics. As a result, the effective practices identified for refugee students were: 1) know and use student backgrounds; 2) provide safety and freedom; 3) communication; 4) specific language content; and 5) methods