Why learning in their own dialect is vital for Syrian refugee children

The work we support for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon has a specific focus on ensuring children can learn in their own culture and dialect. Children in the tent schools, set up in Bekaa Valley refugee settlements, are taught in Syrian Arabic by Syrian teachers. This is key to help them recover from trauma and to help them to re engage with learning, making education materials familiar and easy to understand.

Learning in mother tongue language facilitates access to education, while promoting fairness for population groups that speak minority or indigenous languages, in particular girls and women. It also raises the quality of education and learning by focussing on understanding and creativity, rather than on rote and memorisation.

Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. For the children we working with, continuing to learn in their own dialect with a Syrian curriculum is crucial to retaining a sense of self, and a knowledge of their own identity and history. As time passes in the camps the children can easily become disconnected to their home.

Schools Co-ordinator Nadine Morcos says “The teachers here speak the same dialect of Arabic as their students (often they're from the same or the neighbouring camp as the children), they get their culture, so nothing gets by them. The teachers are motivated to learn, motivated to be useful, and motivated to be a changing force in their communities.” 

All the Syrian refugees we speak to in the camps say that all they want is to go home and to help rebuild their country. They see their situation as temporary, so having their children learning in Syrian dialect is the most logical solution for them. They want to ensure that their children are educated for their own future and wellbeing, but also with the hope that in the future they are able to help Syria to get back on its feet.

​Read more about our work in Lebanon.
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