Occupation-Based Didactic Model for English Language Teaching to Refugees to Improve their Sustainability and Social Integration

Abstract

Abstract With the purpose to contribute to the English language teaching-learning process of refugees, as part of a university linking project carried out at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Esmeraldas Campus, to foster refugees’ sustainability and social integration, an educative investigation was carried out with the help of the Applied Linguistics School at the mentioned university, in collaboration with the United Nations Refugee Agency, from 2016 to 2017. The population was formed by 20 student refugees and 4 students from the Applied Linguistics School who worked as teachers. The refugees who attended the course needed English language literacy because they were going to be resettled in other countries, which were English-speaking ones. With the empirical-analytical and hermeneutic methods, and the techniques of observation and survey, a diagnosis of the teaching-learning process was made, which revealed the necessity to teach English to the referred refugees based on their communicative needs, according to their jobs. As a result, an occupation-based didactic model for English language teaching to refugees, with its components, principles, and laws, was designed, which permitted the proposal of a didactic methodology for fostering meaningful learning, motivation, and communicative competence in English in connection with refugees’ occupations.