Authentic International Schools Practices to Adopt/Adjust in the Greek Educational Context

The world is facing an unprecedented crisis with millions of people being dislocated due to war or economic hardship and western societies are struggling to find ways to deal with this situation. Kavala, a town and port in Northeastern Greece, has recently experienced an unprecedented influx of migrants and refugees, especially from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, due to political and socio-economic reasons. The local community and administration, being quite unprepared to deal with such an issue, is still struggling to cope with the successful inclusion of this newly arrived population.

In spring 2017 Chrysoula Lazou, after being invited by the U.S. Embassy in Athens, participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) and had the opportunity to visit the most diverse American International Schools, in Seattle, Atlanta, and New York. The knowledge and experience acquired during this program has been utilized in the context of Kavala. There, a group of volunteer educators, with the permit of the Ministry of Migration and the support of the International Organization of Migration in Greece (IOM), were allowed entrance to the special accommodation designed for the newly arrived refugees and migrants, where a welcome celebration took place. During the summer of 2017, volunteer teachers of English, members of the Association of State School Teachers of English in Kavala (ΕνΕΑΓΚ), offered a series of lessons to the refugee children based on a constructivist approach, applying team and peer teaching and meaningful, authentic tasks. On September the 26^th 2017, children from the refugee long term accommodation centre (LTAC) were invited and mingled with local students during the celebration of the European Day of Languages and collaborated for the preparation of a poster and a game/story with the theme “Everybody smiles in the same language”. The success of this initiative was also praised by the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and we are hopeful that such initiatives will follow so that inclusive education for refugees or migrants will become a social reality. The refugee students attend special transition classes due to language barriers and the Ministry of Education is up to a plan so that most of them successfully attend mainstream classes the forthcoming school year (2018-2019).

The purpose of this presentation is to describe and appraise the authentic teaching practices observed in the American International Schools, and focuses on the project implementation in Greece.