Government, through a collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), will be rolling out two language learning initiatives that will benefit Venezuelan migrants and their host communities.
This was related on Monday by Cecilie Guerrero, UNHCR representative on the Ministry of Citizenship’s Multi-Stakeholder Committee tasked with monitoring the Venezuelan migrant situation in Guyana. Guerrero indicated that the organisation will be collaborating with the Ministry of Education to spearhead the initiatives, which are intended to help migrant children overcome the language barriers, in order to improve their communication and learning.
The first is a summer school targeting Guyanese and Venezuelan children in three Region One (Barima-Waini) communities, which will promote a two-way language exchange (English and Warrau), introduce English to Venezuelan children who are out of school, improve social cohesion between Venezuelans and host communities, and provide opportunities for outreach and communication with Venezuelan communities.
The second initiative is an English as a Second Language (ESL) training for teachers, which covers multilingual classroom techniques and ESL support for children during September to December 2019.
The project will take a community-based approach.
“These sessions will see the provision of additional training to selected teachers in the Mabaruma sub district; basic ESL techniques and knowledge; provision of techniques and exercises to encourage ESL students to interact with their classmates; the highlighting of common difficulties for students from Spanish-speaking backgrounds; guidance in conflict management and the implementation of ESL classes for non-English speaking children during the period September to December 2019,” a Ministry of the Presidency release stated.
It was noted that the initiatives were welcomed by Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix.
