Difficulties in Learning English Faced by Early Year Students in a Refugee School in Malaysia

Abstract

Early year students from refugee backgrounds need to learn English as efficiently as possible since they will be resettled in different English-speaking countries. This exploratory research on the difficulties of learning English among students with a refugee background in Malaysia, a country that has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, will provide valuable insights into the matter to the global community.  There are no clear teaching and learning guidelines and procedures on how to create resources that can help to overcome learning difficulties faced by refugee students in learning English. This paper aimed to explore the challenges/issues faced by a group of early year refugee students in learning the English Language in a refugee school in Malaysia and to investigate how their circumstances affected their learning of the English language. Interviews were conducted with 20 selected individuals and observations were made within the selected sample group. Data was recorded according to the observation schedule and the responses from the students were categorized and analysed according to themes. The findings revealed that refugee students suffer a lack of motivation, language barrier, lack of resources, and financial challenges that impede them in the process of acquiring the English Language. Other causes for them not being able to learn English is the absence of school itself due to financial constraints, geographical location, law and policy and politics.