Earlier this month SLC and TERM attended an ESOL-focused round table presented by the MigRefHealth Project whose work centres on tackling refugee and migrant health exclusion across North London, South London and the East of England – with clear implications for a much wider national application.
As anyone working in the sector is fully aware, ESOL is often essential in enabling refugees and migrants to access health and wellbeing services, protect mental health and be a force for community cohesion. The roundtable presented a series of findings and recommendations before spotlighting four diverse ESOL projects across the region.
MigRefHealth’s fieldwork found that limited English is one of the biggest barriers to settlement, participation and inclusion for refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant communities. Its effects reach into health, education, housing and welfare, and poor digital literacy makes them worse.
Formal and informal ESOL classes generally exist, but demand far exceeds supply. Respondents described a familiar set of obstacles:
Hong Kongers also face course fees.
Participants wanted more intensive and more frequent provision. They valued community-based classes highly, but said they had few chances to use English outside the classroom. The research also highlighted a hidden cost: informal interpreting puts a heavy load on family and community members, and particularly on women.
In short, people want ESOL that is easy to access and has enough structure and pace for them to progress. They want to reach a level of English that lets them work and take part in society. Language support and cultural understanding were both seen as important forms of empowerment.
The project’s overall recommendation is to improve access to ESOL and conversational English classes. That means simpler registration and more classes, at more levels and in more locations.
An accompanying expert report, still to be finalised and published, goes further. It calls for fundamental change to make the ESOL system fit for purpose and help migrants become part of British society. It argues that this investment pays back both financially and socially. Its main recommendations are:
The report also looks at other countries. Denmark streams learners into three tracks based on their previous education:
Germany runs separate courses for people who are not literate, for literate learners new to the Latin alphabet, and for those with limited literacy. It also has courses for young people, parents and women, for learners with particular needs, and intensive courses for faster learners.
The report makes two further points. First, informal and community courses have high social value. Second, single points of contact for central registration and assessment would make the system much easier to navigate and improve data collection.
The recommendations highlight that the financial and social return on investment is “undeniable”, citing two pieces of evidence.
These are clearly stated and powerful conclusions.
Interestingly and perhaps importantly, there are significant crossovers with the recommendations stated in the All Party Parliamentary Group on Further Education and Lifelong Learning report, Skills for life, work and place, and those made in the report of the research project ‘Evidencing the ESOL Crisis: Towards a Vision for ESOL in Scotland’, published in October and August this year respectively.
The Language of Change