Yasmine-EN

Hi, I am Yasmine

I am nearly 13 and I live in Edinburgh for a few months. I drew myself in 3 colors because I speak Arabic at home and use to learn it at school in Syria (though it was not exactly the same language) and some Turkish and French.

I stopped schools during nearly a year when there was war. There was too much trouble in Syria to go to school frequently. I am completely lost now because I do not understand anything in class. I feel stupid here but I used to be very good at school in Syria.

In French I understand quite well the lessons but most of the time the teacher speaks English and mostly make us listen to French CD or videos. I do not understand. I can see my teacher does not know what to do to help me but, at the same time, I can notice she does not really like if some students help me with Arabic or even Turkish words.

Hi! My name is Yasmine, I am nearly 13 and I live in Edinburgh for a few months now. I drew myself in 4 colors because I speak Arabic at home and used to learn it at school in Syria. Actually it was not exactly the same language but, learning English I was able to see there are differences between oral and academic written skills. I learned some Turkish and French too before and it proved very useful. In fact, I could continue French in Edinburgh and the fact the teacher could tell what to do in French made me feel at ease. I could understand something at last (the instructions). My French was useful because many words are similar to English and thanks to intercomprehension activities I was able to understand many words in little time. What a relief !

I was so lost and sad at the beginning, I felt relieved my teacher showed me how confident and patient she was regarding my abilities. I could express my feeling from the very beginning thanks to specific sentences and drawings the teacher told me and it made me more relax.

Because I know how to tell a story, to explain things and argue and describe in the Arabic academic way, there was no big deal in transferring all these skills.

I can see my teacher did all she could to help everybody to help me and I am happy now to help them with my skills in other languages that can help the others to understand better English and French.

SCOTLAND

CHALLENGES

RESOURCES

Transforming

Recently immigrated

Yasmine immigrated to Edinburgh, Scotland just as few months ago from Syria. She previously lived for 2 years in Turkey while her father was working there.

Yasmine does not understand what is going on in class

Activities that could be done by Yasmine :

(be aware of her own bilingualism)

http://tinyurl.com/lang-repertoires

Work with a multilingual dictionary like

No command of the language of schooling

http://www.freelang.com/dictionnaire/index.php

War experiences

Yasmine has had interrupted schooling for nearly a year because of war

Yasmine feels lost in class because she does not speak or understanding English and what is expected of her in class is very different than in her prior experiences of schooling in her home country.

Profile 3

YASMINE

Activities that could be done by the teachers :

Watch a short film about Moses :

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/immersion

http://tinyurl.com/lang-experience

(to be able to understand Yasmine’s experience of ESL)

http://tinyurl.com/assessing-lang

(to be aware of various competencies in various languages, oral and written skills)

Skills in 2 foreign languages

Strong oral and written skills in L1

Yasmine has previously taken Turkish and French through her prior schooling in Turkey and Syria.

Yasmine has good oral and written skills in Arabic. She has the ability to engage in abstract thinking and has been trained in classical Arabic in Syria.

Yasmin does not transfer her abilities in other languages or rely on intercomprehension

Activities that could be done by Yasmine :

http://www.iamplurilingual.com/

• Activities on identity texts

• Try and activate links between languages :

https://www.youtube.com/v/C874sN1_1WA?autoplay=1&rel=0

Activities that could be done by the teachers :

• Information on Arabic language :

(and also activities)

http://lgidf.cnrs.fr/node/272

Uses L1 at home

Yasmine speaks in Arabic with all of her family at home.

Our multilingual world