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A crossroads of languages: How Pittsburgh schools respond to a growing immigrant population.

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Ikram Mohammed, 20, originally of Somalia, laughs with her team mates before the start of their final soccer game of the season game against Pittsburgh CAPA on Oct. 17, 2018. The coach of the teach said being on the team allowed Mohammed to make more friends. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)

Ikram Mohammed, 21, originally of Somalia, spent time in a refugee camp in Yemen before her family arrived in Pittsburgh in the winter of 2015. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)

 

Students see new translation services and quicker transitions to regular classrooms. But they still face challenges.

by MARY NIEDERBERGER, PublicSource

On her first day at Brashear High School, Shahid Alowemer, a refugee student from Syria, stood alone in a cafeteria corner quietly eating an apple she brought from home.“When I went to lunch, I didn’t know anyone. No one,” Shahid said.

Petite, painfully shy and with limited English language skills, Shahid watched the chaos typical of American school cafeterias: Noise echoed off of the walls as hungry students lined up for lunch, then gathered at tables where they ate and socialized, sometimes boisterously.

In Syria, and later in Jordan where Shahid’s family lived before coming to the United States, students packed food from home and ate it in class.

That cafeteria scene in August 2016 illustrated just how overwhelmed Shahid, then a junior, felt at her new school. She didn’t understand the language and habits of her American classmates, and the anxiety made her question if she would be able to succeed in a new education system.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT:

https://projects.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-esl/

 

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