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Language education of adult immigrants in Greece: current trends and future developments M. Mattheoudakis

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School of English , Aristotle University of Thessaloniki , Greece Published online: 23 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: M. Mattheoudakis (2005) Language education of adult immigrants in Greece: current trends and future developments, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 24:4, 319-336, DOI: 10.1080/02601370500169210 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02601370500169210

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INT. J. OF LIFELONG EDUCATION, VOL. 24, NO. 4 (JULY-AUGUST 2005), 319–336

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Language education of adult immigrants in Greece: current trends and future developments M. MATTHEOUDAKIS School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece International 10.1080/02601370500169210 TLED116904.sgm 0260-1370 Original Taylor 402005 24 School M.Mattheoudakis [email protected] 00000July–August and & ofArticle Francis English print/1464-519X Francis Journal Group Department Ltd 2005 of Lifelong Ltd online of Education Theoretical and Applied LinguisticsAristotle University of Thessaloniki546 21 ThessalonikiGreece

The increasing number of immigrants living and working in Greece has proven to be a challenge for the social as well as educational policy of this country. In order to help adult immigrants to integrate into society and facilitate their access to the job market, the Greek state has introduced special language education programmes. This paper discusses the current trends in Greece regarding immigrant language education and presents findings of a survey which aimed at exploring immigrants’ language needs and preferences. The results of this survey indicate a high interest by immigrants in learning Greek but a very low level of enrolment on and attendance of language courses. As a knowledge of Greek is necessary to improve immigrants’ socio-economic and professional status, it is suggested that cooperation between immigrant associations and educational policy-makers is necessary for the design of successful language programmes and the promotion of Greece’s policy of integration.

National context and historical background The sudden rise of immigration into Greece spurred by the political changes in Eastern Europe has been a historical phenomenon with major economic, sociopolitical, cultural and educational consequences (Emke-Poulopoulou 1992, Damanakis 2000, Lazaridis and Psimmenos 2000, Psimmenos 2001). The large influx of immigrants and the ensuing changes at a national level have proven to be challenging for both the Greek state and society. Due to the illegal immigrant population, it is impossible to know the exact number of immigrants in Greece. According to the 2001 population census the total number stood at 762,000, but it is estimated that their actual number ranges between 800,000 and 1,000,000, while the total population in Greece is almost 10 million. The majority of immigrants come from Albania and countries of the former Soviet Union (in bold in Table 1). This immigrant population is striving to adjust and integrate into the new society, while the state is struggling, on the one hand, to address their needs in order to create suitable conditions for their smooth transition to a foreign culture and, on the other, to help Greek citizens adjust to a new socio-cultural and economic reality. M. Mattheoudakis is a lecturer in Applied Linguistics, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Postal address: Ethnikis Amynis 16, 546 21 Thessaloniki, Greece; e-mail: [email protected]. International Journal of Lifelong Education ISSN 0260-1370 print/ISSN 1464-519X online © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/02601370500169210

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Table 1.

Immigrants into Greece by nationality (2001 census)


Nationality Albanian EU Bulgarian Georgian Rumanian American Russian Cypriot Ukrainian Polish Pakistani Australian Turkish Armenian Egyptian Indian Iraqi Philippino Canadian Moldavian Syrian Bangladeshi Yugoslavian Kazakhstani Nigerian Other Total

Population 438,036 46,830 35,104 22,875 21,994 18,140 17,535 17,426 13,616 12,831 11,130 8767 7881 7742 7448 7216 6936 6478 6049 5716 5552 4854 3832 2256 2015 23,932 762,191

Source: Mediterranean Migration Observatory.

Within the last two decades immigrants have become an active part of the Greek population at a financial, social and national level. At the same time their large numbers significantly affect any educational policy proposed by the government, as their language and more general education is an important part of this policy. Such a policy aims at (a) the bilingual education of immigrant children and (b) the Greek language education and vocational training of adult immigrants. Although several articles have been published to date on the education of immigrant children, their language needs, successes and failures (see, for example Tressou and Mitakidou 1997, Nikolaou 2000, Travasarou 2001), very little has been written about the language and general educational needs of the adult population who have migrated to Greece and whose priority, when they settle in the host country, is to be employed, rather than learn Greek. This paper discusses the need for language education of adult immigrants in Greece and underscores its significance for the smooth integration of immigrants

LANGUAGE EDUCATION OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS IN GREECE

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within Greek society. It also presents the current approach to the teaching of Greek to adult immigrants and further suggests that effective language education of immigrants in any country necessitates a coordinated and well-organized approach which will promote the country’s policy of integration. Within this context the paper makes reference to the results of a survey aimed at sketching the educational, linguistic and professional profiles of adult immigrants into Greece.1


Immigration into Greece Any discussion in relation to the language needs of immigrants requires, first, an appreciation of their historical, social and linguistic identity and, second, a presentation of the characteristics that are particular to immigration into Greece. With regard to the immigrant population in Greece, the use of the term ‘immigrant’ seems to be misleading, as it blurs the distinguishing characteristics of different groups of immigrants and treats them as a homogeneous category. Immigrants in Greece may actually be any of the following groups of people. (a) Returning immigrants or repatriates, i.e. people of Greek origin whose ancestors or they themselves emigrated in the past from Greece and who are now returning to their homeland after having spent some time in a foreign country. However, even the term ‘returning immigrants’ includes a rather heterogeneous group of people: some have come from the southern part of Albania (Northern Epirus),2 while others are from Eastern European countries where a lot of Greeks fled after the civil war in their country. Still others come from Western European countries, Australia, Canada and the USA, to which large numbers of Greeks migrated, especially after the Second World War. However, after 1990 the vast majority of returning immigrants came not from these countries, but from the former Soviet Union and Northern Epirus. To most of those repatriates their return to Greece is not just a geographical transfer; it is mainly an ideological and psychological return to their roots (Damanakis 2000: 36). So, the terms ‘returning immigrant’ and ‘repatriate’ actually carry emotional connotations which are not found in the more general term ‘immigrant’. For this reason, the needs, expectations and, why not, demands on the Greek state of returning immigrants are widely different from those of other immigrants. (b) Legal immigrants, i.e. people of non-Greek origin who are granted a permit to live and work in Greece for a short period of time with the possibility, given certain conditions, to extend their stay and work permit.3 (c) Illegal immigrants, i.e. immigrants of non-Greek origin who enter the country without having been granted a permit and who manage to stay and work in Greece, at least for a short period of time. Refugees and asylum seekers are yet another group of people who, for various political or economic reasons, have had to flee from their homeland and come to Greece. In the present article the term ‘immigrant’ will be used as an umbrella term to refer to groups (a) and (b) as well as to refugees and asylum seekers, since their need for Greek language education is common and all language programmes offered by the state address these three groups of people equally. Unfortunately, immigrants without legal status are excluded from these programmes as registration requires a residency permit.


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A corollary of the above distinction is the difference among these groups of immigrants with respect to their Greek language proficiency. Most returning immigrants encounter very few communication problems in their everyday transactions, as they are fluent speakers of either standard Greek or a Greek dialect;4 thus, their language needs are quite different from those of non-Greek immigrants who need to attend regular Greek language classes. The limited language proficiency of immigrants can also account, at least partly, for the high rates of unemployment and underemployment (Tressou and Mitakidou 1997). Even if the relationship between language proficiency and employment is not as straightforward as this statement may imply, it is undoubtedly true that limited proficiency in Greek or even a lack of knowledge of Greek terminology related to an immigrant’s job dramatically limits their professional choices. Immigrants into Greece are usually assigned to low status and low paid manual jobs which do not require special training, are characterized by instability, temporariness, lack of autonomy and lack of collectivity (Emke-Poulopoulou 1992, Koiliari 1997, Psimmenos 1999, 2001). Working immigrants remain secluded in their jobs, cut off from wider communal and social networks of support and information, and this is further intensified by their limited language skills and communication difficulties. Immigrants are thus trapped in a vicious circle as these living and working conditions create a negative setting which allows hardly any opportunities for social, professional, economic or language development. Limited socialization with Greeks deprives them of opportunities to practise the language and learn about the new culture and society and thus further intensifies their marginalization in the host country. A large number of immigrants live and work in Greece without having obtained legal status; Greece actually has the highest number of illegal immigrants as a percentage of overall population in the European Union. Their illegal status further isolates them from Greek society and restricts them, for reasons of safety, within the boundaries of their own community. Such living conditions do not allow them any opportunity for social, economic, educational or professional development. Finally, the relatively sudden transition of Greece from a country of emigration to a country of immigration and the steadily increasing numbers of incoming immigrants are particularly significant characteristics of the immigrant situation in Greece, as they can explain, at least partly, why Greece was unprepared to cope with the ensuing socio-economic changes and the newcomers’ multifaceted problems and needs. According to a study by the Athens Panteion University, by 2015 nonGreeks will account for 25% of the country’s population, some 3.5 million people out of a total of 14.2 million. With respect to these predictions, it should be pointed out that the high percentage of non-Greeks may actually give a distorted picture of Greece’s future social make-up. Immigrant children, as opposed to their parents, seem to go through a much smoother process of social integration. Marginalization and social exclusion are more limited among young immigrants and, as Tressou and Mitakidou (1997: 4) reported, the degree of adjustment varies according to age; the younger the children, the more easily they adapt. Actually, first and, especially, second generation immigrant children who have attended school in Greece succeed in becoming fully integrated within Greek society and are hardly distinguishable from native Greeks. Thus it is possible that the degree and rate of immigrant children’s social and linguistic integration may counteract the effects of the rapid increase in immigrants with relation to the Greek population.


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The need for language education As the number of immigrants in Greece increases, the linguistic and cultural homogeneity of the country is lost and the proportion of its bilingual or even trilingual population becomes steadily larger.5 However, Greek is the dominant and official language of the country, while the languages spoken by the ‘minority’ groups are mainly used either at home among family members or within their own communities (Damanakis 2000). In addition, the fact that immigrants’ children do not have the opportunity to attend special language classes in their mother tongue further limits its use and leads to subtractive bilingualism. This does not necessarily imply that the ‘minority’ languages are going to ‘die’ within the Greek borders. It rather means that the various ethnic communities will need to organize themselves in order to maintain their linguistic and cultural identity (Damanakis 2000: 93). Thus, learning Greek is a pressing need for immigrants in order to participate fully at a social, economic and professional level. According to Babiniotis (2001), people who are not able to speak and therefore communicate in the language of the country where they live are doomed to social exclusion and therefore to their segregation. Language is both an individual and a social possession (Wardhaugh 1986), thus sharing a common language signifies social membership. Speaking the language of the host country enables immigrants to interact, understand and make themselves understood, to express their feelings, needs and requests, to make themselves heard, make their own culture known, make their presence felt. It could be even claimed that the smooth and productive social integration of immigrants is possible only after they have mastered the language of the host country. At the same time immigrants are carriers of their own language and culture and any educational policy promoted by the host country must take their cultural heritage into consideration. Cultural marginalization coexists with social, economic and political exclusion and any attempt to provide immigrants with equal opportunities is doomed to fail unless their cultural and educational background is taken into account. Also, according to intercultural theory, immigrants are gradually caught between two cultures, their native one and that of the host country. Thus they slowly develop an immigrant culture, which is a product of the influence of the host country’s culture on their own (Damanakis 2000: 100). In the light of this complex reality the Greek state must take careful steps towards promoting an educational policy that will, on the one hand, cater to immigrants’ pressing need to learn Greek, and on the other, help them maintain their cultural and linguistic identity.

Teaching Greek to adult immigrants In order to address adult immigrants’ immediate language needs the Greek state provides a considerable number of special language training programmes which are organized by Ministries, the local Municipality and Universities. Several prefectures around Greece organize programmes for the teaching of Greek to returning immigrants. The aim of those courses is to enable adult immigrants to communicate fluently in both speech and writing. Immigrants are informed about these programmes through their associations. When these programmes are subsidized, participation has been reported to be quite high (Koiliari 1997).


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In addition, about 75 Centres for Vocational Training around Greece were selected to offer language classes to unemployed returning immigrants, legal immigrants and refugees who wished to learn or improve their Greek. This was a 2 year Panhellenic pilot project (2001–2003) subsidized by the Ministry of Labour, aiming to help unemployed immigrants learn the language and thus facilitate their access to the Greek job market. During this period about 7000 immigrants received tuition in Greek through those language programmes. Classes ran every weekday for 5–6 hours a day and learners could reach Level A and B after 200 and 300 teaching hours, respectively (there are four levels overall, each one corresponding to communicative situations and Greek language needs that progressively become more complex). Participation in the exams for the Certificate of Attainment in Greek was compulsory upon completion of the required number of teaching hours. The exams are organized four times a year by the Centre for the Greek Language in Thessaloniki under the auspices of the Ministry of National Education and Religion (http:// www.greeklanguage.gr). In order to raise immigrants’ enrolment on and attendance of classes the state subsidized all immigrants who participated in the exams, regardless of the result obtained. The level of subsidy varied for each participant and depended on the total number of hours of class attendance; thus, the higher the attendance, the higher the subsidy. Generally, immigrant students are encouraged to attain Level B, as this is considered to provide them with a sufficiently good knowledge of Greek and thus enables them to be better qualified in their search for employment.6 However, neither attendance of language courses nor the Certificate of Attainment is necessary for immigrants to obtain a ‘green card’ or find a job. As certified knowledge of Greek is not a prerequisite for employment, immigrant participation in the exams is very low. Between the years 1999, when they were first introduced, and 2004 only 9155 immigrants took the exams for the Certificate of Attainment, of which 6984 passed. This means that to date only about 1.2% of the legal immigrant population in Greece, both immigrants and returning immigrants, have participated in the exams and 1% of this population has managed to obtain the certificate. Most of the instructors involved in Greek language programmes are either primary school teachers who have graduated from a Pedagogic Faculty or secondary school language teachers who have graduated from a language department (Greek, English, French, German or Italian) of a Faculty of Philosophy. The teaching material is provided by researchers of the Centre for the Greek Language and is supplemented with past exam papers and practice tests aimed at providing immigrant students with further practice for the exams. The placement of immigrant students in classes is loosely based on their Greek language proficiency. No other criterion is used for their placement, e.g. age, previous educational background or common mother tongue. Similarly, several universities in Greece (the Universities of Thessaloniki, Crete, Patra, Ioannina and Thrace) offer language courses to immigrants in an attempt to facilitate their smoother integration into Greek society. Apart from the above language programmes, special subsidized language programmes have been developed with an emphasis on the terminology related to the work the immigrants have been trained to do or are interested in practising. Such programmes offer substantial financial motivation and help immigrants cope with the linguistic demands of their profession.


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The survey It is obvious that although Greece has only recently joined other Western European countries in hosting large numbers of immigrants, the state has taken carefully planned steps and actions in its effort to respond to their language and general education needs. The effectiveness of this effort and the impact of the courses offered on the immigrant population have been little investigated. Apart from the existing statistics which refer to the number of immigrants who enrol on and attend the various language programmes, very little is known about immigrants’ opinion, beliefs and preferences regarding these courses. In the survey we designed and conducted in 2002 members of several ethnic groups of immigrants had the opportunity to voice their needs, expectations, preferences and complaints. Even though this was a smallscale survey, it provided us with interesting insights, outlined current tendencies and allowed us to consider potential changes and suggestions. For the purpose of the survey a questionnaire was designed and distributed to immigrants through their associations in 19 prefectures of the country. In total 1550 questionnaires were mailed to immigrants’ associations (most of them organized by immigrants from countries of the former Soviet Union and Albania). Unfortunately, a relatively small number of questionnaires were returned to us through the associations. This is probably due either to immigrants’ reluctance, for various reasons, to participate in the survey or to a lack of organization in the distribution of questionnaires within the associations. In particular, 558 questionnaires were completed and mailed back to us (493 by immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 65 by immigrants from Albania). Since the focus of the present paper is the language education of immigrants in Greece, the presentation and discussion of the results will focus on the educational and professional status of the participants. Thus, with regard to Greek language education, participants were required: (a) to assess their level of proficiency in Greek (both oral and written) prior to immigration, as well as at the time of the survey; (b) to state where/how they learned Greek (attending language courses, at home from other family members, at workplace, etc.); (c) to express their opinion about the usefulness and effectiveness of state language courses; (d) to state their preferences and suggestions regarding language and general education programmes for immigrants.7 Immigrants were also required to provide details of their occupation prior to and after immigration to Greece. Comparative research into their occupations in Greece and in their homeland indicated that these rarely coincided (a random selection of immigrants’ replies to the relevant question is presented in Table 2; cf. Psimmenos 1999: 159). Most of the respondents stated that they had changed jobs several times since their settlement in Greece and that these jobs were usually inferior to those to be expected of their formal qualifications and their previous employment. Regardless of their qualificatons and levels of study, immigrants are commonly assigned to manual and low paid jobs, being employed as construction workers, cleaners, drivers and waiters. Very few of them manage to set up their own business and the overwhelming majority are hired by native Greek employers in the private sector (cf. Tsiakalos 1990). Immigrants were also required to state their opinion about whether proficiency in Greek is actually necessary for them to be employed. The overwhelming majority

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Table 2.

Immigrants’ employment prior to and after their immigration

Employment in homeland

Employment in Greece

Teacher Teacher Pharmacist Economist Civil servant Nurse Tailor Veterinarian Team coach School principal Physics teacher School principal University professor/Dean Pediatrician Civil engineer Mechanical engineer Choreographer Musician Sculptor

Worker Cleaner Cleaner Factory worker Saleswoman Maid Construction worker Driver Construction worker Cleaner Private employee Schoolteacher University associate professor Pediatrician Worker Maid Worker Musician Construction worker

(541) stated that knowledge of Greek is indeed necessary and only 9 people disagreed. The rest of them did not reply. Respondents were further asked to specify their skill levels in speaking and writing Greek prior to their arrival in Greece and at the time of the survey. They were required to assess their knowledge on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 indicates proficient knowledge of Greek and 5 a lack of ability to speak or write Greek. Regarding their oral skills, 469 immigrants replied that they could not speak Greek at all or that their knowledge of Greek was very poor before coming to Greece; only 30 people stated that they had good or very good oral skills and 58 participants said that they spoke Greek quite well. As far as their writing skills were concerned, the participants’ proficiency levels were much lower. In particular, only 19 people had good or very good writing skills in Greek, whereas the majority, 511 of the respondents, had almost no knowledge of the written language. With respect to their current oral proficiency, the overwhelming majority (463) are either proficient or quite good speakers of Greek, while only about 90 people encounter serious difficulties in their oral communication. Their writing skills, as expected, are rather low, much lower than their oral skills, since nearly half of them state that they still cannot write in Greek (Tables 3 and 4). To the question ‘where/how did you learn Greek?’, 318 immigrants stated that they learned Greek at the workplace through communication with colleagues, customers and other people in general. Quite a few (130) replied that they had attended language courses, while 96 learned Greek by using it at home with other members of the family, whereas 83 of the respondents stated that they learned Greek at school, probably because they were of school age

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Table 3.

Immigrants’ level of oral skills before immigration and at the time of the survey


Before After

Very good

Good

Quite good

Poor

None

5 70

25 205

58 188

103 84

366 9

when they entered Greece. A small number of the respondents (48) did not select any of the suggested answers, but instead gave their own replies (e.g. in the neighbourhood, through friends, by watching television, listening to the radio, reading newspapers and magazines, etc.). Quite a few people selected more than one reply, thus indicating that Greek was actually learnt in various ways, e.g. both at school and in the family (Figure 1). It should be noted that 110 of the participants in this survey are returning immigrants and probably used to speak either Greek or a Greek dialect before coming to Greece. This number is very close to the number of immigrants who reported that they picked up Greek by using it at home (96). Immigrants who replied that they learned Greek by attending special language courses were further required to assess the effectiveness of those courses; however, this question was answered by the majority of the participants regardless of their answer to the previous question. Thus, more than half of them (295) stated that the courses helped them to learn the language, while 57 did not find them helpful. To the question whether the Greek state should continue to offer language courses to immigrants the overwhelming majority (495) replied affirmatively and only 48 rejected the proposal. It is possible that the negative replies were from returning immigrants who could already speak Greek when they emigrated to Greece and who never really needed the support of language courses and, therefore, may not be in a position to appreciate their importance or other immigrants’ need for them (Figure 2). Participants were further required to express their preferences regarding the length of such language programmes. Suggestions varied widely and ranged between 1 month and 2 years, but a relatively larger number of people (166) seemed to prefer 6 month courses. Regarding the daily length of these courses, again suggestions varied a lot and ranged between 1 and 9 hours a day, with a relative majority (165) suggesting 2 hour courses on a daily basis. To the question whether they preferred to attend morning or evening courses the overwhelming majority (396) seemed to favour evening classes, while 87 stated Figure 1. How immigrants learned Greek

Figure 2. Immigrants’ interest in state language courses

Table 4.

Before After

Immigrants’ level of writing skills before immigration and at the time of the survey Very good

Good

Quite good

Poor

None

2 33

17 107

26 147

64 174

447 95


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Figure 1.

How immigrants learned Greek

that they preferred morning ones. Such a high preference for evening courses was expected since most participants worked during the day and did not have the time to attend classes. For this reason, the next question required them to state their opinion on the potential introduction of language courses at their workplace. Even though the majority (318) seemed to favour this idea, a large number of the participants (175) rejected it (Figure 3). Figure 3. Immigrants’ interest in language courses at their workplace

Figure 2.

Immigrants’ interest in state language courses



Figure 3.

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Immigrants’ interest in language courses at their workplace

Finally, to the question whether they would agree with the establishment of a special school for adult immigrants where both language courses and vocational training would be provided nearly all participants replied affirmatively (509) and only a very small minority (10 immigrants) were negative (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Immigrants’ interest in a Greek school for adult immigrants

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Discussion


Figure 4. Immigrants’ interest in a Greek school for adult immigrants

The immigrants’ replies to the questions above point to several interesting tendencies and preferences, as well as to some problems and shortcomings regarding the organization of the language programmes provided. Even though the number of immigrants participating in the survey was quite small, the results allow us to safely draw some conclusions. The immigrants who participated in the survey, although few, came from various towns and cities around the country and this dispersion reflects tendencies which are not characteristic of a particular geographical area but of the general immigrant population, regardless of where they live. Also, as became obvious from the personal details provided in the questionnaires, participants did not represent a particular ethnic group or a particular group of immigrants (e.g. repatriates, refugees or legal immigrants). On the contrary, their make-up was quite mixed and heterogeneous. In addition, the results indicate strong tendencies and preferences, as in most questions there are large numerical differences between the positive and negative replies. Finally, our results regarding enrolment on and attendance of language courses agree with statistics collected by the Ministry of Labour for the overall immigrant population in Greece. Thus it may be suggested that the results of the survey reflect, on a smaller scale, the preferences and problems of the greater immigrant population. Participants’ self-assessment with regard to their language proficiency indicates that most of them manage to learn or pick up the language so that they can communicate orally in Greek either fluently or with minor difficulties. According to their replies few people feel that they cannot speak good Greek, and it is possible that these are recent immigrants. In contrast, immigrants’ writing skills seem to lag behind, since even immigrants who have been living in Greece for 10 years stated that they have poor writing skills. Such differences between spoken and written language proficiency indicate that most participants did not learn the language through formal instruction, but rather picked it up during their everyday transactions. This was further confirmed by immigrants’ replies to the following question. These indicated quite clearly that few of them systematically attended or completed language courses offered by the state. Even though more than half of the participants expressed a positive opinion about the courses (295), few of them (130) stated that they actually learned Greek by attending them. As immigrants are promptly informed about these programmes, either by their associations or by the Employment Agency (OAED) and as new courses run throughout the year in several geographical locations across Greece, especially in areas which attract large numbers of immigrants, participation and attendance would be expected to be much higher. One reason for the low attendance is immigrants’ urgent need for employment; once employed, learners may opt to drop out of courses due to a lack of time and a heavy workload and thus Greek is actually picked up at the workplace through everyday interactions with other workers, customers, etc., rather than in language classrooms. Thus, whereas a knowledge of Greek is definitely a qualification in finding a job and immigrants seem to realize this, working and life conditions impose their own priorities and do not allow proper language education. As one of the participants explained: ‘I have never attended any language programme because I didn’t have the time’. Moreover, the fact that there is a high percentage of immigrants who are either illiterate or have very little prior education may also account for their reluctance to



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join such programmes: lack of previous learning experiences makes the prospect of studying itself a bit frightening. Similarly, even educated immigrants may choose not to attend language programmes if they are placed in the same class with those who have not received a basic education in their native language. Prior educational background imposes widely different needs and learning skills and such classes cannot satisfy either group of learners. Despite immigrants’ low attendance of state language courses, the majority expressed the wish that these courses continue to be offered (see Figure 2). There is an obvious contradiction here between what immigrants wish for and what they actually do. The only plausible explanation once more seems to be immigrants’ primary need to be employed; this is their most important concern, which takes priority over everything else. As a result, although most participants recognize and acknowledge the usefulness of such programmes, they cannot enrol and attend due to other, more urgent, responsibilities. However, it is also possible, and several immigrants stressed so in their replies, that they consciously choose to attend particular courses and specifically those that are subsidized. Thus it seems that enrolment and level of attendance are the result of at least two parameters: (a) availability of time; (b) provision of subsidies. It is therefore possible that if all language programmes had been sufficiently subsidized, enrolment and attendance might have been significantly higher (cf. Koiliari 1997). Finally, immigrants seemed to be very positive about the two new suggestions, i.e. the introduction of language classes at their workplace and the establishment of a special school for adult immigrants. The former would ideally combine their need to work and their wish to learn the language of the host country through organized language programmes; the latter would help them improve their educational and professional qualifications or even acquire new ones. Several immigrants do not hold a first degree or a post-secondary qualification, while others need to change jobs, often more than once, and practise something for which they have not been properly trained. Several of the respondents expressed particular preferences regarding the content of the courses they would like to study (e.g. computer programming), while others requested more emphasis on Greek language courses. Returning immigrants, in particular, expressed a need for special Greek terminology classes. It is obvious that the design of effective language education programmes for immigrants in Greece will need to take into account immigrants’ living and working conditions, socio-economic difficulties and general and specific language needs. To this end, it is important that the state and policy designers collaborate with immigrant associations in an effort to design and implement language education programmes that will respond to immigrants’ realistic needs and enable them to function autonomously in the new society.

Pitfalls and future perspectives Of course language education programmes for immigrants in Greece are not without their problems. Objectively speaking, the effectiveness of several of the language courses provided is undermined by a number of difficulties, some of which are an intrinsic part of immigrant education everywhere, while others are shortcomings of the particular course design and need to be appropriately addressed.

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In particular, immigrants’ diverse educational backgrounds is a common ‘problem’ for host countries which set up programmes for immigrants’ language education (cf. Bron 2003). Regarding adult immigrants into Greece, according to the 2001 census about 8% of them are either illiterate or basically literate. About 30% have a general or vocational secondary education degree and about 12% have got a post-secondary qualification or a university degree (Figure 5). Such diverse educational qualifications necessarily indicate different learning skills, needs and expectations, as well as different professional aspirations. Even if students’ levels of proficiency in Greek were common, any teaching approach or method adopted cannot cater for such diverse learning needs and therefore is doomed to fail. Boosting adult immigrant motivation to enrol on as well as attend language classes is another intrinsic difficulty of adult education and a particularly common problem for host countries. The usual measure adopted is subsidizing immigrant attendance. In particular, the Greek state has subsidized immigrant participation in the exams for the Certificate of Attainment, regardless of the final results; the level of subsidy is determined by the student’s hours of attendance. However, apart from the financial reward, immigrants who do not pass the exams will need an official certification of the knowledge they have acquired and even of the language level they have reached. To this end, they should be provided with a certificate of attendance which would indicate the number of hours they actually attended. This certificate should thus ‘reward’ them for their effort and the knowledge they have acquired regardless of whether or not they managed to pass the Certificate of Attainment exams. Thus, longer attendance would not only be financially rewarded but also officially acknowledged and certified. The success of any course depends to a large extent on proper training of the instructors involved and on the selection and effective use of appropriate teaching materials. Although a lot has been done in this direction, there are certainly grounds for improvement. Teachers of modern Greek as a second language do not usually have sufficient experience of teaching adult immigrants and are unprepared to cope with problems mainly due to highly heterogeneous classes, i.e.


Figure 5. Educational level of immigrants in Greece (self-declared) (2001 census)

Figure 5.

Educational level of immigrants in Greece (self-declared) (2001 census)



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ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse learners, different educational backgrounds and a wide age range. Whereas teachers of immigrant school children have the opportunity to attend regular teacher training seminars provided by Regional Educational Centres, teachers of adult immigrants are left with limited or no guidance. The Centre for the Greek Language has designed a web site which provides teachers of Greek to foreign students with language materials as well as with the opportunity to discuss and exchange opinions and experiences relative to their teaching situations. However, this does not exclusively address teachers of adult immigrants and cannot in any way act as a substitute for the training they need. Systematic theoretical and practical training should be provided so as to familiarize teachers with recent advances in teaching methodology and didactics (Efstathiadis 2003) and enable them to apply techniques and procedures that suit their students’ needs. To this end, the Ministry of Education should extend the role of the Regional Educational Centres in order to provide teachers of adult immigrants with training seminars and systematic guidance. At a local level, the Centre for the Greek Language as well as university faculties around Greece could organize special teacher training seminars and courses aimed at addressing the needs of teachers of adult immigrants. Such courses should provide trainee teachers with upto-date theoretical knowledge related to the methodology of teaching Greek as a second language, raise their awareness of immigrants’ social and cultural needs and also enable them to practise their teaching skills in real classrooms before embarking on their career. Similarly, the design of the syllabus and the appropriate selection of teaching materials are of primary importance, since learning is most successful when the teaching content is relevant to students’ needs. The design of materials for adults has been significantly affected by theoretical developments in the areas of adult education and second language teaching (Auerbach and Burgess 1985: 477). More particularly, according to adult learning theory adults are people with individual histories, experiences, responsibilities and needs and therefore their teaching and learning should be experience-centred. The Competency-based adult education model for adult education is based on this concept. In the area of second language teaching Wilkins proposed the development of communicative syllabuses for language teaching based on a functional or communicative definition of language. Wilkins actually tried to describe language not only through the traditional concepts of grammar and vocabulary but through systems of meanings: notional categories and categories of communicative function (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 154). The notion of competency-based second language teaching, which was particularly popular in teaching survival English in the USA in the 1980s, was born out of parallel trends in competency-based adult education and second language teaching (Auerbach and Burgess 1985: 477). As immigrants into Greece strive to become active and productive members of the new society they enter, it is imperative that they acquire the language forms and skills necessary for them to function autonomously in everyday situations. To this end, language teaching curricula for immigrants must be situationally based and reflect their survival and communicative needs. Such a focus on life skills is promoted by the competency-based approach to language teaching (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 146). The competency-based approach necessitates the design or selection and use of materials which promote experience-centred and realitybased language learning. Any teaching material targeting adult immigrants


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should be situationally oriented around daily tasks (e.g. health care, housing, shopping, etc.) and take into account adult immigrants’ requirements, experiences and communicative needs. Vocabulary and grammar should be taught with an emphasis on transactional language exchanges and not on accurate mastery of the structures. Teaching materials thus need to be organized around notions, topics and functions and also include socio-cultural elements in order to facilitate the ability of students to make social contacts, to voice and exchange information, opinions and views, to express emotions and feelings and to face communication problems. Such programmes should actually have a socio-educational role, rather than a purely language education content. They need to equip all newcomers with basic language skills but also with the necessary survival skills in order to help them balance efficiently between two languages and between two cultures (cf. Ming-Yeh and Sheared, 2002). Finally, the state might also consider providing special courses with an emphasis on Greek terminology for professionals, such as doctors, civil engineers, etc. (Greek for Specific Purposes), so as to help them find jobs relevant to their qualifications. Such courses will be particularly useful to returning immigrants who realize, soon after they settle in the country, that even though they are well qualified and fluent speakers of Greek, they lack the relevant professional terminology. As a result, they are soon forced to do odd jobs and put their degrees aside (Tressou and Mitakidou 1997).

Conclusion The language and more general education of adult immigrants in Greece must be perceived as an inseparable part of Greek integration policy. The rising number of immigrants in relation to the overall Greek population, as current statistics show, poses a serious challenge to the Greek state and policy-makers as increasing numbers of immigrants enter the job market and need to learn the language of the host country. Moreover, the diverse groups of immigrants and their different language needs require careful study and analysis so that specially tailored courses can provide students not only with basic language skills but also with the appropriate socio-cultural competence that will enable them to function in a variety of communicative situations. State language programmes, although available for quite some time, have not proved effective, as they seem to attract only small numbers of immigrants. The socio-cultural changes in Greece at this point in time demand an organized and well-coordinated approach to adult immigrant education. The Employment Agency and the educational authorities need to join together and coordinate their efforts towards a common target: enabling immigrants to become active members of Greek society by adding to their language and professional qualifications, rather than leaving them to fill in ‘gaps’, doing unskilled jobs. Despite the intentions of the educational authorities and the policy of integration that Greece professes to follow, the current educational practices seem to undermine immigrants’ self-esteem and marginalize them. Immigrants need to be involved in the design of educational policy that concerns them and thus cooperation between the state, policy-makers and immigrant associations seems to be the only solution for the promotion of effective measures in the area of adult immigrant education.


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Notes 1. 1.

2. 2.

3. 4. 3.

4.

5. 5.

6.


6.

7. 7.

The survey was carried out by the author in cooperation with the Centre for the Greek Language in 2002 during her participation in EuroMigranet, a European project aiming at the social, educational and cultural integration of immigrants in Europe (see http://www.statvoks.no/euromigranet). These people never actually left Greece. They have always lived in lands which, due to historical developments, were cut off from the Greek mainland (Damanakis 2000: 31). The relevant laws and regulations have been published in the Government Gazette, FEK 91/02-05-2001. However, relevant studies into returning immigrants’ language skills have indicated that their writing skills lag behind and are much lower than their speaking skills (Antonopoulou et al. 2005). Several of the immigrants already spoke more than one language in their homeland (e.g. Russian and Turkish or Russian and Georgian). According to the specifications of Level B, students who attain this level are in a position to comprehend essential details of particular topics, e.g. newspaper advertisements, instructions, letters, messages. They are in a position to communicate effectively in a limited range of situations, to express personal views in a simple manner and to compose short texts aimed at conveying information on a limited variety of subjects. In those cases where the participants could not read or write in Greek, other Greek speaking members of their association volunteered to translate the questions into their mother tongue and write down the replies in Greek.

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