This presentation shares the outcomes of a project focusing on identifying the unique language-learning needs of Syrian learners with refugee experiences, using surveys, interviews, and learners' oral production data, to inform the design of pedagogical tasks and classroom materials within a task-based instructional framework.
Under demographic, geopolitical, and academic and professional pressures, Canada's culturally and linguistically diverse population of international students, workers, and migrants continues to increase sharply. The most recent Statistics Canada figures in 2016 highlighted Canada's increasing diversity, with immigrants forming 21.9% of the population, the highest percentage in 85 years (Grenier 2017). Meanwhile, over 36 cities across Canada have been facing pressing language-training issues related to key purposes such as citizenship and work (see Lowrie 2017). Lack of the necessary language skills for living and working in a new country is one of the most critical barriers faced by refugees, whether the lack is in English for general or for specific purposes (in this case, for work in specialized fields). Needs analysis is important because the results are relevant for specifying objectives, procedures, content, materials, methods, and outcomes assessment at the task, course, or program level (e.g., Basturkmen, 2010). This presentation reports about a project designed to integrate the identified language-learning needs of adult Syrian learners with refugee experience into a language-learning program for newcomers in the Canadian context. Specifically highlighted are the results from multiple sources of data that captured the learners' specific language-learning needs, including the development and implementation of needs assessment surveys, individual interviews with learners and teachers (with 20 themes and 5,419 codes) (Huang, 2019), and learners' oral production data. The presenter plans to share the insights gained from data in order to offer concrete recommendations for the development of pedagogical tasks and materials (Huang, in press). The sharing aims to inform the work of researchers conducting needs assessment as well as the practices of instructors and material developers supporting English learners with refugee experience within a task-based instructional framework.
