2.4 My experience as a professor in an institute with immigrants  (Page 5/8)

For this reason, we propose that the actions taken upon immigrants be integral. That is to say that it not only takes care of the immigrant student, but that it also keeps in mind the integration of the adults by means of an adapted formation (the knowledge of the second language and the knowledge of the operation of the scholastic system and the institutions of their surroundings).

Another characteristic that is observed in the centers in regards to problems of integration is the tendency to sometimes spatially separate the immigrants from the rest of the class. This may seem, from the point of view of educative methodology, as a positive learning strategy. It seems to project the integration of the collective immigrant by forming groups of exclusively native students where the number of immigrant students predominates. This could be an approach to developing tolerance and interculturalism: to allow a group of students from the same foreign country to numerically dominate; then subtly integrate them to the point where there is reciprocal exchange between them and native students. Classroom space is organized based on the ethnic group and gender: Moroccans and non-Moroccans, boy and girls. The only occasions in which they share desks with native students are when that native student has also been discriminated against due to some physical or mental disability. In common spaces like the patio, the same established premises are usually repeated. In order to alleviate or diminish this disintegration that could develop comparative prejudices among the students, this tendency must be broken.

Commonly proposed to teachers, as was the case in my own experience, is to use a prescriptive curriculum. This suggestion shows a lack of faith in teachers, that they are not capable of creatively fulfilling certain objectives or criteria. This way of thinking must be deconstructed, as this model of instruction quickly collapse in real-life classrooms. One’s own occupation or experience determines how to teach at every moment, since there is no possibility for generalized positions for classrooms with diverse students such as these. This knowledge does not come immediately, but happens with the everyday educational practice.

To come to an understanding as to what teaching strategies will be most effective, it is necessary to keep in mind what the student’s educative experience in Morocco must have been. The teacher must approximate what the student studied and know; what they want to know, and how they approach new material. I soon realized the richness of educating students from mainly two cultures, Moroccan and Spanish. In class speak of history, art, and geography by focusing on the well-known contributions their own country has made in those areas. The professor is enriched and participates in the culture of the immigrant, while the rest of the classmates have a greater knowledge of the reality of their country, seas, rivers, history, art, and literature. These expositions could be dealt with in their own language or in the one they have to learn to share with rest of the students as a form of socio-cultural interchange. This method is used when Spanish students study a second or third language, whether it is English, French or German, approaching historical, geographic, artistic, and traditional aspects of each country in the mentioned languages.