The other face of the iceberg: The immigrant students in English courses and their teachers

Abstract

The present qualitative study aimed to provide some insights from common difficulties English language teachers face while working with immigrant children. The research adopted a Grounded Theory design. The data were collected from 6 female English language teachers working at different types of state schools by using semi-structured in-depth interviews. Interviews were first transcribed and emerging categories were analyzed. The findings showed that difficulties experienced at each school type were different. Teachers developed various strategies to be able to cope with these difficulties. Based on the data and the findings of the study, a number of recommendations were provided by the researchers and the participating teachers. It is assumed that the participating teachers’ experiences explored and discussed in this paper will provide baseline information for those teachers who have newly encountered the phenomenon in their teaching contexts.

Keywords

• English language course
• Turkish schools
• Immigrant students
• Teaching immigrants
• ICC

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