Learning strategies of adult refugees

My project seeks to understand the learning strategies of adult refugees who have learned orally throughout theirlives and are interacting with print for the first time. The participants in my study did not go to school. For some, thiswas due to war, poverty, or gender inequality, that excluded them from the formal schooling that others aroundthem received. For others, the societies in which they grew up were run successfully through oral systems, whichdid not need print at all. Now living in London, all are denied an educational pathway that recognises their oralstrengths.
Higher level English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) exams are inaccessible to these adults, regardlessof their oral expertise, for our systems are guided by the colonial assumption that knowledge must be judgedthrough print. "Pre-Entry" ESOL courses position these adults as if they were new to learning, ignoring theirmultilingual expertise and the learning they have done orally throughout their lives.
My study aims to deconstruct the existing conceptualisation of these adults' skills and needs. Rooted in theunderstanding that every language is an asset to classroom learning, and that language boundaries are colonialconstructs that conceal the depths of linguistic comprehension, my aim is to co-construct knowledge with theseadults regarding their perceptions of connecting with print.
I have developed two original research tools: Multilingual Transliteration (MT) and Accent-Grapheme Validation(AGV). These will stimulate dialogue with participants around the transcription of familiar phonemes, as opposed torestricting phonics to the phonemes of 'standard' English. I will gather these adults' insights, in order to developtheoretical understanding of the oral strategies they use. This study will confront injustice by researching thesepeople's strengths. It will also scrutinise the research process, so that knowledge-co-construction embodiesinclusion, even within a print-centred research culture.